5 min with Wimberly Fair

One of the most impactful elements of any wedding design has to be the flowers. And how florals set the tone of your wedding is directly correlated to the floral designer you choose to work with. Each designer has their own unique style and skillset, so whether it’s larger-than-life installations, organic, nature-forward arrangements or a focus on blooms with texture, pattern + color for days you’re after, there’s a florist out there who will be a match made in heaven for your day!

Today we’re getting to know Wimberly Fair, a creative at heart based in Charleston who knows a thing or two about transforming event spaces with her spirited arrangements. We’re learning all about her business, design process and some insider tips for how you can have the best + most valuable relationship with your wedding florist. Are you ready?

1. Tell us how you got started in the floral biz.

A little bit backwards! I always found it peaceful to play with flowers but never thought about them as a career until I moved to Charleston. With the help and support of flower mentors and friends, I learned how to turn my creative outlet into a small business. It is a true joy!

2. What inspires you?

Visually, I’m inspired by nature’s color combinations, patterns, and textures. Textiles with colorful thread work and surrealist paintings also make my heart sing. 

3. What quote or motto do you live by? 

“Create the things you wish existed”

4. Walk us through your design process with couples. 

We start with a conversation designed for me to understand the couple and their goals. What is their wedding dream? How do they want their wedding to look and feel? Do they already have an idea of how they’d like their flowers to look? Based on that understanding, we then walk through each component of the wedding—from the bridal bouquet to the ceremony to the reception—looking together at photos of inspiration to make sure we are on the same page. After that conversation, I send couples a proposal to review together and adjust until we nail the vision.

5. Can you share a few questions you wished every couple asked during the booking process? 

How can we work together to maximize our floral budget? Budgets are the least fun part of the process, but if you share with your floral designer your budget and goals, he or she can help you make it all work! 

6. What floral trends are you most excited about at the moment? 

The dried flower trend is fun—seeing how different flowers, pods, and grasses dry is interesting, and I like incorporating them into all sorts of designs. 

7. If you could give a couple one piece of advice for their wedding flowers, it would be… 

Your wedding is a celebration that should represent YOU, so be true to your style and work with a floral designer who gets you.  

8. How can you make the biggest impact with your wedding flowers? 

 Embrace color! It takes a lot of white flowers to make an impact, particularly for large tables and large venues. It is also a good idea to consider where guests will be spending the majority of their time. If your ceremony is short and the reception is going to be several hours, focus your flower efforts accordingly.

9. What are some of the challenges you help couples alleviate for destination weddings?

A destination wedding requires forethought, planning, organization, and a skilled team—as long as we clearly understand what resources are and are not available to us, we can address most obstacles and bring your dream to life almost anywhere.

10. What are the biggest considerations couples should have at the beginning of the floral design process? 

I think the two most important questions to answer at the beginning of the design process are

1) What are our floral goals?
2) What is our floral budget?

Answering those two questions in the beginning will help you and your floral designer immensely.

11. What’s the best way to set the mood for a wedding? Candles, textures, color, pattern? 

Yes! All of the above. For nighttime celebrations, more is more when it comes to candlelight. The colors should be true to your style and compliment/work in tandem with the surroundings. The closer a person is to a textile, the more important it is for the textile be of high quality. A pretty linen napkin always elevates the feel of a dinner.

12. What are some of your favorite flowers to work with and why? 

Oh gosh, I do love them all! Peonies are a favorite because they are such show stoppers, I love roses for the precision you can get with color, and delicate blooms like Queen Anne’s Lace are a favorite because they lend a floaty, ethereal quality to a design.

13. What wedding venues in the southeast lend themselves well to floral design?  

Oh gosh, too many to count! Historic homes and garden, picturesque farms and retreats, cool hotels with rooftop views. I think the main thing to keep in mind when it comes to flowers is scale. If you choose a venue with 20ft ceilings, you will need flowers to meet that scale. 

14. What are 5 things you wish more couples knew about floral designers, flowers and just the process in general?

1. Your floral designer loves his/her job—we are genuinely thrilled to be working on your big day, and we love talking with you about any and all of it! The more you include us in the process, the better.

2. Fresh flowers are expensive—the cost of flowers can sometimes be a sticker shock. 

3. Depending on where you are getting married and what time of year, it is worth talking to your designer about what local flowers are available and in season. When the flowers aren’t shipped, they are more likely to be perfect.

4. It takes a village. For an average sized wedding, it takes a team of people with different skill sets to bring the vision to life.

5. Most designers have a warehouse full of goodies—the more you tell us about your overall design, the more we can think about items we have stashed away that might be a good fit for your big day!

Isn’t Wimberly just darling? I hope her words gave you some good input for the floral approach you take for your own wedding, and if you love her work, drop her a line here to start the conversation.

Next, explore all the ways texture can be used to tell a story in your wedding design, and get your creative juices flowing!

Xx,
Haley