Brunch & Bouquets: How to Host an Easy Flower Arranging Party

Or, what I’m currently figuring out after saying, “Sure. How hard can flowers and brunch be?”

How I Accidentally Became the Host of a Bouquet Party

My daughter informed me a while ago that she and her friends wanted to make their own bouquets for homecoming.

This is apparently a tradition around here. She went to a bouquet-making brunch last year, and this year she asked if I would host.

Sure.

How hard can flowers and brunch be?

The girls are coming over in pajamas that coordinate with the colors of their homecoming dresses. Their bouquets will coordinate with their dresses too—which sounds adorable and also like something that will require considerably more flower math than I originally anticipated.

Then today I asked a question I probably should have asked earlier.

So…how many girls are coming?

Ten.

Oh.

And that was roughly the moment this went from flowers and brunch to I should probably figure out how to do this.

Especially because I know absolutely nothing about arranging flowers.

So this is not the definitive guide from an experienced florist. This is how I’m planning a pretty, manageable flower-arranging party for ten girls—and the things worth thinking through if you’d like to host one too.

First, Decide What Actually Needs to Go Right

Before I started worrying about flowers, food or whether I needed a hand-painted sign, I realized I had a pretty simple definition of success.

I want the girls to:

Have fun.
Enjoy the food.
Make cute bouquets they’re proud of.
Get those bouquets home in one piece so they’re still beautiful for the dance.

That’s it.

It sounds obvious, but it’s already helping me decide what deserves my attention and what doesn’t.

For example, I want the table to look really cute when they walk in. That’s part of making the morning feel special.

But I don’t need elaborate decorations because the table is about to be covered in flowers.

Sometimes the thing you’re doing can also be the pretty part.

How to Set Up a Bouquet Bar

Start with the least glamorous question:

Where are people actually going to make the bouquets?

Not where the flowers will photograph beautifully. Where can everyone comfortably reach them, trim stems, make a little mess and put together a bouquet?

I lucked out here. Our dining table seats ten, and it’s in a separate room from where I’ll serve brunch.

Perfect.

I’m planning to cover the table in kraft paper. It’ll protect the surface, make cleanup easier and should look good with all the flowers scattered across it.

The basic setup I’m planning includes:

• Buckets or sturdy vessels for the flowers
• Enough floral snips or scissors that everyone isn’t waiting for the same pair
• Ribbon and whatever I need to secure the finished bouquets
• A very obvious place for discarded leaves and stems
• Towels for the inevitable water
• Plenty of clear working space
• A separate place for finished bouquets

That last one is easy to forget.

Ten girls making bouquets eventually means ten finished bouquets, and I’d rather decide where those are going before they’re balanced on chairs, windowsills and top of somebody’s phone.

And if you have the room, I’d keep the food and flowers separate.

There will be water. There will be clippings. There will be people reaching across the table with scissors.

The pastries don’t need to participate.

How I’m Planning the Flowers

My first thought was Trader Joe’s.

My second thought was that everyone else also knows Trader Joe’s has great flowers.

I’ve seen people descend on that flower section, so I’m already thinking I may need to go early and possibly start gathering what I need a day or two ahead.

The slightly complicated part of our particular party is that the girls’ bouquets will coordinate with their individual dress colors.

Which means I can’t simply buy twenty bunches of the same pink-and-white flowers and call it a day.

I’m going to work backward from the bouquets.

I’ll figure out roughly how many stems each girl needs and think about a mix of:

Focal flowers — the larger flowers that give the bouquet its main color and shape.

Supporting flowers — smaller blooms that fill things out.

Texture or filler — the little things that keep the bouquet from looking like six identical flowers tied together.

Greenery — if it works with the look we’re going for.

Then I’ll look at the girls’ dress colors, figure out which flowers can work across more than one bouquet and do the math from there.

And I will buy extra.

I don’t yet know exactly how much extra.

That’s one of the things I’m deliberately not giving you a confident answer about until I’ve done this.

Figure Out How the Bouquets Are Leaving Before Everyone Starts Making Them

This is the part I almost skipped entirely.

The girls aren’t making bouquets just to put them in a vase at my house.

They need to take them home, keep them fresh and then carry them to the dance several hours later.

So “everyone made a cute bouquet” is only half the assignment.

The bouquet also needs to survive.

I’m currently figuring out how to make the ribbon-wrapped handles I’ve seen, with a pretty pin securing the ribbon at the bottom. I need to know how to bind the stems securely enough that the bouquet doesn’t slowly dismantle itself on the way home.

I also need a plan for keeping ten finished bouquets hydrated and transporting them without crushing anything.

If you’re planning a bouquet party for an event later that day, think through this part before the party.

How will the bouquet be secured?

How will it get water?

How will each guest carry it home?

How long does it need to stay fresh?

I am researching all of that now, and I’ll update this after our party with exactly what we did and whether it worked.

Because “look how pretty our bouquet bar was” is somewhat less useful if all the bouquets are dead by dinner.

Keep the Brunch Simple

I have not planned the menu yet.

Here’s everything I currently know:

Something savory.
Something sweet.
Fresh fruit.
Pastries.
A fun drink.

I’m leaning toward food that can be mostly ready before everyone arrives. I don’t want to be standing at the stove making ten individual servings while the girls are in the other room having the actual party.

And the drink may be pink.

Apparently we’re hearing about quite a few pink dresses.

This is the full extent of my beverage-development process at the moment.

The larger point is that the flowers are already the main event.

Brunch doesn’t need to become another production.

One good savory dish, something sweet, fruit, bakery pastries and a fun drink feels like plenty.

And if the pastries come from an actual bakery rather than emerging from my oven at 6:30 that morning, I think we’ll all survive.

Make It Cute Without Creating Twelve More Jobs

I do want this party to be pretty.

There are times when “just put out the food” is perfectly fine.

This isn’t one of them for me.

It’s homecoming. The girls are excited. They’re wearing matching-to-their-dresses pajamas. They’re going to take pictures. I want them to walk into the room and think it looks cute.

But cute doesn’t have to mean complicated.

Right now I’m thinking:

Kraft paper on the table.
White and pastel details.
My own white dishes.
My own gold flatware.
Maybe pink napkins.
Possibly a hand-painted sign.
A cute textable invitation that coordinates with everything.

And then flowers everywhere.

That’s enough.

The flowers are already doing most of the decorating for me.

I don’t need to decorate the room for the flowers that are going to decorate the room.

The Flowers Do Some of the Hosting

This may be the part I like best.

This isn’t really my party.

It’s my daughter’s and her friends’.

My job is to make the house feel special, feed them, put on music they actually like, make sure they have what they need and then become a fairly invisible host.

There was a brief moment when I wondered whether their pajama plan meant I was supposed to wear pajamas.

Dear God.

No.

I’m going to let them have that one.

They’ll have Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, Claire Rosinkranz and whatever else I’m instructed to add to the playlist.

They’ll make their bouquets.

They’ll talk.

They’ll help each other.

And they’ll take pictures because this group has grown up photographing themselves together and absolutely does not need me to organize a “photo moment.”

That’s one of the things I love about building a gathering around an activity.

The flowers do some of the hosting.

People have something to choose, pass, trim, compare and make while conversation happens around it.

Sometimes having people over gets easier when gathering isn’t the only activity.

Flower Arranging Party Checklist

If you’re starting to plan your own version, here’s the list I’d begin with:

FOR THE BOUQUET BAR

• Flowers in the colors or palette you need
• Supporting flowers, texture/filler and greenery
• Buckets or sturdy vessels
• Floral snips or scissors
• Kraft paper or other table protection
• A container for clippings
• Towels
• Ribbon or twine
• Whatever you’ll use to secure the finished bouquets
• A designated place for finished bouquets
• A plan for keeping them hydrated
• A plan for getting them home

FOR THE BRUNCH

• One mostly make-ahead savory dish
• Something sweet
• Fresh fruit
• Pastries or another easy extra
• Coffee, if appropriate for your gathering
• Water
• A fun signature drink

FOR THE FUN PART

• Music
• A simple invitation
• A few pretty table details if you want them
• Enough time and room for people to actually enjoy making the bouquets

You can add more.

You probably don’t need to.

What I Don’t Know Yet

Quite a lot, actually.

I don’t know exactly how many flowers I’ll need for ten bouquets.

I don’t know what the final flower bill will be.

I don’t know whether Trader Joe’s will have everything I need or whether I’ll have to shop around.

I don’t know how long ten girls will actually spend making bouquets.

I don’t know how much brunch they’ll eat.

I don’t know whether the ribbon-and-pin plan I’m currently imagining will turn out to be brilliant or ridiculous.

And I don’t know what I’ll realize I should have bought approximately twelve minutes after everyone arrives.

That’s why this guide isn’t finished.

We’re Actually Doing It. I’ll Tell You What Happens.

After homecoming, I’ll come back and add the useful part you can’t really know from planning alone:

What flowers I bought.

How many.

What they cost.

What worked with the different dress colors.

What the girls actually used.

How we secured the bouquets.

How we kept them fresh.

What we served.

What got eaten.

How long everything took.

What I bought that we didn’t need.

What I forgot.

What I’d change.

And pictures of what the whole thing actually looked like with ten girls sitting around the table.

For now, though, I have a plan.

And a fairly simple definition of whether it worked:

The girls had fun.
They ate.
They made cute bouquets.
The bouquets made it to homecoming in one piece.

That’s really all I need from this one.

Well, that and the chance to be somewhere on the edges while my daughter and her friends make a memory together.

I’ll handle the food and the flower buckets.

They can handle the rest.

Have people over anyway.