A September Custom-Grown Wedding: Meet Julia & Kayla
A peek inside what we’re growing for their romantic, elevated, and organic wedding day
Both Kayla and Julia are thoughtful nature-lovers…
so it’s no surprise that they chose a venue that will offer the garden-party of their dreams at The Highlands, and opted for custom-grown wedding flowers to match.
Kayla (left) is a hairstylist in love with all things creative. You can find her thrifting, baking, decorating, or convincing Julia to watch a new movie.
Julia (right) is a sheet metal mechanic in the military. She loves building things, fishing, hunting, and - of course - trying Kayla’s latest recipes.
Julia & Kayla will be getting married in September 2025 at the historical Montgomery County, PA Georgian-style mansion surrounded by 44 acres of breathtaking gardens and landscaping. (It’s also one of the very few venues in the region that allows for true “al fresco” wedding receptions - no tent needed!)
When meeting Julia and Kayla for their initial consultation and a later design meeting, we learned that they preferred a floral style that is romantic, elevated, and organic - something that offers a level of garden-inspired whimsy, while still being refined. Kayla, who has an incredible eye for design and style, shared some inspiration images - as well as a picture of her jaw-droppingly beautiful bridal gown - and we got to work on creating a mood board.
Waverly Flower Co. created this mood board to capture the aesthetic of their big day ~ filled with soft neutrals, luxe accents, and a whimsical “freshly picked” feel
Our intention with a mood board, always, is to reflect not only the “look” of the flowers and any associated decor, but also the “feel” - both how our couples want to feel on their wedding days, and what they’d like for their guests to feel. We opted for touches that are soft, lush, a little bit playful, delicate, and will blend harmoniously with The Highlands’ gardens in September.
Once we co-create the floral vision with our couples, the next step is to consider the floral microseason as it relates to their wedding-day style, and our team selects the best flower varieties to grow. It’s my favorite part in the process!
A sampling of the flowers we’re growing for Julia and Kayla:
Dahlias ~ it’d be hard to not first mention dahlias when considering a September wedding. These garden favorites will be in the peak of their growing season, and we’ll be growing a handful of varieties including: Bride to Be, Small World, Cafe au Lait - Mini, and Apple Blossom
Love-in-a-Puff. This vining beauty is a top choice for summer and early fall weddings; it’s as delicate as it is unique, and the dainty tendrils are *chef’s kiss* in a wedding centerpiece.
Amaranthus. “Emerald Tassels” is a top five flower for us this wedding season, and it’s playful, drippy texture is perfect for cascading elements in any garden-inspired wedding.
Cosmos. “Afternoon White” is our variety of choice for Julia and Kayla, and these perfectly-shaped flowers are an exceptional focal point that bring height and whimsy to everything from bud vases to personals.
Hydrangea. One of our most requested flowers - and for good reason! We just planted a new row of hydrangeas last week, and I don’t anticipate their popularity slowing down anytime soon. I gravitate towards the more lacy, delicately-flowered varieties that fade from brighter ivory to antique shades as fall approaches.
A sampling of the flowers we’re growing for their September wedding day
A note about the process ~ and the all-important timing
Planning a Custom-Grown Wedding
When it comes to custom-growing specialty cut flowers, the timing is critically important to ensuring the best possible chance of these flowers being perfectly in bloom for a specific wedding date*. Understanding the rhythm of the floral microseasons is one of the most complex elements of what we do, and it requires a nuanced knowledge of cut flower gardening, a thoughtful and observant eye, years of detailed trials - and errors - and, admittedly, Mother Nature being at least somewhat on our side.
Each microseason’s garden plans illustrate the intricacies of custom-growing for weddings. As an example, when we think about the ideal bloom window of a creamy fast-growing zinnia that we wish to use in Julia and Kayla’s wedding, I know that it won’t be achieved for their September wedding through our first succession of planting them; it’ll instead be through our second (or possibly even third) succession, planted only once we flip the beds where the sweet peas and larkspur bloomed in late spring. The first succession will have succumbed to powdery mildew long before early fall, and we’ll be relying on the later summer-planted ones for our September harvests. Of course, that’s just one flower variety for one wedding to keep track of, but it highlights the way that we have to plan for each wedding. (Thankfully I inherited my father’s and grandfather’s deep appreciation and fondness for details, agriculture, climate, and decisive planning - a decidedly funny combination of traits, but ones that are put to good use in this career!)
When We Start Growing
While there’s a lot of nuance (see above!), most annual varieties that bloom in September will be started in our greenhouse in March and then transferred out to the field in May. Some will be direct-sown in May, however, while the later successions of certain varieties (cosmos, zinnias, Love-in-a-Puff, Mignonette, and Queen Anne’s Lace, to name a few) will be started for their September wedding in June or even July.
The Week of the Wedding
Our team will harvest the best flowers from the gardens about 2-5 days prior to their wedding date, depending on the vase life and exact design schedule. For Julia and Kayla’s wedding, which will be on a Saturday, we’ll prep materials on Wednesday, and our Sr. Designer and Creative Lead, Morgan, will prepare a mock-up centerpiece, based on the mood board, for the team to replicate on Thursday and Friday. Most of the designs are then created in-studio on Thursday and Friday by our team members. Some floral elements - especially delicate pieces or floral installations - will be designed on-site on the wedding day by our team.
We can’t wait to see these flowers surround you on your wedding day, Julia & Kayla!
Images of Julia & Kayla by Tori Sokalski Photography
*While we like to think we’re pretty darn good at navigating the timing and complexity of our gardens’ schedules (and ultimately nailing the timing for custom-grown weddings), Mother Nature can always throw us a curve ball. We never guarantee any one specific flower or variety to be in bloom for a wedding date, although we do promise that we’ll achieve the couples’ overall aesthetic and vision - even if that means we source the flowers elsewhere. We prioritize locally and regionally-grown flowers whenever possible.
