Why we stopped using floral foam.
If you have ever pulled apart an old arrangement and found a soggy green brick at the bottom, that is floral foam. It is in almost every centrepiece and funeral spray in the country. It is cheap, it holds stems exactly where you push them, and it drinks a lot of water. I learned on it, like everyone.
Then I learned what it is. Foam is a plastic. When you cut it, poke it and throw it out, it breaks into tiny crumbs that end up in drains and soil, and it does not break down. Every arrangement I made left a little bit of it behind. Multiply that by forty weddings a year and it is not little anymore.
Every arrangement left a little bit behind. Forty weddings later, it is not little.
What we use instead
Chicken wire balled up inside a vase. Metal pin frogs, the old spiky kind your grandmother had. Moss and twigs for low runs. For big installs, reusable steel frames and water tubes we rinse and use again. All of it goes back on the shelf after a job.
Does it work as well?
Better, mostly. Stems in water instead of wet plastic drink more, so things last longer. The arrangements look looser and more alive, because flowers sit where they want to instead of where a brick forced them. The honest trade off is time. A foam free arch takes us about a third longer to build, and we price for that.
What it means for you
Nothing you need to do. Your flowers arrive in water, the mechanics come back to us at strike, and the green waste goes to compost. If you want to try it yourself, our workshops teach chicken wire from scratch.