Notes On A Wedding | North West Wedding Blog

Deciding upon flowers is one of the most fun parts to planning a wedding. Will they be organic or classic? Neutral or bright? Rustic or elegant? Whatever you choose, the flowers are a way to add your personal style and touch to the day.

{image via Martha Stewart Weddings}

When florists prep flowers for an event, they feed and hydrate them with the goal that they should last several days, even up to a week depending on the type of blooms in the arrangement. The average NW couple spends around $3,000 on their wedding flowers and with most couples leaving immediately for a honeymoon, they only get to enjoy the beauty of those arrangements for a single day. Typically, friends take home the arrangements or the venue tosses them in the trash. How sad to see all that work and beauty (and money) go to waste!

Floranthropy hopes to change that. The new Seattle based non-profit is giving NW couples another option – donate your wedding flowers to a local hospital, hospice or retirement home and reap the karmic benefits. Tracy Dittman came up with the idea for the new service while planning her own June wedding. She was searching for a way to honor the memory of her late mother and decided to donate her wedding flowers to Swedish Medical Center in Seattle where her mother sought treatment for cancer. Friends reacted so positively to the news, that Tracy realized the potential for a new donation service in Seattle.

There are other benefits to donating your wedding flowers – tax deductions. Not only will your flowers bring someone else joy in a time of need, but they will also make a dent in your year end tax bill; not bad after a year filled with wedding costs! Tracy says that if a couple spends $2,000 on their wedding flowers, depending on their tax bracket, they could have

$200-$700 back in their pockets at the end of the year. The average cost for the service is $75 which covers logistics – transport of the arrangements from your venue to the donation site, a photo of the flower drop and a tax deductible receipt.

For more information, please visit Floranthropy’s website.