Weddings & Events in Toronto

Weddings & events in Toronto: flowers for June, September and October

For weddings & events in Toronto the calendar follows Ontario's: the season runs from May to October. June, September and October are the busiest months, the weeks most wedding flowers get booked for. The section splits into three parts, the bride's bouquet, wedding bouquets for the wedding party, and gifts the couple takes home from their guests, and that's where the choosing starts.

French roses or peony-shaped ones: the bride's bouquet in Toronto

Toronto's rose selection includes both Ecuadorian and French stems, and for a bride the difference between a rose and a peony-shaped one often matters more than the variety does. A French rose isn't a cultivar at all: it's a technique, and the florist bends the outer petals back by hand to open the bloom before it leaves the workshop. A peony-shaped rose is usually an English variety bred by David Austin, or raised to look like one, with the same dense, cupped head as a garden peony.

Duo of Peony Roses and Peonies puts the two side by side, real peonies next to peony-shaped roses. For a bride who wants the true flower rather than its look-alike, the peonies section shows other peony bouquets.

The bride's own bouquet has its own place in the section. Among the wedding bouquets is one with protea.

Every bouquet is photographed before the courier leaves. A bride who spots something wrong in that photo can ask for a change, and it's fixed before the bouquet goes out the door.

Wedding flower delivery in Toronto: booking the date early

Wedding flower delivery in Toronto is booked for a chosen date and time slot, and every zone in the city takes that kind of order. The earlier the order goes in, the more slots are still open, which matters most for a June or October Saturday.

The date, the slot, the address, the recipient or the card text can still be changed until the bouquet leaves, and not later than six hours before delivery. All of it is changed with a message to the manager quoting the order number.

A May wedding can land close to Mother's Day, when orders run far higher than usual, slots widen and an exact delivery minute isn't promised. Toronto's flower calendar covers the rest of the year's busy dates, and the delivery zones page covers the whole city.

Lilies or jumilia: a gift the couple takes home

Among the gifts guests choose for the couple, 51 Jumilia in Airy Wrapping centres on jumilia. It carries a bud up to seven centimetres across, white at the base and edged in pink. Kept watered, it lasts up to two weeks in a vase, long enough to go home with the couple after the wedding.

A lily basket works differently: it stands without a vase, so it goes straight onto a table at the venue and stays there through the toasts. One thing rules it out for some couples, though: lilies are poisonous to cats, every part of the plant and the water in the vase included, so a basket is the wrong gift for a home with one.

Delivery to a venue follows the same rules as any address in the city: see delivery zones for how it works.

A bouquet on cue for the Entertainment District's venues

The Entertainment District runs roughly from Spadina Avenue to York Street, with Scotiabank Arena and Rogers Centre both close by. For a venue booking, the delivery time is agreed with the venue itself and timed to a moment rather than a window: the dessert, the toast, the walk on stage.

Hitting that moment to the exact minute takes arranging with the manager in advance, usually for a small extra fee. An order can also cover more than one address, say a bouquet for the stage and a basket for the restaurant at the same event, though delivery is counted and timed separately for each address.

Choosing starts with the address the flowers are performing for. A bride planning her own flowers begins with the bridal bouquet subsection, built around French and peony-shaped roses. The wider wedding party looks through wedding bouquets, protea included. Guests buying something the couple will keep find it under gifts for the couple, from the lily basket to jumilia in its airy wrapping, and that's the full shape of weddings & events in Toronto.