The Difference Between Delivery and Setup
Delivery refers to the transport of flowers — bouquets, boutonnieres, and pre-assembled arrangements — to your getting-ready location or venue.
Setup refers to the on-site installation of ceremony and reception flowers: placing and styling arrangements, dressing an arbour or arch, arranging centrepieces on tables, and ensuring every element looks exactly right in the space.
These are often separate logistics, particularly when your getting-ready location, ceremony venue, and reception venue are different.
How Delivery Typically Works
Personal Flowers (Bouquets & Boutonnieres)
These are delivered to your getting-ready location — usually a hotel room, private residence, or villa — on the morning of your wedding. Timing is coordinated with your run sheet: they arrive early enough for photos, but not so early that they're sitting unattended for hours.
Your florist will confirm the exact delivery window during your final planning conversations. Make sure they have:
- The correct delivery address
- A contact number for someone at the location
- Any access requirements (hotel floor numbers, gate codes, etc.)
Ceremony & Reception Flowers
These are delivered directly to your venue, typically in the hours before your ceremony begins. Your florist will confirm load-in times with your venue coordinator.
For Gold Coast hinterland venues — Coolibah Downs, Valley Estate, Tall Trees Estate — load-in logistics can be more involved due to travel time and venue-specific access windows. An experienced florist who has worked at these venues will already know the drill.
What Setup Actually Involves
For full wedding packages, setup is a significant piece of work. Depending on the scale of your florals, it can involve:
- Dressing a ceremony arbour or floral arch
- Positioning plinths and pedestal arrangements
- Installing aisle markers or hanging florals
- Laying table runners or placing centrepieces at the reception
- Styling the bridal table
- Adding finishing touches to cake flowers, welcome tables, and any other focal points
This takes time, and it needs to happen without you seeing it — ideally while you're getting ready or taking photos elsewhere. Coordinating with your venue on access times is essential.
Moving Ceremony Flowers to the Reception
One of the most effective ways to stretch your floral budget is to repurpose ceremony flowers at the reception. Plinths, archway pieces, and pedestal arrangements can often be moved and restyled during cocktail hour to dress your reception space.
This requires planning in advance — your florist and venue coordinator need to coordinate on timing and responsibility for the move. Discuss it during your design consultation so it's built into the logistics from the start. For more on this, see our guide to How to Reduce Wedding Flower Costs on the Gold Coast.
What You Need to Have Ready
On the day, you don't need to manage the florist — that's their job. But a few things make the process smoother:
A clear run sheet. Your florist should have a copy of your ceremony and reception timing so deliveries and setup are coordinated with the rest of the day.
A venue contact. The florist will typically liaise directly with your venue coordinator. Make sure both parties have each other's contact details.
Someone to accept the personal flowers delivery. You're likely in hair and makeup — nominate a bridesmaid or family member to receive and look after the bouquets.
Confirmed locations for everything. Your florist shouldn't be guessing where the centrepieces go or which table is the bridal table. A floor plan and seating layout helps enormously.
After the Event: Collection
If you've hired any floristry equipment — stands, vessels, vases, or frames — your florist will return to collect them after the event. Confirm the post-event collection timing during your planning conversations, and let your venue know what to expect. There are some alternatives in how to handle your bouquets after the event that Flowers Gold Coast can help with donating your flowers after your event.
The Bottom Line
Good wedding floristry logistics are invisible — you shouldn't notice them at all. When delivery, setup, and coordination are handled well, you just walk into a beautiful space and it's exactly as you imagined.
At Flowers Gold Coast, we manage every element of delivery, setup, and bump-out ourselves. You deal with one team, and we take care of everything.
Enquire with Flowers Gold Coast for your Wedding Flowers →
See our Previous Weddings to see how we've set up across a range of Gold Coast venues, and explore the full Flowers Gold Coast Wedding Guide for more planning guidance.
