How long before wedding should flower centerpieces be made so they are lively?

Many florists have large fridges or a very cool space to store their arrangements. I think as long as you have a cool space with low humidity to store the flowers 48-24 hrs in advance would probably be best. This YouTube channel has some really good floral tutorials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRjvgklY9m4 Good luck to you!

Florists typically use floral foam designed to be saturated with water so that even though the flowers aren’t in vases, they’re still getting water.


Kept hydrated and in a cool place, 24-48 hours in advance and they should look great for the big day!

I agree with all of the above. The foam should absolutely be soaked so that it retains the water that the flowers can then survive off of. 24-48 hours is definitely your MAX and you want to keep them in a very cool place - preferably a fridge. You can also (should also) spritz them periodically with just a water bottle for a light mist to help keep them fresh.

Also, have back up flowers to change out the morning of. In other words, if you have lots of roses in your center pieces, have extras so that morning you can replace anything that's gone too far off. Also don't be afraid (especially on flowers like roses with lots of petals) to pull off the petals that are browning too much.

Just as a tip - if you're doing any sort of flower that has an exposed stamen (such as a lily, I attached a pic) make sure you take those out! Take a tissue, wrap it around the stamen gently and pull off. If anyone touches them, or they drop onto any fabric (table cloths, clothing etc) the stamen stains something awful!

Brown stamen in the flower = horrible stain mess!

Remove them so any of your flowers with these types of exposed polled deposits (stamen) are empty:

If you have any that you put in when you're making them that are closed, I would also include that in my day of walk through.