A moment with ‘Brilliant Blooms’
ABIA meets Jessica Turney, co-owner of this Illawarra wedding florist
Anchor and the Sea Photography
Creative from the outset, when Jessica Turney was offered a floristry traineeship while still at high school she jumped at the opportunity. Her mum, Sarah, studied floral design with her, and when they’d both qualified, and a shop in nearby Fairy Meadow came up for lease, their next move seemed obvious.
“We took the leap and opened two weeks prior to Mother’s Day,” Jessica explains.
Brilliant Blooms was established, and eight years on the mother-and-daughter-run business has secured its place as a go-to wedding floral designer in the Illawarra region.
ABIA convinced Jessica to set down her secateurs momentarily to chat to us about floral inspiration, current wedding flower trends and options for couples looking to keep their wedding flower budget in check.
KLD Photography
Dylan Crandell Photography
Tell us about your business and wedding services.
Brilliant Blooms is a popular Illawarra florist, owned and operated by our mother-and-daughter team, Sarah and Jessica Turney. We supply a variety of quality fresh flowers, gifts and hampers and offer our bespoke wedding floral design services across the Illawarra, Southern Highlands and Central Coast regions.
We combine our extensive floristry skills and experience with a personalised approach, that ensures our couples feel heard. At Brilliant Blooms we believe in transparency and aim to make the process of organising wedding florals a seamless, enjoyable experience.
We can assist with design ideas and details, styling and hire options, bringing each couple’s wedding floral vision to life with fresh quality flowers and floral artistry, and we pride ourselves on our carefully-curated arrangements and on being a bespoke florist who cares.
How did you get started in the wedding industry?
Mum and I both completed our floral training at TAFE together — whilst I was still studying at high school — and afterward had the very ambitious idea of opening our own little flower shop. An opportunity arose when a small building in the local village came up for lease, and we took the leap and opened Brilliant Blooms two weeks prior to Mother’s Day. We hit the ground running from the start!
The business has grown over the years with weddings and events becoming a specialty. In fact, we’re now in the process of creating a wedding floral studio that will provide a space for curating our designs, and for floral workshops for bridal showers, hen's parties, engagement parties and the like.
KLD Photography
Thomas Stewart Photography
Where are you based and what locations do you service?
Brilliant Blooms is based in the Illawarra, and we regularly service the Southern Highlands and South Coast, but we are happy to travel anywhere we can create and bring joy through flowers for our couples.
What inspired you to become a florist?
I always had a creative side and was painting, drawing, doing woodwork and pottery and making clothes, even from a young age, so floristry was a perfect fit for channelling this creativity into something I could make a career out of. When I was offered a traineeship while still at school I discovered a love and passion for flowers, style and design. Dad was right when he told me: “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life”.
KLD Photography
The Mann Project Media
What recommendations do you have for couples choosing their colour palette?
A wedding colour palette is something that needs to work cohesively with everything involved and is a matter of personal preference, so we like to listen to what our couples want. If there is a vibe or a concept our couple is looking to create, we try to provide colour and flower options and recommendations to suit. In consultation with them, we also usually create a mood board to reflect their style and colour preference.
What wedding floral trends are you seeing at the moment?
Wedding floral designs and concepts are forever changing and evolving. At the moment low ground-level flower arrangements — like flower bombs, flower clouds and lovers’ moons — are really popular and these are a great alternative to typical structured arbour pieces or vase arrangements.
We’re noticing fruits and vegetables being incorporated more too, in all sorts of colours and textures to complement the flowers and overall design, and this really adds to the impact.
Fabric draping is popular from a styling perspective too, and can be a great way to enhance the wedding flowers and other design details.
MEKA Weddings Photography
Velvet Wattle Weddings
Do you have any suggestions for couples sticking to a budget and those looking to 'make the most' of their wedding blooms?
We love a good re-purposed ceremony arrangement, and always recommend couples reuse ceremony flowers in the reception space. We also offer the use of simple ‘bouquet vases’ so that the bride’s bouquet and bridesmaid flowers can double as arrangements for the bridal table — as a bonus, this also helps keep the flowers fresh.
Bud vases are another great way to stretch wedding flower budgets. We also offer a service whereby we wrap wedding florals into posies at the end of the night for guests to take home with them.
There are lots of ways to make wedding florals more cost-effective, and we are more than happy to chat with our couples about options that can help them achieve their dream florals within their means.
At what stage of the planning process should couples start to think about wedding floristry and flowers?
There is so much to think about when it comes to planning a wedding, and we know it can seem an overwhelming process for some, so we try to take the stress out of choosing and designing wedding flowers and ideally recommend contacting us about 12 months out from a wedding date. This gives us time to chat with our couples at an initial consultation, to work with them to cultivate a design style and colour preference and move through the seamless process of planning and bringing their floral vision to life. We have had couples come to us six months before their wedding though and are always happy to assist them in any way we can.
Transluscent Photography
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