Can Guests Take Flowers Home After A Wedding?

A wedding guest recently took off with floral arrangements from a wedding without asking.

In a recent post on Reddit's "Wedding Shaming" forum, a user detailed how the floral heist went down.

“I went to a wedding for a friend this past winter. Let’s call her WB for ‘winter bride,’” the Reddit user began. “WB has decorated her venue (a small church) with dried [flowers] incorporated within Christmas trees.”

On the surface, it was a great sight. “It actually looked very pretty,” the original poster (OP) wrote. But soon, the guest learned of the flowers’ origins, and it became a different story. 

“Imagine my surprise and a few other guests’ surprise when we found out where they came from,” the OP said. 

“In the fall, WB had been a guest at her childhood friend’s wedding. We’ll call that friend FB for ‘fall bride.’” the OP explained. “FB has asked that at the end of the night her flowers be donated to a local nursing home.”

But the winter bride had plans of her own. After the ceremony, she collected a “car full” of the fall bride’s followers, took them home and dried them out for herself. 

“WITHOUT ASKING,” the OP wrote. 

The post, entitled “Stolen or repurposed—depends on your perspective,” has garnered many responses in the comment section. 

“Honestly, repurposing flowers this way would be such a beautiful concept between friends if it wasn't done without permission. Shame,” one user wrote. 

Another said, “This is absolutely wild! Even in cultures where taking the centerpiece is common, taking everything is not.”

One user offered another perspective: “When I worked weddings as event staff, the flowers usually ended up in a dumpster one way or another. The idea of donating them to a nursing home is nice for the bride and groom to feel warm and fuzzy, but the flowers were going to go into their trash pretty much immediately.”

One commenter said the nursing home wouldn’t even want the flowers.

“Please understand, to some, flowers remind [nursing home residents] of funerals,” they wrote. They claim their “source” worked in skilled nursing for a very long time. “Large quantities of flowers were not useful. It was too reminiscent of the arrangements from the many funerals of their peers.”

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My Thoughts: 

Never take anything from a wedding, except your wedding favor.