Sally Mussared is the designer and founder of Mussared design studio creating luxurious handmade silk wedding gowns.

Arnie Way creates superb wild flower bouquets with texture, colour and perfume at Flowers in a Vase.

Recording & photography by the fabulous Miss Bella Hazelton.

Time stamps

00:30 Arnie’s Procedure

01:20 The Design Process

02:34 How Arnie Got Started

03:04 In the Macedon Ranges

03:30 Favourite Wedding Elements

04:30 Arnie’s Uniqueness

05:42 Most Important Tip

07:16 Most Unique Request

08:07 Arnie’s Love Story

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Hopelessly Devoted podcast. I’m bridal gown designer Sally Mussared delivering you the inside tips from Melbourne’s top wedding professionals.

Today we’re here at Flowers in a Vase, and we’re getting to chat with Arnie Way, who does beautiful flower work across the Macedon ranges and all the way down through Melbourne. Thank you for having us.

Arnie’s Procedure

Thank you. I’ll jump straight into it. What’s the best way to contact you?

I’m happy either on over the phone or on the internet, whichever’s convenient for the actual bride. I find that a lot of brides like inquiring through the internet because it’s convenient, they can do it all, any time of the day or night, so, most of my inquiries, are email or through my website.

And then, what’s the process from there? Okay I send out my inquiry form, which is a general questionnaire, which they complete and send back, then I try to arrange a meeting with the bride and hopefully the groom. And then (if that’s not possible, I provide information to the bride direct via email), I actually start a design process for them, and then we basically go back and forth until we get it just right for that particular bride and groom.

The Design Process

Lovely. So what does that design process involve?

So I understand what they envisage, I put a Pinterest board together for them, which is a complementary thing that I do for all my clients. Like a theme board of colours and… Correct. Like a mood board. So I get initial ideas from them, about style, what colour is the bridesmaid’s dress, what they need apart from their bouquets, button holes, is there any table centres involved. When I gather all that information I actually put some style ideas for them together, I show them what flowers are available, for their wedding at that particular time, that season, because as we know, there are different flowers for each season. So that way they get an actual visual, and then we just go through the process of starting to work backwards from that. So each bride has an individual look.

That’s lovely.

Mmm! And that’s all complementary. Oh, great. Yeah, so, it works, because quite often, brides don’t know all the flower varieties and the seasons of the flowers, so, if I can provide a visual that makes it a lot easier for them, I think.

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

How Arnie Got Started

Yeah nice. What got you into the industry?

Well actually, I was a banker, for twenty five years, Okay, Before I went into then hospitality, Mm-hmm (affirmative), I worked in pubs and things, and then I always loved flowers at home, and I love flowers, I used to do flowers for friends, but obviously my career was in banking and then hospitality, and one particular time, a couple of staff members said, “you should do this for a business”.

Okay.

So, it basically started from that. And it developed and evolved.

In the Macedon Ranges

Have you always been in Woodend?

No, my husband and I live up at Mount Macedon and we have done for nearly thirty years now.