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This week’s topics: florist vs floral designer, wedding floral design studio, how to choose a wedding florist, timeless wedding flowers, sculptural floral installations, Pacific Northwest weddings, Bend Oregon florist, wedding weather backup plans, seasonal wedding flowers, bridal bouquet meaning
In this episode of Wedding Day Podcast, hosted by Sonja Babich, CEO of Iron Diamond Media, alongside co-host Alexis Sanabria, Publisher of Oregon Wedding Day, Washington Wedding Day and California Wedding Day, the conversation revolves around the artistry behind wedding florals with Summer Robbins, owner and creative director of Summer Robbins Flowers in Bend, Oregon. Summer shares that her path into floral design began with her own wedding in 2015. After years working as a fashion designer, she found herself craving a more nourishing, collaborative creative outlet. Designing her wedding florals sparked a realization: the process mirrored fashion design—personal, client-focused and rooted in storytelling—just expressed through flowers instead of fabric.
Summer distinguishes her work as a floral design studio rather than a traditional flower shop. With no brick-and-mortar storefront and an events-only focus, her team approaches each wedding from a design-first perspective. Rather than creating standard arrangements, they begin with intuition and collaboration—studying a couple’s style, energy and overall event aesthetic before sourcing seasonal blooms that support the full vision. For Summer, floral design is an art form. Two arrangements at the same price point may look entirely different depending on the designer’s lens, and her background in art and fashion shapes the sculptural, layered installations she’s become known for.
That creative lens was on full display during an editorial shoot at Juniper Preserve, where Summer proposed incorporating rare blooming branches at their peak seasonality. Working with a minimal-ingredient philosophy—focusing on just a few impactful elements executed at scale—she transformed the space into an immersive floral moment. Rather than replicating Pinterest trends, she interprets inspiration through her own perspective, often finalizing placement on-site based on weather, light and feeling. With limited setup time, installations can feel like performance art, requiring trust between planner, publication and designer to execute something entirely original.
Adaptability is equally central to her process. Summer recounts a late-season wedding where freezing temperatures and snowfall forced a ceremony indoors at the last minute. Instead of scaling back, she expanded the design—building a dramatic fireplace installation that exceeded the bride’s expectations. Years of working in Central Oregon’s unpredictable climate have taught her to prepare for anything, from silks for weather resilience to fully reimagined floor plans. For Summer, creative pivots often produce the most memorable results, proving that constraints can lead to stronger artistic outcomes.
When it comes to trends, Summer takes a timeless approach. She avoids chasing what’s currently popular on social media, preferring to design work that won’t feel dated years later. While she values Pinterest as a tool, she looks beyond wedding boards—examining home inspiration, fashion, even recipes—to better understand her clients as individuals. Meeting couples directly, even briefly, allows her to read their energy and serve them more intuitively. That personal connection, she explains, is key to creating florals that feel authentic rather than imitated.
Operating throughout the Pacific Northwest and available for destination events, Summer balances logistical precision with emotional impact. Her team often completes production ahead of time and finalizes installations on-site, carefully managing temperature and transport to protect delicate blooms like fritillaria, ranunculus and peonies. Though she no longer enforces a high minimum, choosing instead to serve a wider range of couples, her favorite moment remains unchanged: delivering the bridal bouquet. In that instant, she says, the wedding becomes real. The bouquet grounds the bride, transforms anticipation into presence and marks the emotional shift from preparation to celebration—an artful reminder of why she chose flowers in the first place.
This episode is powered by Dan Riggs Films and Summer Robbins Flowers.
Special thanks to members Linen Effects, Continental Diamond, Warpaint International.
