Upon the suggestion of another bridezilla, my fiance and I visited the New Covent Garden Market near Vauxhall yesterday. Its only one stop after Vauxhall train and underground station on the 344 Bus. Its open awfully early so that the trade florists can get their shops open. I wanted to write a post and share the prices as I couldnt find any information online. I recently went on a wedding forum on You and Your Wedding and some other brides kindly shared their prices with me. I still wanted to go to the market myself and see the flowers but hopefully this post will give other brides a rough idea of the prices and what to expect:

The address and opening times are:

New Covent Garden Market
London SW8 5NX
www.newcoventgardenmarket.com/

Tel: +44 (0)20 7720 2211
Fax: +44 (0)20 7622 5307

Monday - Friday: 4 am to 11 am
Saturday: 3 am to 10 am

And from their website -
“New Covent Garden Market is the largest fresh produce market in the UK. It plays a unique role in London’s market provision supplying fruit, vegetables, flowers, plants and many other catering needs. Customers include leading chefs and florists, restaurants and hotels, schools and hospitals. Over 2,800 people are employed here and the central location provides ready access to the West End, City and all parts of the Captial.”

So here are photos of what it looks like from the street. You will see the big green entrance and there is a smaller one marked “pedestrians.” I think if you bring a car, you pay for the parking.

You know you got it right when you see this:

We arrive around 9.30, being the lazy sleepers we are, and found that most of the shops had already closed down. I was able to speak to the two shop owners of Bloomfield of London and J.H. Hart (Flowers) Ltd.
These were the prices of the flowers they gave me:

Roses: £10 for 20 roses

We saw two types of roses which are undecided. I love the white with the slightly green tinge but white is considered unlucky in Chinese culture (as they wear white for funerals)

I think the no-white rule is going to drive me crazy and maybe I can call them ‘green roses”? Or… we found these beautiful yellow roses which I think will really liven the table up:

The other flowers I was considering were:
Columbia roses - £10 for a pack of short ones and £12 for a pack of longer stemmed ones. I think there were a dozen or ten roses per pack. I really dont want roses in my bonquet because I find them quite cheap and nasty (especially red roses) I think its backlash of Valentines Day over-commercialisation. haha. My first choice is actually peonies but they are a June flower and it will be impossible to have them for my August wedding. One of the stall owners even said it is rare for them to be here in July. So my second choice is the Columbian roses - to me, they look like a cross beteween peonies and the roses.

I also saw some beautiful hydrogena. At the Vera Wang Bridal store, they had a fake bonquet of hydrogena. I think they would look so cute as bridesmaids bonquets, and since they are already in a nice round bunch, you would just have to get a nice ribbon. They were £3 a bunch.

There were peonies for £1-2 each… aaaaaaah i wanted to take a bunch home for my mother in law.

They were also selling natural dried flowers as confetti for around £7 plus VAT. A HUGE reduction from a £25 overpriced confetti pack from the store Confetti.

And finally, for accessories and decoration, there were ribbons and vases for sale. I found the vases very pricey but I think Im spoilt by IKEA’s cheap range of vases that start £2. But if you wanted some unusual vases, this is definitely the place to go: