Question
Hi,
I'm doing flower arrangements for my friend's upcoming wedding. I'll quickly run through my experience from once before to illustrate the problem. It'd be great if you had any suggestions.

Two days before the wedding the roses arrived and their heads were fairly shut. Keeping them in a cool room I immediately cut the ends, de-thorned etc and put them in cool water. Then about 6 hours later the heads were open. The next morning (wedding eve) I could aready see the edges suffering, so by the next day (wedding) they had wilted a little and didn't look so fresh. Do you have any suggestions for making roses open slower? Also, would you suggest that I didn't cut and water them until the wedding eve instead? I'm just worried that two days without water will do more damage. Thanks for reading.

Answer
In cool water and in a cool room, there is no reason why the roses should have popped for quickly.  By cool, do you mean a room no warmer than 60 degrees?  That is as warm as they should be allowed.  Was it dark enough?

Whenever I do roses for a wedding, I condition them by making a fresh cut and stripping them, then submerge in cool water with preservative all the way to the neck for 24 hours before I touch them again.  Then a new cut and fhres water, then design.  I always wire each bloom too, to ensure they keep upright.

Hope this helps.