McQueens Flower Arranging Workshop by Waterloo: £150 Class

McQueens Flower School teaches from 21 Wootton Street, London SE1 8TG, a two-floor studio a short walk from Waterloo Station that the company moved into in July 2025. The entry point is the Floral Experience, a 90-minute flower arranging workshop priced at £150, where you build a seasonal hand-tied bouquet and carry it home. The next public sessions are on Tuesday 24 November 2026, at 11am and again at 3pm, and every seat is sold through the website in advance.

McQueens Flowers says it has been telling stories with flowers since 1991, and it has taught floristry since 1999, which makes the school older than many of the florists who now run their own classes around London. Its event work is the reason people know the name: the company has dressed the Vanity Fair Oscars after-party for more than 25 years and is the floral design partner for the Wimbledon Champions' Ball at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.

The move south of the river in July 2025 put the school and the head office under one roof on Wootton Street, a quiet residential stretch between The Cut and Stamford Street. McQueens also runs studios in New York and Seoul. The company calls the London building its international flower school. It is set across two floors and doubles as head office, and the same rooms host the public taster classes, the five-day fundamentals course and the four-week career programme, which is why the timetable is weighted towards weekdays.

The Floral Experience is built for complete beginners. No experience is needed, refreshments are included, and every tool you use is laid out on the bench before you arrive. A tutor demonstrates how to strip lower leaves, then shows the spiral grip that lets you add one stem at a time while keeping the binding point tight. You then pick from the buckets of seasonal flowers and foliage, build your own version, tie it off and wrap it to take home on the train.

Ninety minutes sounds short, and it is. If you want more than one design, the four-and-a-half-hour Autumnal Abundance day at £300 pairs the signature McQueens hand-tie with a seasonal vase arrangement, but booking for its 24 October 2026 date shuts three days ahead, so that one has already gone. For most first-timers the £150 class is the better buy: you leave with one finished bouquet and the grip that makes every later arrangement easier.

From late November the studio switches to wreaths. The Christmas Wreath Making Workshop costs £250 and runs from 2pm to 4pm on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November, then Friday 4, Saturday 5, Friday 11 and Saturday 12 December 2026, with an extra 10am slot on 5 December. The class starts with natural mossing methods on the frame, then moves on to dressing it with seasonal material, and you get a glass of wine and a mince pie while you work. The finished wreath is yours to take home.

Anyone thinking about floristry as a job has two bigger options. The one-week Floristry Fundamentals Course costs £2,350 and runs Monday to Friday, with intakes from 7 to 11 September 2026 through to 22 to 26 February 2027. The four-week Career Course starts from £4,250. If you book several shorter classes at once, the school takes 10 per cent off one workshop when you buy two and 15 per cent off one when you buy three.

This is a working studio, not a shop, and visits are by appointment only. You cannot walk in to buy a bouquet, and the team takes no cash or cards on the premises: payment is online or by invoice, in full at the time of booking. Every attendee must be at least 18 and comfortable following a class taught in English. If you are buying a place as a gift, the school asks for the recipient's name and contact details at checkout.

Cancellations are strict. Once booked, a place cannot be refunded outside statutory rights, but if you cannot make it the fee is credited towards another course, as long as you choose the new date at the same time. Wear clothes and shoes you can stand in for the whole session, since you work on your feet at high benches and the floor around them collects water and cut stems by the end of the class.

Waterloo is the easiest station, and the school points first-timers there because of its transport links. Southwark on the Jubilee line also works if you are coming from the City, since Wootton Street sits just off the far end of The Cut. The office line is staffed Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.

The 11am sessions suit anyone who wants to walk the river with flowers in hand afterwards, while the 3pm slot ends at 4:30pm, close to sunset in late November, which works better if you are heading straight to the theatre. Group bookings are handled as Blooms and Bubbles evenings for six to twelve people, so a hen party or team outing does not need to compete for public seats.

Two minutes from the studio, The Cut gives you the Old Vic and the Young Vic within a few doors of each other, plus Lower Marsh market a street away if you want lunch before a morning class. Walk north to the river and the Queen's Walk runs past the Southbank Centre and the National Theatre, a pleasant way to carry a fresh bouquet while the light holds over the Thames.

If the November bouquet dates sell out, Moyses Stevens runs £120 hand-tied and vase classes inside Battersea Power Station, a cheaper two-hour alternative from a florist founded in 1876. McQueens still has the stronger case if you care about the house style you see at big London events, and the wreath sessions are worth booking early, since there are only seven December and late-November slots in total.

Address: McQueens Flower School, 21 Wootton Street, London SE1 8TG. Office: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Floral Experience: £150 for 90 minutes. Christmas Wreath Making: £250 for two hours. Floristry Fundamentals: £2,350 for five days. Over 18s only. Payment online in advance, no cash or card at the studio. Fees are credited to another date rather than refunded.