Sweet Pea Flower Arranging Workshop in Hackney: £95 Bouquets

Sweet Pea Flowers runs its flower school from the shop at 51 Wilton Way, London E8 1BG, on a residential street between London Fields and Hackney Central. Its hand-tied bouquet workshops cost £95 per person, including seasonal flowers, foliage, equipment and tutoring, and the main skill on the table is spiralling the stems. There is also a £65 terrarium workshop at 6pm on the last Thursday of every month, which comes with a glass of fizz.

Sweet Pea is a floral atelier led by Marianne Johnson, who trained under the London florist Jane Packer before setting up on her own. She founded Sweet Pea in 2008, and the business has since been named in Harper's Bazaar's top 10 wedding florists and the Telegraph's list of the 20 most creative florists. The shop says it has been teaching workshops and sharing what it knows for more than 13 years.

Classes take place at the Wilton Way address, the same place the shop sells flowers and plants. Expect to meet Flo, Marianne's dog, who the shop says handles the meet and greet. If you are allergic or nervous around dogs, mention it when you book. Outside class times the address works as a neighbourhood florist and wedding studio, and bespoke weddings start at £2,500 plus VAT, so the workshop is the cheapest way to see how this team handles flowers.

The hand-tied bouquet workshop teaches the technique most florists consider the foundation: spiralling the stems. You add one stem at a time at an angle, turning the bunch in your hand so the stems form a spiral and the flowers sit evenly when tied. Once you have the grip, you can make a bouquet from supermarket flowers that still looks as if it came from a florist. All materials are included and you take your bouquet home.

Public dates are released one at a time. The most recent was the Autumn edition of the Flower Arranging Workshop on Saturday 10 October 2026, from 10.30am to 12.30pm at £95. No later public bouquet session was showing on the shop's booking page this week, so if you want one before Christmas, your realistic options are a private group booking or the monthly terrarium evening below.

The Terrarium Workshop runs at 6pm on the last Thursday of every month, which puts the next one on Thursday 29 October 2026, then 26 November. It costs £65 per person with a glass of fizz, and you build a planted glass terrarium to take home. It is a good first class for anyone who wants something greener than a bouquet, because the finished piece lasts well beyond a vase of cut stems.

Private hen parties and wedding groups are run with complimentary fizz for groups of up to 16. That size suits a bridal party making their own buttonholes or a birthday group who want the shop to themselves. The contact page has a separate Flower School enquiry form for these, so give a rough guest count, a date and the style of flowers you have in mind.

For a first try at arranging, the £95 bouquet workshop is the one to wait for, because spiralling stems is the single skill that makes every later bouquet easier. The £65 terrarium evening is the cheaper, more casual option and the only public class with a fixed monthly date. Skip the terrarium if what you really want is cut flowers for the table: it teaches planting and layering in glass, not arranging.

The school is also called the Flower and Plant School on the shop's own pages, which explains the mix. Weddings remain the business's main line, and the bouquet class borrows from that work, since a hand-tied bouquet is the same structure a bride carries. If you are planning your own wedding flowers, the private group format lets you practise that structure with your bridesmaids before the day.

The shop is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It opens on Wednesday from 10am to 4pm, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8am to 5pm, and on Sunday from 9am to 4pm. Workshops are booked through the online shop.

The workshop pages do not set out a cancellation policy or an age limit, so ask before booking a place for a teenager or as a gift. Wear clothes that can take a splash, since flower work involves buckets of water and wet stems, and plan how you will carry the bouquet home: a tote bag or a box keeps the stems upright on the bus.

The nearest Overground stations are Hackney Central and Dalston, each a short walk away. Wilton Way runs east to west a few streets north of London Fields, and the bus stops on Mare Street and Dalston Lane are both close. Wilton Way is a quiet residential street of terraced houses with a handful of small shops, so number 51 is easy to walk past if you are reading the map on the move.

Violet, Claire Ptak's bakery, is a few doors along Wilton Way and makes a natural stop after a morning session. From there, walk south to London Fields and on to Broadway Market, which is busiest on Saturdays when the food stalls are out. On a Thursday terrarium night, the pubs and restaurants around Mare Street are the easiest dinner option before heading home.

If you want a bouquet class this autumn and Sweet Pea has no public date showing, The Flower Appreciation Society in De Beauvoir offers a £90 evening class and a £150 Saturday morning session in November. Sweet Pea is still worth watching for its next release, especially if you like the idea of learning from a Jane Packer-trained florist in a working neighbourhood shop.

Address: Sweet Pea Flowers, 51 Wilton Way, London E8 1BG. Shop: closed Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday 10am to 4pm, Thursday to Saturday 8am to 5pm, Sunday 9am to 4pm. Hand-tied bouquet workshop: £95 per person. Terrarium Workshop: £65, last Thursday of each month at 6pm. Private groups: up to 16 people. Nearest stations: Hackney Central and Dalston on the Overground.