Behind the Scenes: Flowering the 2025 U.S. Men’s Open at Oakmont Country Club

With the NFL Draft coming to Pittsburgh, we’ve been thinking back to last summer—when we had the opportunity to step outside of weddings and into something completely different: designing florals as event florists for the U.S. Men’s Open Golf Championship at Oakmont Country Club.

It was one of the most intense, exciting, and honestly hard-to-explain projects we’ve ever taken on! We shared glimpses of it on social media, but there’s so much we didn’t get to show—the behind-the-scenes logistics, the late nights and what it really took to bring it all together.

So grab a cup of tea and settle in! This is the full story…

It all started the fall before the Open, when the production company responsible for designing the event reached out. Because of our relationship with Oakmont—and a kind recommendation from Amanda, their events director (forever grateful!)—we were already on their preferred vendor list. A few calls later, we were in! We didn’t fully know what we had signed up for yet… but we knew it was going to be big. We received the full scope in March, just a few months before the Open and suddenly, it was go time!

In total, we were designing for around 26 different brands across the tournament. Each suite on the course had its own identity—Cisco, Rolex, DraftKings, Charles Schwab, and many more—all with different color palettes, styles, and expectations. Some suites stood alone in tents or the clubhouse, while others were lined up in long corridors. From the outside, everything looked fairly standard…but once you stepped inside, it was like entering a completely different world. Fully built-out spaces with lighting, cabinetry, furniture, air conditioning blasting, TVs—it felt less like a tent and more like a series of mini homes.

It wasn’t until about two weeks before the tournament, when we finally toured the grounds, that we could really see the layout come to life and understand how everything connected. By then, we were already deep in planning—prepping hard goods, organizing team credentials, coordinating vans and labeling what felt like everything in the cottage!

If you’re familiar with wedding flowers, you know that while the celebration itself lasts one day, the work leading up to it fills an entire week. We spend days processing blooms, timing them carefully, encouraging them to open, and designing them to feel lush and full at just the right moment. This project required a different approach!

Instead of designing for a single day, these arrangements needed to hold up throughout the entire week.That meant rethinking everything—flower choices, mechanics and expectations. It also meant shifting into a completely new rhythm: not just delivering arrangements, but returning every single night to refresh them across the entire course.

Some suites opted for orchids and succulent arrangements instead of fresh florals, so the week before the Open, our entire team focused on building over 100 succulent planters. It was all hands on deck, getting those prepped and ready to install early since they could hold beautifully for long periods of time.

Then the flowers arrived and everything shifted into high gear! There were last-minute supply runs, multiple trips to wholesalers, and yes… processing flowers in a Sheetz parking lot at one point. Sleep was minimal, adrenaline was high and we had to move fast.

Production week itself was a blur in the best (and most exhausting) way. Deliveries began rolling out Sunday, then continued Monday and Tuesday—each day layering in new installs while also refreshing what we had already delivered. We couldn’t start working until the course cleared each evening, usually around 8:30 or 9:30. From there, we worked until 1 or 2 AM—moving from suite to suite, refreshing arrangements, replacing stems, and making sure everything still felt intentional and polished.

The production company set us up with a refrigerated truck on site, which became our nightly home base. It was stocked with all of our buckets of replacement florals, and each evening we would meet there as a team—talk through the plan for the night, wait for the course to officially clear, and then break off into teams to cover our assigned suites.

And unlike our typical wedding load-ins, there were no loading docks or elevators waiting for us. Instead, we were loading up flatbed golf carts, driving through mud in the dark, carrying buckets up flights of stairs, and navigating a course that felt completely different at night.

Somewhere along the way, we found our rhythm. Starting at the truck, we’d head out in teams, working suite by suite—refreshing water, pulling anything past its prime, and rebuilding arrangements right on site. It became a system we could rely on, even in the middle of long, late nights.

Each team carried what we called our “refresh kits”—everything we might need to bring arrangements back to life. Turkey basters for precise water refills, 5-gallon dispensers as our water source, spray bottles filled with water and Crowning Glory to revive blooms, and buckets of fresh stems ready to replace anything that had faded.

And even with the late hours, there were moments that stuck with us—sweet service pups, late-night laughs, and sunsets over the course that made you pause for just a second before jumping back in.

Looking back, what stands out most is how much this experience stretched us—and how naturally our team rose to meet it.Yes, the timeline was longer and the logistics were more complex. But at its core, it was still about creating something thoughtful within a specific vision, staying adaptable and working together to make it happen!

We walked away from that week very exhausted but proud and honestly a little amazed at what our team pulled off! It pushed us far outside our comfort zone—but also expanded what we know we’re capable of as designers and as a team.

The U.S. Open Golf Championship won’t be back in Pittsburgh for another eight years—but we’ll be ready for it!

With major events like the NFL Draft on the horizon, we’re excited to continue growing as event florists in Pittsburgh, supporting brands, planners, and production teams with both the creative vision and the logistics it takes to bring these kinds of events to life.

See some of the suites below…