Alternatives to flowers?

What's your theme and colors?

For decor you could use lots of candles of varying heights as well as lanterns. My flower girls carried lanterns instead of flowers. You could also have your BMs carry a single flower, greenery, or a simple bouquet to keep costs down.

I just did flowers for the ceremony. For the reception we did a glass lantern (we hazed out the glass, if that makes sense) with fairy lights on top of a mirror with votives around it. Pretty simple, really.

I made book page flowers and loved them! We spent about $25 on making those and they were a big hit!

The pinwheel idea sounds pretty cool! Do you have any pictures to give an example?!?

I'm not hiring a florist - we are doing all of the flowers on our own and very minimal. We are ordering in bulk from Sams Club. They have fantastic reviews! We are ordering a good amount and its under $250. If you ended up deciding to take the floral route and wanted to check out something inexpensive I would check there.

There are zillions of non-floral centerpiece ideas. As a pp mentioned, candles and lanterns work well. If there is a Five Below near you, check out their $5 lanterns. Styles change from time to time. Pinterest will give you lots of ways to use them.

lantern from Five Below

Live plants can be a cost efficient alternative to cut flowers. You can often find orchids on sale at Home Depot, Lowe's or Ikea for $10.

potted orchid

Happy to provide ideas if you let us know your concept.

I only did personal flowers and shopped around a lot! For bridal bouquet, MOH and flower girl bouquets, 1 wrist corsage and 7 boutenieres, I couldn’t find anything for less than $800. I went to a local florist on Long Island and was quoted $287. I almost fainted, I thought I might end up with carnations and a daisy. The flowers were gorgeous and exactly what I wanted.

I didn’t really have a theme per se but my husband’s last name is Deer (spelled differently) so we had elements of deer including our centerpieces. I got deer busts at Michael’s during Christmas season and spray painted the gold. The venue provided candles. With sales and coupons my centerpieces cost $14 each plus $15 for paint.

I didn't like any alternatives for me/the BMs to hold, so we're going to get our flowers from Publix (grocery store). Not sure how much it'll cost, but I've heard this is a cheap route. We're doing candle centerpieces with shells and sand since we're having a beach wedding. These should cost us about $5/each. There are so many ideas for non-floral CPs on Pinterest and so many are easy/quick DIYs.

You can order flowers from Costco/Sams and spend $100 for 100+ stems and just put them in a simple vase (if you want flowers but don't want to spend the money). Also, my local grocery store has a wonderful, inexpensive florist. Just some ideas. But there are plenty of non floral centerpieces as well. and ribbons/bows for a church wedding work well.

I completely agree with you on not spending thousands of dollars on something for only a couple of hours just for them to die anyway. So what I am doing is using real touch latex flowers on amazon, they look real and feel real but don't cost you and arm and a leg.

Glad I'm not alone! I've been looking for alternative options as well. My reception centerpieces are candle pieces by the decorating company, but I have no clue what to do with church decorations.

I love the idea of not using many flowers!

Greenery is also less expensive than flowers. I am making some decorations with boxwood that we have growing at our house.

This link has some pretty cool alternatives like balloons, feather bouquets, pinecone bouquets, wire wrap designs, lanterns http://www.youandyourwedding.co.uk/planning/flowers/the-best-non-floral-bouquets/21052-10.html

I am with you on the expensive flowers. Me and my fiance have so many things in the future we would rather save our money for so we are keeping the flower budget to a minimum. My advice- try asking your venue if they have anything you can use. I am taking advantage of the free centerpieces offered from our venue. Also candles! I have seen so many beautiful pics of candles as centerpieces or down an aisle. Very elegant with lanterns or glass mirrors underneath. Good luck!

I'm with on the flowers. You can rent live plants. You can also do paper or Felt flowers.

A relatively inexpensive floral centerpiece is to use colored bottles and vases with singe flowers.

single flowers

Like others have said candles I'm not a fan of flowers so I am using feathers and boas. got the idea from Pinterest. and depending in the time of year of the wedding different things like pinecones or tree branches, sticks, pumpkins.

I got silk flowers from afloral.com and they’re beautiful! They were running a sale sonthey were pretty inexpensive as well