Cutting flower costs- dried flowers?

I know there must be some inexpensive florists out there but it will take some major research. I considered using silk flowers but my WP said please no and that she will find me a reasonable florist. We'll see....

I looked into DIY for my flowers and found a bulk flower supplier online. after pricing it out compared to my quote it was cheaper, but the thought of putting them all together the day before the wedding and figuring out where to store them because they should be kept in a cooler to stay nice... lets just say I was talked out of it. I went for 3 different florist quotes and at each one i said that the one before was doing something a litte cheaper, which was true, and at the last one I got such a good deal I signed right away. Sometimes its worth the extra few dollars and time researching for a little less stress.

I was just thinking about this too... My sister inlaw decided on silk for her wedding to my brother and she said she wished she did real instead. there were 5 BM & GM plus a ton of boutineres and corsages she made. after the final tally of prices she said it was about the same and would have rather paid someone to do it for her.

I have seen some people say it is not much cheaper to do silk flowers and some people say it was way cheaper, so you really just have to price it out. My sister was just in a wedding and she was showing me pictures and i absolutely LOVED the flowers and then she told me they were fake. I couldn't even believe it. So it would really come down to which is cheaper!

I think when it comes to flowers, the bouquets are not the larger expense. where it gets costly is the centerpieces. so i'm not sure that real vs silk bouquets will save you very much money.

my only advice is that you choose either real or fake for the whole wedding party in the off chance that they look different in the photos.

Double post

Thanks for the advice. So helpful! much more helpful coming from third parties than people intimately involved in my wedding.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the only flowers are gonna be corsages boutineers and bouquets. If we get any for the center pieces, they will be wild flowers.

Another thing i remembered, when the florist first gave me the quote for the flowers, he he had my bouquet 3x as expensive as the bm's and the moh's bouquet 2x as expensive as the bms. so i told him that the moh and bm's could all have the same and mine could be 2x, not 3x. so we cut back there.

ps: my sis is the moh and she didn't care.

Oooh I agree, you must have the time to do the arrangements. I plan to DIY my own vases and purchase the flowers from a florist.

I've heard silk flowers, or the "real touch" flowers can get really pricey too. Maybe check wholesale places like BJ's and Costco and DIY your bouquets. Even check in to local grocery stores.

I saved a lot by not doing floral centerpieces. I'm doing a pumpkin centerpiece and surrounding it will be some mums but what it's like a few dollars of flowers per table and was cheaper than fake.

I've seen people cut out flowers for the bridesmaids and replace it with something else such as books, a bible, little purses, fans, lanterns, feathers, parasols

Check here:

http://offbeatbride.com/2009/03/wedding-bouquets

Work with your florist for less expensive flowrs. Roses are pretty cheap. A lot of people buy the flowers themselves from a flower market or Costco too.

I ordered mine online at SAMs club, and we did 11 bouquets for myself, 7bms, fg, and moms, 15 boutineers, and 26 centerpieces on day of rehearsal dinner from 9a-4:30p. I had about 10-12 people helping tho. Also, we didn't put mine in a cooler, just a basement with air conditioning on and they were fine. The centerpieces were what took the longest too. Bouquets and boots only took 2 hours tops.

My bouquet was large and used different, more expensive flowers than my BMs. The BM''s bouquets were fairly small and used cheaper flowers in contrasting colors (same color scheme though). I've also seen BMs carry a single stem before. I agree that silk flowers can sometimes cost just as much.

I bought my flowers from here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/LilyOfAngeles?ref=l2-shop-info-name

Got all pieces with customization for $250. Look good, really easy to customize too!

Samanthahaha, what pieces did you get?

I realized that i don't have the time or patience to DIY a lot of things so there was no way. My mother did all my sisters flowers for her wedding, she used silk flowers but i don't have time to worry about if she's getting it done. i noticed that with the flowers its the centerpieces that cost most of the money and the brides flowers of course. the more tables you have the more money. the more bridesmaids the more money.

Flowers were not important to H and I so I DIYd them.

We bought a bunch of mini Gerbera daisies from a local grocery store that has a huge floral section and sells flowers by the stem.

For the 4 BM bouquets I grouped 7 of the daisies together, secured them with a little bit of floral wire, then wrapped ribbon from the top to the bottom of the stems and pinned in place. For my bouquet I did the same but with 15 flowers. I was one told flower arrangements look more balanced with an odd number. There was only one type of flower, no filler.

For the centerpieces, I just used single stems in small vases. Very simple, no difficulty arranging.

For the bouttoniares I used fake flowers. This was the most time consuming but I was able to do it in advance.

For the mothers, we haves them brooches instead of corsages.

For the flower girls we bought roses and plucked the feathers off the morning of.

Overall we spent less than $200 on flowers. They were definitely simple, but I don't care enough about flowers to spend more - I actually forgot to carry my bouquet down the aisle!

Doing your own flowers might seem intimidating, and if you want fancy arrangements it might not be worth the hassle. But I have no regrets in regards to my flowers.

Of you so DIY, I was told to use flowers with thick stems (roses, daisies, alstroemerias). They don't wilt very easily and are a bit more durable for a do-it-yourselfer.

Just a heads up --please check with your venues before buying silk flowers for your DIY centerpieces. Quite a few venues in my area won't allow silk arrangements -- even if they're done by a professional florist and not DIY.

Doing the Natural Touch flowers here! I was torn between them and the DIY real ones, because I didn't know just how expensive/realistic the NT flowers would be, until I finally got to my local Hobby Lobby (it's a 45ish minute drive for me, and I usually go to that city on Sundays, when they're closed. ) and got to see them in person, and that decided me.

Ordering from PremiumBlooms with my DB discount, it was going to cost me almost $400 for all the bouquets, corsages, bouts, and a box of petals (which we aren't even sure we're going to need!) Sam's Club was going to cost roughly $300-350 for me to have the red/white rose bouquets I wanted (PB didn't give me that option, either. )

Using Natural Touch from Hobby Lobby, I got two of their pre-made "bridal bouquets" that are 9 NT stems, and picked up some rhinestone wire picks for $50. Using a hot glue gun, ribbon I had (it's extra yardage from ribbon I bought for invites!) and about an hour's time, I had my bouquet!

We cut our costs drastically by providing our own vases. My mom has saved up random ones over the years and we mixed and matched them- saved us a fortune!!!

My advice for saving money on flowers is to go to your local farmers market one weekend and drop the words "getting married and looking for my wedding". Chances are, you will return home with tons of free flowers and several business cards. I did this for my wedding, and my flowers are going to be under 300 for my bouquet, 6 bridesmaid bouquets, 2 small ones (flower girl and a toss), 16 boutonnieres, 25 gerbera daisies for centerpieces, and 6 grocery bags full of rose petals.

I also bought all of our vases from the dollar store- saved a ton of money this way too.