Floral Help!

I would hire a florist to provide real flowers for bouquets and stuff and try to do nonfloral decor for the centerpieces to keep budget. If you are going for a rustic vibe, lanterns are nice and you can find some for cheap. Also floating candles are cheap, but look very elegant and beautiful with minimal florals. I feel like you could find a florist to do bouquets and aisle runner flowers for your budget, or you could do mason jars or something along the aisle chairs with baby's breath which is low cost. Good luck! I'm over budget on flowers. My dad said the same thing about them dying but I still want them ! Lol

I ordered my flowers off of Amazon. I order real touch callie lillies and they are beautiful and feel real. They were not expensive. Just look up real touch floweres

To save we're sticking to real florals for the wedding party. We were quoted $600 for my bouquet, 4 bridesmaids bouquets, 9 boutonnieres, 3 wrist corsages; and small flowers for the cake as it was cheaper then the baker doing them. For the tables we're making flowerless centerpieces.

After meeting with around 7 florists myself I've learned a few things:

When meeting with a florist, tell them your budget at the beginning and ask them what they can do with that. The are usually happy to work with you to get the biggest bang for your buck. I didn't do this with the first few people I met with and when I got quotes back in excess of $7k I told them I couldn't do that, and they were quick to respond and ask what my budget is, and how they can meet me at the budget.
I HATE when people say that "flowers will just be dead anyways so don't spend money on them". That was so irritating to me when I was researching florists and putting so much work into comparing quotes and making adjustments. There are lots of things we spend money on at weddings that will be forgotten. Heck, the food will be eaten in 1 hour... does that mean you should forgo it completely? Haha, you get my point. Figure out what's important to you, and if it's within your budget to spend money on it then don't let anyone on the outside tell you not to. For me, photography and floral are important . For some people it's not... but YOU have to decide this. So ignore the silly comments and have some real talk with your florist about your budget.

Some ways I was able to cut costs (on advice from my florist):
Using more greenery and less florals . When using greenery be open to different types (not just eucalyptus- which is always pricey). Using just italian ruscus laid down rather than a full garland. Using less expensive versions of each flower (i.e. hybrid roses or spray roses rather than juliet roses). I will also be making the pew florals in the church with florals from my moms garden- since I can't reuse the pew decor at the reception anyways.. I didn't want to spend $ on that.

If you are willing to DIY a bit more you can also buy in bulk from places like Costco and do them yourself. A friend of mine hired a florist for her bouquets and arbour but did the centrepieces herself with Costco flowers. The florist gave her a tutorial on how to arrange them and even did a quick check on them when she went to install the arbour arrangement to make sure they looked good.

Good luck!

Hobby lobby! Every other week their flowers are half off!

Ling’s moment from Amazon has really beautiful real touch roses in tons of colors. I used them on my centerpieces and a lot of other decor!

View Quoted Comment This is the seller I intend to order from. Any chance you know of any mini rose suppliers? I wanted some smaller flowers mixed in.

I'm forgoing all real flowers except maybe petals for the flower girl if the venue allows real.

Centerpieces will be water vases with twigs/gold tinsel and a floating candle. Just need bouquets and boutonnieres and they both look fun to make.

If you're willing to up in the work for them, ribbon flowers are a good alternative. They do, however take a lot of time and patience, but are generally pretty easy to make. There are a lot of tutorials on youtube on how to make them. Also, coffee filter flowers have the potential to be gorgeous, if made the right way. The nice things about both of these options is that they are relatively inexpensive, and easily customizable. Pinterest has a lot of different coffee filter flower tutorials also. Also, Check your local dollar store for silk flowers and greenery. They come in smaller sections, but sometimes you can find some really great things.

I'm lucky in the fact that my venue does all of the flowers and décor, but my MOH is getting married in October, and I volunteered to make her ribbon flowers for her isle décor/centerpieces as her venue does not include that, which is why I know ribbon flowers take a long time to make. They are relatively easy though.

View Quoted Comment I actually put in some mini roses in my centerpieces, I got them at hobby lobby. They aren’t real touch but I liked them anyway and they were half off so it worked out ok. Here’s a pic

View Quoted Comment Oh very nice. Thank you! I'll stalk Michael's or see if I can find a hobby lobby. I have plenty of time.

If you don’t mind DIY what about grocery store flowers? That’s my plan.

we aren’t doing a lot of flowers in the centerpieces though. I am using the floating candles

If you still want real flowers, how about trying your local grocery store? Some have floral departments that cost a fraction of florists!

View Quoted Comment

I didn't even read this before I hit reply - I didn't mean to copy you

View Quoted Comment Great minds think alike! ❤️

We’re ordering our flowers from Sam’s Club. We tried talking to different florist and the prices was outrageous!! This is the list of thing we’re getting.

View Quoted Comment Good luck!

Try your local grocery store. My friend got her flowers through stop and shop

Do you have your heart set on real flowers? We are renting silk flowers through Something Borrowed Blooms. The arrangements are all created, you pick what you want from each collection, bouquets, boutonnières, centerpieces, aisle markers. They ship them to you a few days before and you ship them right back the day after. Super easy. We spent less than $1000, extra money for honeymoon and no dead flowers.

I'm using Enjoy Flowers and getting real flowers for under $1000. We're keeping decor mostly to their DIY table centerpieces and have bouquets and boutonnieres arrive pre-made. They've been easy to work with and stuck to our budget!

We are renting silk bouquets and a few flower arrangements from Something Borrowed Blooms. I think spending thousands of dollars on real flowers is a terrible waste of money for me personally. I also dont want to keep any of the bouquets after the wedding so they get returned after the wedding. Really pretty flowers. Alternatively, I have seen some really pretty things done with just greenery for table decor.