Flowers On a Budget, diy or not?

A lot of people go through costco or sams club for real flowers! their packages are cheap. or cheaper than a florist would be

I would look at a grocery store like Melle suggested. To have a traditional florist design your flowers, they are going to be expensive. If you aren't a crafty person, I definitely wouldn't recommend diying your flowers.

Yes it’s worth it to do diy. I actually think the florist quote you got was low. Pp had good suggestions. I made mine from real touch roses from hobby lobby.

I agree with Melle, if you don’t have specific flowers in mind and more of a color or seasonal theme in mind, Sams and Costco have excellent wedding packages but they come from what flowers they have available in stock. You wouldn’t be able to get a mock up or really know the end result until it ships to you. Or you could get bulk stems for the centerpieces in some dollar store vases and just purchase the bouquet/boutonnière package already done for you. Also keep in mind, if you order through them be sure to have them shipped a couple days beforehand (they tell you this) so the flowers will open up. You would have to figure out someone in your party to take charge of bringing all the flowers and setting them up for you. That is part of why the high cost from traditional florists - setup and delivery.

Also, fiftyflowers has wedding packages that were reasonable. I didn’t use them, but I think everything comes preassembled.

First, ask that same vendor what they can do for your budget of $300. They may be able to still give you a bouquet, bout, and centerpieces, just scaled down. If not, then I think it's pretty safe to say you won't find another local vendor who can provide those pieces within your budget and you are better off going the DIY route. Especially since you said flowers weren't a priority overall, it makes sense to save money and DIY something simple.

I actually don't think $600 is that high for what your order consists of, depending how big your centerpieces are. I am DIYing my flowers and for my bouquet and 7 bridesmaid bouquets, I am budgeting about $200-$250 including ribbon, flower tape, pins, etc. with the flowers coming from Trader Joe's. Given that your $600 includes the labor and transportation, that seems like a pretty fair price.

I just posted this in another thread but our centerpieces are going to be a pineapple sitting atop a wooden disk, flanked by artfully placed Spanish moss. Assuming my dad and fiance can cut and sand the disks, as they've said they can, our only cost should be the pineapple - so about $3 per table.

If I were you, I'd find a non-floral, inexpensive centerpiece I liked and hire the florist to do the bouquet and boutonniere.

Dudeee fiftyflowers.com!!!! Seriously check it out! I was going to go through Sam’s or Costco’s but this website is amazing. This is my bouquet and it came with a matching boutonnière. It is coming in already prearranged and with instructions on how to put them in water. It’s seriously a no brainer though they tell you exactly how to do everything. We ordered so much floral from them! The wedding prices for floral where I live are extremely high and I was being quoted like 6 to 8 grand for floral. Keep in mind this florist we’re doing a minimum of six grand so they wouldn’t even talk to me LOL. I set my budget for 1500 and we got insane amounts of floral for 1400. And I mean insane amounts. You could easily have your whole wedding for less than a grand. For example I got 10 prearranged centerpieces for under 200 bucks.

I ended up DIYing my centerpieces only because most of the flowers were given to me from my cousin. Otherwise, I would’ve gone to Kroger Floral which was like $25 for a low centerpiece.

It is about $600 for my bouquet, 2 BM bouquets, and 2 flower bouquets for our mothers! The estimate you got that is not that bad but is a little over your $300 budget. I am DIYing my centerpieces and ordering offline which will save me some money but my florals will still be upwards of at least $900. You can also consider non-floral centerpieces as well.

Honestly, $600 for everything you mentioned is an amazing deal and quite a steal! If it's too much for you, then I'd suggest getting a bunch of quotes from different florists and seeing what they come up with. Or, go back to this florist, say "what can you do for the amount of XYZ" and see what they say.

Look at silk flowers! They are artificial but you literally can’t tell if you get someone who knows what they are doing and it’s so much cheaper!

Floral prices depend largely on where you are located and what is in season.

Get price quotes from other florists and places like fiftyflowers.com which people say is amazing for what you get. DIY doesn't work for everyone since you have to factor in time spent as well.

Also most men don't have that much input on wedding details so can you compromise on centerpieces with a small simple arrangement for the tables?

I DIYed my flowers.


Couple notes: you don’t need to know a darn thing about flowers to put them together! I ordered my through FiftyFlowers.com and they walked me through everything I needed to know re care and timing. Listen to their advice follow it seriously, and it is nice hand holding!
Next: TIME is the biggest con. It takes a lot of time to DIY flowers— have to trim them, ha w to let them sit to open up, and putting them together is a process. I did mine all “myself” but needed hands to help— I probably wouldn’t have been able to complete some of the things without a second pair of hands even just to hold things for me while I wrapped bouquets/etc.
It also made a big mess (stems everywhere) and took up a lot of space . I took over my parents’ basement with my flower project , and lucky for me— that’s where I was getting married! SO I never once had to consider how to get my assembled flowers to the venue! That would’ve been a project .
I did super simple centerpieces (painted bottles, and stuck a couple flowers in them), so it was floral while also still being simple and easy to DIY. But they were also very minimalist, not like a traditional floral centerpiece.

My brother in law did leaf garland centerpieces from Costco and my sister had a bouquet for their wedding. I wanted a special arrangement so we went through HEB, so it was way more expensive.
If you want to put in the work, I’ve seen a lot of people go through fifty flowers and silk.
People also used bouquets from bridal party as centerpieces after ceremony to save some money.

We used Budget Bride, which are fake flowers. The bouquets looked super real, you can get them with or without scent (one of the reasons we went fake was allergies, so we went without), and we got enough for a 16 person BP/family and more tables than we needed (so like... 16 tables' worth) for less than $500.

Highly recommend!