Real flowers or artificial?

We considered artificial, but went with real because my MIL insisted 😆 We figured it wasn't a big deal since she was paying for them. Plus it was a spring wedding so everything was in season. Fake flowers can be really beautiful too, though. You can do sola wood, but it's a lot of DIY to color them, so you have to decide if the extra time is worth it. There are also beautiful silk flowers you can rent or buy.

View Quoted Comment That's awesome.


We are thinking about going with artificial ones.
Doing sun flowers in a mason jar along with little pebbles for the bottom. And we got these cool wooden slices that the Mason Jar can sit on. Well at least thats the plan 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

It’s really just a matter of personal preference.
We are doing real flowers for a few reasons:
1) I looked at fake flowers and they just didn’t have the same color & vibrancy that natural flowers do, and I could tell the difference in photos.2) natural flowers smell amazing and I love the idea of walking into our ceremony and reception space and being able to smell all those beautiful flowers3) I have absolutely no skill at making bouquets, so tiring a florist is just so much easier

View Quoted Comment That absolutely true!!

It’s all personal preference. We decided against artificial flowers for a number of reasons: they are not biodegradable and they collect dust. They are either low quality for the inexpensive ones or very expensive to look realistic with no middle ground.


We decided to go to fresh flowers. You can’t beat the smell and texture, plus they are biodegradable so they won’t be sitting in a landfill for eternity. Also unless you are wanting something exotic and out of season, fresh are less expensive than artificial. There are many DIY options for fresh flowers if you choose to forgo the florist. A wholesale florist in a major city, fiftyflowers.com or your local Costco. Even a grocery store florist can arrange something inexpensively that is comparable to the local wedding florists.
Many people have pollen allergies so flowers hand picked from the garden are not an option. But from a florist, there is no allergy trigger. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for artificial which trap dust and that is an equally common allergy.

View Quoted Comment That's a good point.


Thanks for the tip.

We did fresh flowers mostly because I'm a sentimental fool and if I could save my flowers, they'd sit around and collect dust for eternity, lol. My bouquet died after a week or so, and I threw it away.


Saved my husband's boutonniere, though, because it dried pretty decently

Artificial

i was at a craft store randomly for other stuff and i saw already made fake bouquets for sooooo cheap so that just set the stone for me going with artificial

We did both. We used real flowers for our bouquets (mine is currently being preserved), corsages, boutonnières, and reception centerpieces, and artificial flowers from Ling’s Moment for everything else - signage, pews, alter, flower girl petals, small cocktail table centerpieces, guest book and favors table, wedding cake, and head table (oversized pieces in front of the table and behind us with drapes). We went this direction primarily due to our ceremony location - 1860s church - having a lot of decor restrictions to prevent damage. But, once I started buying them for the church, I quickly realized I could use some of these items at other events - bridal shower and bridal luncheon. I could also keep a few items, and resell the rest (I was able to resell all the artificial flowers within about 2 days on a reselling site!).

We're doing real flowers because neither FH or I have the time or skill to DIY artificial bouquets, centerpieces, or anything else lol. I do have a silk arrangement in my office, and even though I'm pretty sure the colors aren't found anywhere in nature, everyone has thought they were real. So you can definitely do nice-looking artificial arrangements if you have the ability!

I must admit that for me, nothing matches gorgeous fresh flowers. But I also understand people going with silk if they have the skills, the advantage is that you can control what it looks like on the day!

I completely lucked out with my florist. I wanted a cascading orchids bouquet and several florists told me it wasn't technically possible. I asked my hotel florist expecting to get a completely unreasonable quote but she was unfazed and gave me the best price. I had never seen any of her work, and when it arrived on the day is was completely bowled over at how gorgeous and lush it was, way better than this inspiration picture.

For all the other flowers, we raided the supermarkets and set up our own arch / decorations the day before, which saved us loads and made sure we got what we wanted. It was also a lot of fun putting everything together and a bonding time with husband / family.

I know many brides have not been that lucky and are disappointed with their bouquets, and I've seen instances where brides have had dry / wilted flowers, ones they didn't ask for or bouquets far less substantial than what they asked for.

View Quoted Comment That's awesome.
I definitely thinking about artificial flowers.

View Quoted Comment Also if you are going the DIY route for fresh flowers, which no more difficult than with artificial, there are countless tutorials online, including fiftyflowers.com

Fake. My bouquet, the bridal party flowers and all of our decor will be fake flowers. They’re all wood. I decided I’m going to buy them pre-made (although that’s expensive). I’m only making the centerpieces myself with wood flowers. But honestly it’s way cheaper than hiring a wedding florist


This will be my bouquet just with different color flowers than this pic
This is what I’m buying for my girls
Boutonniere

And then these for the arch. I’m buying the corner arch piece and the side arch piece and together it’ll cost me $340

We're doing a combo. The base of all of our centerpieces are artificial wreaths that are being warped to be less circular, and then fresh greens and flowers are being filtered in, with a few artificial flowers being used to help with fullness. There will be lots of fresh to be able to get the lovely scent of fresh flowers and greens, but to help with costs (we're having a medium wedding at only 100 people, but more tables with less people per table) some artificial is being used. Bouquets and boutonnières are all going to be fresh.

Having the centerpieces have a base of artificial is also a huge cost saver for us. Because we got engaged a year before our wedding date, my florist (my Mother) was able to get all of the wreaths we needed (about 20 of them) in the after Christmas sales. Both fresh and artificial have their pluses and minuses, its really all about what works for you both for your vision and your budget!

We'll be doing All real flowers mostly grass and Tulips I love the smell of fresh cut grass.
Plus our wedding is in April,so it makes prefect sense.

View Quoted Comment That sounds a amazing

We used both because I used the artificial flowers from the venue for the reception table with candles but I also bought real flowers for the ceremony and transferred them to the reception room as well. For the real flowers my bridal party decorated the head table with their bouquets and the flowers from the ceremony were used to decorate around the head table.

View Quoted Comment Thats a cute idea

View Quoted Comment Thanks. You can do so many things with both. It’s about how you want to incorporate it in your wedding and the look that you are going for.