This week Aaron signed the contract and paid the deposit on the wedding flowers! We had an original plan for the flowers. We were going to order them from Sam’s Club. Did you know they have wedding flower packages? The package was in our budget and was just short 1 boutonniere and some baby’s breath for the tables and we figured we could pick that up locally. The more I thought about this plan, and read about what we would have to do one the flowers arrived, I started to stress out. You see, the Sam’s flowers should arrive 2 days before the wedding, be kept in water and have the outside protective petals removed by hand. For us, 2 days before the wedding is Thanksgiving day. Since this is mostly a DIY wedding, we don’t have time for someone to sit around waiting for a delivery and then to care for the flowers. I asked the kids if I could check with a local florist to compare prices. What I found was…we could afford to have a local florist do our flowers for us. This was a huge weight off of my shoulders. While doing my research I learned a few things and I thought I’d share them here with you.
Your Wedding Flower Budget
The average couple spends 8% of their wedding budget on flowers for the ceremony and reception. Let your florist know your budget up front. They want you to be happy and there are many ways of saving money on your flowers, here are my top 5 tips/
1. Choose Flowers in Season
Choosing in season flowers costs less because they are easily available. Not all flowers are available year round due to growing seasons, and if they are available, they will cost a lot more because they will be imported. Here is a chart by Blooms By The Box that lists flowers and their availability by month.
2. Use a small local florist.
This is what we did and we have been so happy with the personalized attention we have received from the floral designer. Our budget is $350 for flowers and we came right to that by using less expensive flowers and only decorating the reception tables with baby’s breath in mason jars. The bride’s bouquet is white hydrangea and white roses, 4 bridesmaid bouquets of white hydrangea, 7 boutonnieres of white roses, 1 white spray rose boutonniere for the ring bearer, 2 white rose wrist corsages, 2 boxes of white rose petals and 6 bunches of baby’s breath. The florist we are using throws in the toss bouquet for free.
3. DIY
Buy flowers in bulk online or from a farmer’s market or local nursery and make your own bouquets…if you dare. There are lots of tutorials online to teach you how to do this.
4. Use Silk
I looked at the silk flowers and bouquets at Hobby Lobby and some were really nice, and a lot less expensive than the real thing.
5. Use elements other than flowers to decorate with.
Flower centerpieces are very pricey. We have opted to use picture frames and mason jars to decorate the tables with instead of flowers. Each table’s centerpiece will cost me about $10 when I am finished making them.
There are lots of other ways to save on flowers too. Just get creative, it’s 2014 the rules have changed. You can have has many or as few flowers at your wedding as you would like.
I loved the idea of the mason jars being used for the table center pieces. To me a mason jar with a tapered candle just slightly shorter than the jar and bow tied just below the outter rim of the jar is breath taking. When our daughter married in the late 1990’s I was so blessed to be able to do the whole reception with flowers from our gardens. I’m not a fancy person at all…but ‘simple’ is beauty to me. I couldn’t decorate without mason jars and candles 🙂
Kay, we will be using LED candles because my mom is on oxygen and can’t be around real candles.
Great job! When I got married, we did get bouquets for me and the girls and a couple big ones, but then did all the other decorations (pew ones, the ones in the reception area) ourselves. Ours was a rather large wedding as our church was bigger and I taught school, so it was not an easy task, but my mom’s friends came and spent a few days way in advance making everything. We had them hanging all over the garage, etc.
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I definitely agree with letting your florist know your budget up front. This way, there can be no misunderstandings and certainly no liberties taken! By keeping the budget up on the air, some florists would take the opportunity to push more expensive blooms and arrangements,so it;s best to set firm boundaries right at the offing. I do suggest getting most of your flowers from yo0ur local farmer’s market, if you are in a super strict budget. At the end of the day, the bouquet is what really counts. So you can get that done by the pros, and everything else can be sourced elsewhere. They’re flowers, after all. They will always be beautiful.