budget wedding-DIY flower bouquets

[akenneson]

My DSister is getting married this summer We are so excited and have been in full planning mode for awhile. We are definitely looking to save money where we can and thought about doing DIY bouquets and boutonnieres. Have any of you done this? Any advice? We would still like to use real flowers.
TIA

 

[Bren's Mom]

It's risky! It will take some time, time that most people aren't going to have the morning of the wedding. You could do them the day before, but you'll have to find fridge space for all of them. You also have to be able to buy flowers in bulk inexpensively, not at full retail. And it's not as easy as it looks, so unless you have a florist friend to guide you you'll need to buy flowers in advance and do some practicing.

I'd try pricing out flowers at a local grocery store. Or a smaller flower shop. Keep the bride's bouquet on the smaller side, make the other 'bouquets' just single stems of lillies or roses with a ribbon tied around, use a less expensive flower for the guys.

 

[hffmnheidi]

call up the local craft stores and florists-some of them may offer free classes

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

I know you want to stay with real flowers, but fake ones are a lot less expensive, sometimes end up looking better because they won't wilt or turn brown, and can be kept forever. I bought some on Ebay for my wedding. For a hundred dollars, I for bouquets for me and my bridesmaids, several decorative bouquets, and plenty of boutineers, and a throw away bouquet in my color sceme. They look great in the pics and I kept my bouquet in a vase in my living room for several years.

 

[Handbag Lady]

We did this for a friend of ours. She just went the day before the wedding to the flower mart downtown and bought bunches of wildflowers.

The ladies at the wedding were invited to use the flowers to make an aisle for the bride and groom, and those crafty-inclined were asked to make bouquets.

They were all gorgeous. We just used golden-brown ribbon and tied whatever looked good together, with the biggest one going to the bride.

 

[RooRach0906]

I did this for my wedding with my two sisters and cousins help. We made all the bouqets, boutineers, and the flowers for the parents. I still had flower left over that I put on the cake, and on the tables at the reception. I found a flower company in my area that sold the flowers in bulk, contacted the right person by email, he called back and helped me so much. We did get the Roses for my bouqet and dh boutineer at stranges because we only needed 4 of them. All of my flower (over 250) cost me less than $120. They were carnations because that is my favorite flower. I got ideas at craft stores, they have books of how to put the boquets in such together. We did them the day before and stored the flowers in the fridge at the church.

I did buy mine from a wholesaler with no business liscense or anything. Just flat out told the guy I wanted them for my wedding.
Here is a pic of a pic of my bouqet:

 

[lisabarr]

These folks are wholesalers and will deliver right to your door. we used them and they rock!

http://www.bridesnblooms.com/

 

[castmemberb4]

secure them well! Especially the heavy flowers.
My SiL made all of the bouquets for her wedding, they were pretty but when the Bride & Groom were outside having pictures done the white roses were falling out of hers.

 

[Shleedogg]

I thought about doing this for my wedding in 2006, but ultimately decided that I didn't need the stress since I was diying so much else. It was something that would have to be done on my wedding day or the day before and we had a lot on our plate.

http://www.freshroses.com/index.html - is the website I had planned on using. They had a ton of good reviews from brides on theknot.com. The prices were good too, not sure how they compare now.

We ended up getting our flowers from Wegmans (local grocery chain). We went to the biggest local store and they had a full flower dept with real florists and lots of designs and ideas. We ended up paying about $1200 for my bouquet, 9 bms, 2 pomander balls, 3 bouts for fathers (DH didn't want them), cake flowers and centerpieces for 21 tables.

I bet you could order the flowers wholesale from your grocery store and then put them together yourself. They get great discounts when ordering.

 

[angwill]

I did all the flowers for my brother and SIL's wedding with their teen daughters help. We chose beautiful silk flowers and ribbons and the bouquets were beautiful. The morning of the wedding we picked up real rose petals from a florist and put them in a basket we put a matching ribbon on. Everyone loved them, they were very inexpensive compared to real flowers that die and get thrown away, and their daughter got to feel like she was a big part of the wedding. You can do it.

 

[Molly Meow]

I have no advice on actually arranging flowers, but I saw someone had mentioned storing their flowers in the church's refrigerator the night before their ceremony.

If you do this, please make sure you check out the refrigerator! My flowers were put in the venue's refrigerator (wedding in the middle of nowhere, no local florist, florist was an hour away and would not deliver so had to pick them up the day before) and they froze overnight! They were not salvageable. My mother-in-law ended up sending someone to the local grocery store (only option!) to pick up a replacement bouquet. Spend several hundred $$$ and all of it went to waste since the venue's refrigerator was too cold. Completely our fault - the contract made it clear that they were not responsible for any items stored there.

Oh, wait! I did just remember what we did for flowers for the alter. My mother-in-law had wanted to redo her yard, so she bought some potted plants and such to plant, and we put tissue paper around them. She just planted them the next day! Let me see if I can dig up a picture...

Sorry, the pic is dark. Ignore my weird DH and his weird brothers. You can see what they did with the plants.

Good luck whatever you do!

 

[java]

Hey look at this one

http://www.marthastewartweddings.co...ts?lpgStart=1&currentslide=3&currentChapter=1

Nothing fancy but I like the simplicity of it all. You could use a different flower for summer. But I love the simple ribbon holding it all together.

Happy planning.

 

[SoonerSarah]

I did all of the flowers for my wedding. A friend of my Mom's did home decorating as a hobby and she had a "bow maker" as well, so I did all of those too. I wish I had made the bouquet a little differently, but I was pleased with it. I bought mine from Michaels using 40% off total cost coupons. This was almost 11 years ago, but they were roses and I got a lot of compliments on them.

 

[DisneyScraps]

Don't go with fake, nothing says cheap like fake flowers.

I would look around for someone that works out of their house. Try Criagsilst.

Doing it yourself is cheaper but list others said it get to be kind of hectic the day of the wedding.

Do you maybe have a crafty relative that could do that? Michaels has the basic supplies, use coupons and buy the supplies as they go on sale. From there if you can find a cheap source of flowers it's really not that hard to make the pieces you need it just takes a lot of time.

You might be able to find a wholesaler. Do you know anyone with their own business, some floral wholesalers are ok with that. For my ex MILs birthday I went to a floral wholesaler, I had a scrapbook business, they said just give them a copy of my business license. From there I got 100 red roses for 30.00. the were raw, meaning they needed a lot of TLC to take off the outside petals, fix the stems etc. I also went to the Salvation Army and bought every vase they had. We put the roses all over her apartment as a surprise. The whole thing cost me around 60.00 which is about what a Florist would charge for one dozen.

I got creative and was able to give her a wow surprise.

You can figure out something creative if you just think out of the box.

Lisa

 

[indimom]

Don't go with fake, nothing says cheap like fake flowers.
I would look around for someone that works out of their house. Try Criagsilst.

Doing it yourself is cheaper but list others said it get to be kind of hectic the day of the wedding.

Do you maybe have a crafty relative that could do that? Michaels has the basic supplies, use coupons and buy the supplies as they go on sale. From there if you can find a cheap source of flowers it's really not that hard to make the pieces you need it just takes a lot of time.

You might be able to find a wholesaler. Do you know anyone with their own business, some floral wholesalers are ok with that. For my ex MILs birthday I went to a floral wholesaler, I had a scrapbook business, they said just give them a copy of my business license. From there I got 100 red roses for 30.00. the were raw, meaning they needed a lot of TLC to take off the outside petals, fix the stems etc. I also went to the Salvation Army and bought every vase they had. We put the roses all over her apartment as a surprise. The whole thing cost me around 60.00 which is about what a Florist would charge for one dozen.

I got creative and was able to give her a wow surprise.

You can figure out something creative if you just think out of the box.

Lisa

But, hey, I loved my cheap flowers!

OP, sounds like you've gotten lots of great advice. Good Luck. I really enjoyed creating our own arrangements.

 

[pixiewings71]

DD22 is engaged, she's planning to do her own flowers. She has worked for florists before and she knows what she's doing with them. It's going to save her quite a bit of $$ to do them herself. It probably won't be too easy to include it with everything else we will be doing, but we will do it.

My BF got married last summer, she used fake. I still have my bouquet, it's in my wine cabinet in a nice vase. They don't look fresh but they don't look bad either.

OP it can be done, but it might take some work and planning.

 

[akenneson]

Thanks everyone for all the ideas/advice. We are just looking into doing the bouquets and boutonnieres. We are not using flowers in the centerpieces. I am hoping to try making a small bouquet way ahead of time just to see what we come up with, time, and money involved.
We went to ACMoore the other day to look around and get some ideas and I wasn't impressed by the flowers they had there, but I have seen some arrangements that have been done with fake flowers and they can look really good. I am hoping that what we want to do ourselves we can affordably do real flowers.
Thanks again everone!

 

[princessmom29]

We did all the floral work for both mIne and my sister's weddings, and got lots of compliments on the flowers. We stuck to simple roses. A dozen for each bridesmaid and 2 dozen for the bride, packed into a round bundle with leatherleaf backing. If you wire each one individually and tape them you can manipulate positioning very easily. We wrapped the stems in ribbon. Bouteiners were a snap, and We did similar nosegays with a half dozen for the mothers, and did the church in glads, roses, fern leaves, and several different fillers. It really wasn't that hard. We ordered the bulk flowers from a local florist and did the arranging Friday morining before the rrehersal dinners. We left th earrangments out in the air conditioned church for the roses to open, and put everything elsein the fridge overnight. One person was designated to check everything an remove loose petals, do touch ups ect before the ceremony. We also used fresh flowers on my cake between layers. We did it on less than $300 for my sister's wedding 2 years ago.

 

[sarah4770]

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[QVCshopper]

Just want to throw this out there. I found out that a local food store (Acme) had a florist who did wedding bouquets at a fraction of the cost of a florist. We met with her, talked about schemes, etc. Anyway, she did an amazing job and it was cheap!!! We had her do the bouquets and boutonnieres. A friend of my MIL made two big white baskets from her flowers from garden for the altar, and we put potted pansies in white baskets for the centerpieces. Everything looked really beautiful (and didn't cost that much)! Good luck!