DIY flowers

[So_happy]

Okay, to avoid a very long post, let me just summarize by saying....We had a florist (for 2 months now) but now we don''t

And this florist was bartering with my FI for equal value services so the only cost to us was going to be FI''s cost to design the product under barter.....about $500. Basically, for that $500 we were going to get $2k worth of flowers so I was plan plan planning away! But now we don''t have that option and since we have now budgeted for $500, we''ve only got that much for flowers, period.

Any advice from those who did thier own wedding flowers? Best type of flower(s) to work with? What NOT to do? Can it be done for $500 or under? Any good websites to visit for info on doing this? Where do you recommend I buy the flowers and supplies?

Thank you for any help!!!

 

[sparkel]

Hi So Happy,

I have worked in a flower shop for a long time so here goes. I don''t normally reccomend that somebody do their own flowers as they are something that is done at the last minute therefore generating a lot of stress in the final time before the wedding. In addition many people lack experience which would help them in such a task. That being said I would look into having things like corsages and boutoniers done professionally as they are the hardest thing to do. Under NO circumstances would I suggest that you do those yourself.

In terms of a floral budget though $500.00 could still get you something from a florist. It definately won''t look like your 2k original budget. But what you can do yourself based on the time constraints doing your flowers last minute in addition to all the other last minute wedding stuff won''t look like 2k either. A good florist will be able to work within your budget.so I would look seriously check into it.

If you decide to do your own bouquets I would suggest doing simple hand tied bouquets of a single type of flower. Stay away from hydrangeas for absolute sure. They cannot stand being out of water like in a handtied bouquet. Roses are classic and fairly easy to work with (I gave some suggestions about this in a post to sarie_j). Here''s the link https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/south-american-flowers.56323/

Hopefully some of that is helpful I''m not trying to pimp the florist route it''s just that I hate to see people struggling with things like that right before their wedding. You know yourself how creative you are and what your talent level is. The most important floral pieces are goign to be your bouquet and your FI''s boutonier as they are goign to be center stage.

Keep us posted and I''ll chime in with any more advice I can give. If you decide to DIY make sure you do a test run.

Rebecca

 

[mercoledi]

Fifty flowers sells flowers wholesale (you guessed it, in bunches of 50) for really reasonable prices. Several people on another board have ordered their flowers there and then done the arraingements themselves or had friends/attendents help out. It depends on just how crafty you are and if you''re talking about bouquets and bout''s or full on arraingments. A friend of mine bought flowers on ebay and had her sister do the centerpeices. They were simple but very lovely. I think it can be done, just shop around and enlist help!

Good luck!

 

[NYCsparkle]

I had real flowers for church, bouquets, and groomsmen---at the reception i went to a craft store and bought autumn wreaths, hurricane vases and candles----put the wreath on the table, the hurricanes in the middle and they were beautiful.....people loved the fact that they could re-use them year after year---i had 3 people call me that i hadn''t spoken to in awhile to tell me they hung their wreaths on the door in oct. and thought of our wedding

...the best part was they were on sale 1/2 off....i bought extra off the silk flowers and vines at the craft store too to fill in empty spaces.....it cost me $250. my florist was going to do the same thing w/real flowers for $2,000.

 

[So_happy]

What do you think of mini callas for bouquets (they don't have thorns, and I've read that they are hardy and all I'd have to do is tie a pretty ribbon around them and I don't need so many to make a nice statement), hydrangeas for centerpieces (I've seen these in some wedding books I have and they are simply plopped into a pretty short and open vase...I could add pretty sparklies on them some how but if they need constant water then they'd have it being centerpieces and all...), and gladiolas for taller type arrangments (again...saw this in another book and it looked lovely, they come in all sorts of colors, and look very elegant alone in a decorate vase).

What about that type of thing, Sparkel? Will that look funny with 3 diff types of flowers? Are those flowers easy to deal with? Would it be as easy as it looks? Basically, I'm looking for flowers that don't need alot of primping to look lovely. Because, you so very right, I don't need the stress........heck....I'm stressing NOW as it is lol.

THank you!!!!!

 

[Tali]

If you have the time, you can totally do the flowers yourself. Get a book or two from the library to learn how to do them yourself, or whomever you trustfully designate the task to.

My DH, a dear friend and I did all the flowers including all table arrangements, buttoneires (sp?), corsages and all of the bridal party''s bouquets. We also had a kermit mum studded ring holder that we left on the altar. (no ring bearer)

We planned ahead, did some dry runs with grocery store flowers. all the flowers were delivered or picked up on Wed/Th for our Sat wedding. Our wedding was in May, and our climate temperate so we didn''t have to deal with wilt from dry heat. Flowers included tulips (table arrangements), roses and small calla''s for the bridal party and some calla with baby''s breath and greenery for DH and the groomsmen. Other flowers were artemesia and (much to my chagrin, but DH likes them) carnations. We researched what flowers would be a) in season and b) hold up in bouquets. We also used red dogwood branches and curly willow for our outdoor wedding.

I think it''s doable, but the time is a factor. The week of our wedding, DH and I only worked 1/2 days M-W or Th (can''t remember now) then off the rest of the week for prep, family, etc. It worked out great.

If you have the time, it''s totally doable. Not just the prep time, but the research time. We loved doing it though!

Good luck!

 

[labbielove]

I don''t know where you are in the country (prices vary by region) but I''ve been quoted ranges for our (what i thought was) simple flower needs from 1,500 down to 800 depending on the florist.

My point is you can get florist flowers for $500 although as someone said it won''t be your original 2K look.

Ways I can offer to save (that florists recommended to me) go with in-season flowers as much as possible,
Double check what you are using in the church- maybe make ceremony decor double duty for reception decor on buffet tables,etc.

If you wanted pew decorations, try going every few pews versus every one, there are even flower-less alternatives that are simple and elegant. Our florist is going to take the pew decorations over to reception site afterwards and use them somehow (take flowers out and use on cake table,etc.)
Centerpieces are the big one. We are opting for all candle centerpieces over mirrors (rented from florist for $1 each), hurricane centerpieces purchased at AC Moore for $2.50. We will either scatter rose petals or leaves around the mirror.

With all that said, I know there are beautiful online diy places if you are so inclined, but as another poster said, be careful with hydrangeas. I really wanted them, but 2 florists (who were just being honest) said they do look beautiful but may not hold up as well over time. Since we want to use bm bouquets at reception (cake table, head table, etc.) we opted against them.

Some good diy sites I''ve read of here and on the knot are : freshroses.com, costco, even sams club,
there are many others as well if you search. good luck!

 

[sparkel]

Hi so happy,

Ok so here is my take. I think that the callas can be a good idea especially as the mini callas. You could do something real simple and wrap it in a satin bow. Also if you have a vase on site that is tall enough to hold your bouquet you can use your bouquet to decorate a side table or as a centerpiece at your table if you are having a sweetheart table. I attached one pic with larger callas (white) that has some bear grass that you could loop into your bouquet to make it interesting. I also attached a second pic (fushia and white callas) to show the way that you need to twist the callas to make the points go in diffent directions. You can either layer the callas so that they have a tiered effect or you can do them flatter and rounder so it is more of a posy style bouquet. In order to attach the satin ribbon you can actually put a few (very short) pearl pins at the back through the stems to hold the ribbon in place (or you could sew the ribbon in place). When you store the callas in water you want very little water in the vase or the stems go mushy. Also when you do your bouquet make sure to cut the stems to a resonable length. Often DIY flowers the stems are much too long so take a good look at it.

As for table arrangments I really don't like the hydrangea idea. It is just really upredictable and withought the proper knives to trim stems etc and floral food etc on hand I don't reccomend it, not saying it couldnt work and be georgeous. I think however that maybe cymbidium orchids could be georgeous and beyond easy to do. (I am attaching a pic) You could do the cymbid orchid in a cube vase (and a matching taller cube vase no pic sorry for you wedding bouquet to sit in). Put a few nice river stones in the bottom a few nice votives on the table and a very simple and elegant centerpiece. You simply cut the cymbid off the stem and put them into the cube vase. Cut them from the bottom of the stem (cymbids come many to a stem) and this way if you have left overs you could put the cymbid in a taller vase and maybe put on the signing table or something.

I think white glads are an excellent choice, they are inexpensive and pack some major punch. You just need to find a vase tall enough to accomodate them and then all you have to do it arrange them a little bit. Another good option is to do a pair of matching boston ferns in nice urns. They have a very plush feel to them without the arrangment hassle.

Hope that gives you some ideas and I will attach all the promised pics in the next couple posts, (can't seem to attach mutiple pics).

Rebecca

ETA: In this picture i don't like how long the stems are but it is a style that you can have, i'm partial to shorter stems as I feel they are easier to hold.

 

[sparkel]

..

 

[sparkel]

This could work with this round bowl i just like a squared vase better it is edgier and has a more hip feel

 

[sparkel]

This is how the cymbids grow and like i said cut off each individual one from the bottom and you could then put the leftover in a taller vase with some interesting leaves.

 

[So_happy]

Sparkel~

Wow, thank you for your fantasticly detailed response

I had never heard of cymbids but they ARE beauties. My wedding is the end of August so I was trying to find flowers that fit the season and do well with heat etc. Cymbids are August-friendly then? Also, we are having a cocktail reception in lieu of a sit-down meal so for centerpieces to look nice on high bistro tables, I wanted short and stubby designs.....so I love the cymbid bloom in a small bowl look alot Althou I think hydrangeas would give a very full look.......I''ll have to look up ways to deal with them correctly and see if I''m willing to do that. We will have a few low tables as well, but even those will be medium sized and it would be nice to only do one type of center piece for all.

 

[sparkel]

So happy,

Can't really help myself I get carried away with my responses on flowers. Cymbids are a very august friendly flower so they would be perfect. Now that I know your hydrangeas are going to be for August it makes me more worried. I think that you should go to your local florist and buy a stem of hydrangea and just leave it out of water so that you can see what it looks like when it fails.

Another very easy to deal with option would be gerbera daisies. They come in MANY colours and they can be done very simply. You could do them low and clustered in a vase ( I think three would be a nice number, odd numbers are easier to work with when working with fewer flowers). The only thing that you need to do with gerbs is to make sure that when you hydrate them (put them in water when they arrive) make sure to recut the stems as you would with any flower and then make sure that the stems are standing up straight or they can hydrate in a curved manner. Gerbs would work well in hot weather as well. You could also do the same idea as the cymbid cube/ bowl if you cut one of these very short for your smaller tables.

I was wondering what you decided to do for the corsages and bouts? I think that you can likely handle the bouquets etc but those I honestly do not suggest that you do yourself. It takes a lot of practice to have them done nicely so that all the floral tape doesn't show. It would not cost that much extra to hire those out to a florist. They could even do the mini callas that you were talking about to match your bouquet.

Hope all this is helping. Keep us posted.

Rebecca

 

[So_happy]

Thank you to everyone who responded!!!

Sparkel~ Your flower expertise is welcome...anytime you want to get carried away...by all means lol.......

I was actually considering hiring a professional to do the bouts and corsages because they do look more involved to me. I have to see how much they''ll quote me for that though. The clothing for the guys may very well be non-tux and non-suit in nature so we may be able to do away with the whole idea of bouts all together (I''m thinking white linen shirs and khaki pants right now and my sweetie loooooooves this idea soooooooooo much lol) . I wonder what else I could do as an alt to corsages for moms etc.. I bet there are other ideas that I could find once I look around Who knows.....

Hydrangeas are picky, huh? Okay.....I won''t go buy one to see how dried up the poor thing gets lol. I''ll take your word on it

I started out wanting the whole wedding in Gerberas But that was until I found a website that lets me order 80 mini callas in bunches of 10 in any diff colors I want With the Gerberas...at least what I found....you could only get farmer''s choice colors or one entire bunch of one color. Plus, Gerberas say "friendly and happy" while mini callas say "elegant and classy"......which are both lovely things to say but totally different moods, yanno? If I had callas for bouquets and then gerberas for centerpieces, that would clash I think.

My BMs are wearing Victorian Lilac (smoky purple color...not pastel) and my colors are Lilac with peach (lite pink if I HAVE to) and ivory/cream compliments and silver/platinum accents. That color scheme to me just sounds more calla lily to me. But I''d have to see some peach and cream Gerberas to be sure I guess lol.

So, what do you think, Sparkel? What are you doing for your wedding? (It can never hurt to ask a florist what she is doing for her own wedding, can it?? lol)

 

[Officers girl]

Wow those are some awesome ideas!! Thanks from me girls

 

[akw94]

Thanks from me too! I have no helpful advice (sorry!) but also thinking of doing my own flowers. I love the idea of taking a class or probably just getting a good book and trying things out. The cymbids are beautiful and would look gorgeous as a centerpiece flower! I also think the calla lillies are very pretty and seem easy enough to put together.
Good luck!

 

[sparkel]

Date: 1/23/2007 10:53:23 AM
Author: So_happy
Thank you to everyone who responded!!!

Sparkel~ Your flower expertise is welcome...anytime you want to get carried away...by all means lol.......

I was actually considering hiring a professional to do the bouts and corsages because they do look more involved to me. I have to see how much they''ll quote me for that though. The clothing for the guys may very well be non-tux and non-suit in nature so we may be able to do away with the whole idea of bouts all together (I''m thinking white linen shirs and khaki pants right now and my sweetie loooooooves this idea soooooooooo much lol) . I wonder what else I could do as an alt to corsages for moms etc.. I bet there are other ideas that I could find once I look around Who knows.....

Hydrangeas are picky, huh? Okay.....I won''t go buy one to see how dried up the poor thing gets lol. I''ll take your word on it

I started out wanting the whole wedding in Gerberas But that was until I found a website that lets me order 80 mini callas in bunches of 10 in any diff colors I want With the Gerberas...at least what I found....you could only get farmer''s choice colors or one entire bunch of one color. Plus, Gerberas say ''friendly and happy'' while mini callas say ''elegant and classy''......which are both lovely things to say but totally different moods, yanno? If I had callas for bouquets and then gerberas for centerpieces, that would clash I think.

My BMs are wearing Victorian Lilac (smoky purple color...not pastel) and my colors are Lilac with peach (lite pink if I HAVE to) and ivory/cream compliments and silver/platinum accents. That color scheme to me just sounds more calla lily to me. But I''d have to see some peach and cream Gerberas to be sure I guess lol.

So, what do you think, Sparkel? What are you doing for your wedding? (It can never hurt to ask a florist what she is doing for her own wedding, can it?? lol)

Ok no i totally agree that gerbs are not the way to go. You could do some really simple calla lily arrangments on the tables if they were mini callas and they were low enough. Maybe five in a vase? I do think though that the cymbid idea could be neat too. I am attaching a pic that shows another way to use cymbids as an accent and use a piece of greenery for drama (the greens could even be artificial some of them are really convincing). I think that roses clustered low like the gerb pic i showed you could be neat and it would have that elegant look that you are going for. You could do monocromatic arrangements that alternate so one table has the lilac roses and another the peach. I just like the look of the monocromatic but you could mix it up too. That would be pretty affordable and easy to do as well. (see sarie_j''s thread for care advice I posted it before) Just cluster them together and put them in the vase.

For my own wedding (which is not in the near future not even engaged yet lol) I will do calla lilies and cymbid orchids. I want to be married in the fall so I would do orange/yellow deep purple kind of colours for my bouquet with some cymbid green orchids wired into the bouquet (as their stems are not long enough). Complementary bouts. For table centerpieces is where I get a little lost.... I could see doing the cube vase idea that i showed you. But to be honest I don''t necessarily know there are just toooo many great flowers out there.

But maybe that gives you some more to think about. I would love it if the hydrangea was more reliable b/c that would look so amazing. OOOOH i know what could be really neat if you wanted to do all white flowers for your table arrangments. Dendrobium orchids. They come in the fushia colour like this picture but they also come in white. You could maybe work in your colours by doing linens or table overlays. You can make table overlays yourself out of a sheer fabric (can be done very cheaply). Do maybe three dendros in a vase done!

K that''s all I''ve got for now.

Rebecca

 

[sparkel]

I just wanted to say these may come in other colours other than white and fushia but I have just never seen them.

Rebecca

 

[hopefulheidi]

I''ve been thinking a lot about flowers as well and I''m both budget conscious and afraid of being disappointed with my flowers on the day of the wedding. Most of the artificial flowers I purchased this past fall look alright, but I think they could be more realistic. I was on here yesterday looking up flower recommendations and I came across this link from
Selkie:

http://www.simplyclassiccreations.com/3/gallery.htm (mentioned in this thread: https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/foam-rose-bouquets-anyone.56695/)

I really like the idea of having a professionally designed bouquet of realistic faux flowers because it''s obviously affordable but there will also be no surprises on the big day and no need for me or my friends/family to rush around hand tying our own bouquets and arranging our own displays. The flowers will also last for years to come.

I''m sure you''ll work something out. The smaller the budget, the more creative you need to be but it can still be beautiful (at least that''s what I''m telling myself hehe)

~Heidi

 

[njc]

I just wanted to jump in and say that I used hydrangeas throughout my wedding which was in August in Virginia (read: hot and humid). We had hand tied bouquets and bouts professionally made and then did the centerpieces Friday afternoon before the wedding ourselves. I have mentioned this before on here defending hydrangeas, but every keeps telling me I''m crazy, but whatever, it worked for me. We had absolutely NO problems... out of all the flowers we had, I think I saw one small bunch wilt. My florist didnt think i was crazy either. We started with pictures about 1pm and finished up the reception around midnight, so it was a long day for the flowers. Anyways...

Here are our centerpieces, nice and simple. Filled the vases with water, trimmed the stems with a pair of scissors and placed them on the table. They sat for 24 hours just like that. We got the hydrangeas from a grocery florist and we had all sorts of colors... blue, white, purple, pink, etc. I experiemented with how to handle the stems... no matter what i did, they lasted several days.

Bridal party...

Bout at the reception after many hours of being out of water and who knows how many hugs since it was my brother!

And the cake... flowers were taken to the cake maker (a friends mother) Friday afternoon and decorated the day of around noon. This pic was taken probably around 6pm?

I suppose the one that worked for us was everything was inside and well air conditioned, although everything did a good bit of traveling in the heat. I think having the bouquets and bouts professionally made helped them survive, but I wouldnt hesitate to do the centerpieces again.

 

[sparkel]

Ok so to respond to that post about hand tied hydrangea bouquets. I think for an arrangment they can work you just need to be VERY careful, they have to be in an airconditioned venue etc etc. As for your bouquets I am shocked that they stood up. I would NEVER NEVER NEVER reccomend that somebody did hydrangea hand tied (in a holder professionally done yes). All I can say is that you got very lucky because I have personally seen handtied bouquets that looked like crap, to the point that the photographer had to retouch the pics.

Rebecca

ETA: your flowers came out lovely, nice job

 

[So_happy]

I really liked your wedding flowers with the hydrangeas! I didn't think I'd like them so much, to be honest, but when you're on a budget and really really really want to try your best to get a professional to do the work for you, they do make a powerful colorful prescence

Sparkel~ How many mini callas, in your professional opinion, do you think it would take to make a medium sized bridal bouquet? I don't like huge boquets but I don't want teeny either. A florist I spoke with said she'd need at least 30 minis to make a proper sized one but I have a feeling (could be wrong) that she likes the bride to carry a large display. I'm wondering because I didn't think minis were really THAT mini??

Whatcha think?

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE!! Great comments, advice all around

 

[sparkel]

so happy,

I think to be honest that thirty is not that unresonable. By the time that you arrange them inot a bouquet they will fit pretty tightly together so that could be pretty resonable. Also you want to make sure that you have a few extra in case they get bruised etc. so going for thirty would be resonable as it could give you a few spare. Mini''s are pretty small compared to reg sized callas. Maybe head to a flower shop and just check them out so that you can see what exactly u''re talking about.

Cheers,
Rebecca