Flowers, what are u doing? Budget?

christic84 · August 2010

When trying to plan my budget, this is the one thing that gets me. I haven't begun to contact anyone yet about price quotes, because I have no idea what I want.

What are you doing for flowers? All real? All fake? Silk? Mixture of real/fake?

I definately want my bouqet to be real, but I really don't care if the ceremony flowers are silk. I've seen some very beauitful designs.
I havent decided about recepetion flowers yet.

Whats a realistic budget? Whose your florist?

psuffren · August 2010

If your intrested in DIY flowers check out Globalrose.com or Fiftyflowers.com. I prefer real and I plan to DIY my flowers.

kiyamurph · August 2010

I had a whole flower dilemma with my mom because she believed that we could save a ton of money if we used silk flowers instead of real ones. I finally convinced her that silk flowers can actually be more expensive and it's cheaper to go with real ones. The more the silk flower "looks real", the more expensive it is. So my advice to you is to use real flowers to save money.

If you go with flowers that are in season, it tends to be cheaper. When you decide on what flowers you want to have, any florist should be able to tell you if they're going to be in season for your date. If you want to spend a little more money to get the flowers that you really want, don't let a florist tell you that you can't get the flower because it's not in season. To me, that just tells me that they don't have good flower resources. One flower shop told me I couldn't get ranunculus for my bouquet since it'll be out of season in the summer, so I didn't go with her.
It's also cheaper to have more simple centerpieces. You can also buy bulk wholesale flowers and diy to save. I was going to have a flower shop do the bridal party flowers and then buy wholesale flowers to do the centerpieces ourselves, but after doing the math, I would've only saved about $100. To me it wasn't worth it to have to put all of the centerpieces together myself. If you diy, you have to ask yourself several questions, 1) will you have enough help and do you have people who know what they're doing, 2) where will you store the flowers, and 3) is this something you want to do a day or two before the wedding. After you answer those questions, then you can decide to diy or have a professional.

As far as a realistic budget, it all comes down to what you consider to be realistic. What's reasonable for some isn't reasonable to others. For me, I think $2,000 is way too much, but for others that's a good price. I'm going to pay a total of about $1,300, including tax and delivery and setup fees. I'm going with the ladies at Flowers on Springtree Lane. They've been so awesome so far because I'm planning my wedding all the way from Washington state and they've been so patient and understanding of my situation. For the cost of my flowers, I'm getting 6 bouquets (pink roses for the bridesmaids, and white roses, cymbidium orchids, and ranunculus for me), 8 boutonnieres, 2 corsages, cake/toss flowers, petals for the flower girl, 15 centerpieces, and an arrangement for the pergola. My centerpieces are going to be cream/ivory hydrangeas and pink roses and I'm having a mixture of tall and short centerpieces. My wedding's black-tie, so I wanted a simple, sophisticated arrangement.

Most people here on the boards recommend Flowers on Springtree Lane, Flowers on Orchard Lane (they're requiring a $2,000 minimum now for next year's weddings), and Bloomtastic (almost went with them but FOSL beat their price). You might want to search the board archives for recommended florists because there are tons more than come highly recommended.

Good luck with your search! For me, this was the hardest part of my planning since there's so many flower shops, but it was hard mostly due to the distance.

dustalou18 · August 2010

I think budgeting for flowers is difficult too. I am having my wedding at the Franklin Park Conservatory so since I already have that as my backdrop I don't think I need a lot of flowers, so I lowered my budget compared to what might be recommended. I think once you set a budget for yourself you can meet with a few different florists and see what you get for that much money at each of them. FOSL and Manor House are both already booked for my date, so I had to expand my search. Just tonight I had a phone consulation (i'm out of town bride) with Tara from Bella Couture. Although I haven't met with her yet she was already incredibly helpful - asking me a bunch of details and preparing some drawings for our meeting when I'm in town in Sept. She even suggested we meet at FPC so we could visualize everything. So I would say in my search so far she has been great, but I am also meeting with Griffins and probably one more just so I can get a variety of options. Good luck!

alinkchicka · August 2010

I am spending around $1000 for my bouquet, 4 bridesmaids bouquets, 2 bridesmen bouts (I have two male bridesmaids), toss bouquet, 12 bouts for groom, groomsmen, fathers, ring bearer, and officiant, 7 cosages for mothers, grandmothers and guestbook attendant, 2 alter arrangements, flowers for cake, and 10 small centerpieces. I am using Flowers on spring tree lane. I think your budget depends on number of people in your bridal party and how many centerpieces and how large you want them to be. I am using some non flower centerpieces and the 10 flower centerpieces. Which are pretty simple, blue hydrangea with an orange lilie in the middle.

christic84 · August 2010

As of right now, we're having no bridal party. Debating on whether or not to have a flower girl (would love my neice to be in it, but think id rather have no kids at all at wedding/reception) we're looking at only 75 guests as well.
So I wont have any flowers other than mine, grooms and decorations/cake. I really wanted to try and stay around 500-600$ for all this, thats why i thought about including some silk into the centerpieces. I'd rather them be over the top, since i have the wiggle room in my budget.

Thanks for the help everyone!

jdcwedding1 · August 2010

Flowers were not a high priority for me, so I have a very small budget for flowers. If you don't mind DIY flowers, you can check out The Flowerman. I haven't contacted them yet since I have lots of time before the big day, but I talked with them at the bridal show this last weekend and it seems like you get a lot for your money. They have a workshop set up 1-2 days before your wedding where you and your friends/family can come in and make your flowers with their help. Plus they'll refrigerate the flowers for you until the wedding day. I'm not sure how much you're budgeting but as they told me, you can buy a dozen roses for $20 which will make 12 bouts.

finney.28 · August 2010

i went to a bridal show this weekend and a vendor there was advertising she could do all the wedding flowers for $500. I looked into it because I was just curious (Fiance's aunt is a florist so we're set), and it looks like its most of the flowers but not centerpieces. if you wanna check it out, the website was weddingflowersbyeleana.com

no idea if she is good or not, but seems reasonably priced.

Alko726 · August 2010

I used Flowers on Springtree Lane for our May wedding and LOVED our flowers - we really feel like we got the most for our money. Flowers weren't a huge priority for us either, and I think we ended up spending around $800 for everything we needed -- much lower than other quotes we received.

If FOSL is booked, check out Lora Snell with Elegant Touch Events. Her prices weren't too far off and Anita Kline says she's wonderful to work with (a "true perfectionist", which coming from Anita says a lot!)

Best of luck!

Flowers, what are u doing? Budget?

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