Florist VS Online Flowers

xx802xx

I first posted this in the Flowers thread, but havn't gotten any bites. I'm wondering if the DYIers can help more

I understand that a florist will pick the very best flowers at there peak to be in your arrangements so that they will look stunning and I will have a florist do my bouquet's and boutonnieres.... However has anyone ordered flowers from an online provider? The exotic flowers I want as part of my centerpieces and decorative pieces can be purchased for much less online and self done but, I don't want to open a box with 1/2 dead flowers that I trusted to an online floral site. Does anyone have advise or pictures of flowers they have ordered from an online company? Bellow are the protea's I want to use as part of my centerpieces. the centerpieces will be sourounded by several 10, 7 and 4 inch pillar candles in pillar vases.

WildMagelet

Lots of brides have reported ordering on-line.  A few that I see frequently pop up that others have used are:

Sam's Club

Costco

fiftyflowers

bloomsbythebox

ll6747

If you have a Costco nearby, you can order thru the florist in the store. You have to get at least 6 bunches total. I picked up baby's breath for the pew bows and several bunches of roses to decorate around the house. You can also custom order the small arrangements they sell. Contact the front desk and they can give you the name and contact number. "Jean" ordered 1.5 the number of bunches I requested so I could pick the ones I thought looked best. She also took us into the refrigerator where they were stored and I could pick anything else out that caught my eye.

blabla89

I haven't ordered exotic flowers before, but I was just reading the Fifty Flowers website (I'm thinking of ordering for my wedding) and it sounds like they have a pretty thorough guarantee to replace your flowers if something is wrong with them.

xx802xx

blabla89 said:

I haven't ordered exotic flowers before, but I was just reading the Fifty Flowers website (I'm thinking of ordering for my wedding) and it sounds like they have a pretty thorough guarantee to replace your flowers if something is wrong with them.

I was looking at fiftyflowers the most. My wedding is still several months away, but If you do order and your wedding is coming up before mine mid summer...Think Of Me and let me know!

theartistformerlyknownas

I used fiftyflowers and was really thrilled with them. You'll need to spend a bit of time prepping them... cutting the stems, and plucking off the few outer layers of petals - these are "guard petals" that are meant to protect the flower, so it's ok if they look a little bruised/broken. You just pluck them off and the ones underneath look great. A florist would do the same thing; it's not like you're sacrificing petals you'd otherwise get.

Just follow their care instructions to a T - even if you think "I shouldn't be getting these 3 days early" TRUST THEM, they know what they're doing.

Most of my pre-wedding pics are on my old phone, but this is how they turned out (albeit not completely focused on the flowers). First one is a close-up of the window boxes in the ceremony arbor my BIL made me out of repurposed doors (the succulents were from Etsy, spray roses and dusty miller were FF). Second is our head table arrangement. Third is the regular tables.

vmj23

I know someone that used fiftyflowers.com without issue.  It was a lot of last minute work to put everything together but the flowers all arrived fresh as expected 

xx802xx

that's wonderful, thank you so much. your flowers looked great!

Knottie74185698

Florist 

badbnagdway

I just have a word of caution on DIY flowers. DIY flowers can save you a lot of money and can look just as good as flowers done by a florist. Think carefully about your wedding weekend though, and the time it will take to put these together. Time goes so quickly in the 24-48 hours before a wedding and it is precious both to you and those close to you. 

I was in a WP where the bride ordered bulk flowers (I think it was 50 flowers, but I don't know for sure). She did all roses and they were not de-thorned. She relied on her female family members to handle putting together all the flowers for the wedding, bouquets, bouts, everything. On the morning of the wedding I ended up helping the bride's mom finish what hadn't gotten done the day before. Many of the ivory roses showed damage easily and did not look great from being handled by inexperienced people. It certainly did not ruin the wedding, but it was unfair of the bride to rely on others to spend many many hours dealing with de-thorning and arranging hundreds of roses. Many of the bouquets were still quite thorny and dangerous to handle as well. 

If you do your own flowers, keep it simple, have a plan, and budget more time than you really need to make them. 

tj&cw

check out globalroses.com

I used them for banquet center pieces this past year and the roses were great. I am using them for the roses for my wedding centerpieces but having a florist do the rest of my flowers

Good Luck