Winter Wedding Bouquet Dilemma

sike2016

My wedding is January 2016 and I'm trying to figure out what I am going to do for flowers. I decided to limit the flower arrangements to the bouquets and boutonnieres and just focusing on one type of flower so that it's really simple because we have a small budget. I liked the idea of making the bouquets myself. Since it's one flower it should be simple enough to make the bouquets. I even found FiftyFlowers.com, an online, wholesale flower company and they have good reviews. Here's the problem: I live in Chicago. Winter here is the real deal and none of the reviews I saw were from a winter wedding in Chicago. I have two questions:

1) Have you ordered from Fifty Flowers in the winter from the Midwest with success?

2) Are you from Chicago and have an idea of where I can get wholesale garden roses in January?

P.S. Sorry for the long post! This is my first time posting to the wedding boards.

AddieCake

I grew up in Peoria, so I'm familiar with your winter problem. I'm no help as far as your actual questions; I just wanted to suggest you also post this on the local Chicago board (links to the right), where you might get more responses. This board is usually pretty low-traffic. 

sike2016

Thank you for the heads up! Since I posted this I have found another florist in my area that is willing to work with my budget. I still have to sit down with her and discuss the details. But thank you! 

klk111415

One thing I was going to say is check out trader joe's.  If you are willing to make your own bouquets you will save a huge amount of money using them.  I checked them out in November and they had lots of fall colored bouquets.  My friend did this for her wedding and the bouquets were beautiful.  Just pick up some filler from a florist or supermarket florist.  All you need is some floral tape, pins, and fabric to wrap around the stems.  Just check out youtube for some DIY videos.  Totally easy!!

klk111415

Just be sure to go to trader joe's in person to talk to someone about ordering extra bouquets the day before your wedding.  They will usually allow you to come in and have first pick for what came in that day.