DIY Flowers & Bulk Ordering

NL12316

Hi guys,

I have seen a lot of great reviews/ideas on DIYing your wedding flowers, but some of the posts are a little old so I wanted to start a new one. I plan on doing the flowers myself. All centerpieces and bridesmaid bouquets will be baby's breath (it is a winter wedding, and I'm not huge on lots of flowers anyways). So of course I am looking to order in bulk from Sam's Club which I have seen great reviews for. I have a few questions for those of you who have done this...

Do they deliver the flowers to your house? Or just to the store, and you have to pick them up? How far in advance should you get the flowers? I was thinking 2 days before the wedding. I am just worried they will be late/something will go wrong with delivery...

I am also thinking of just seeing if a grocery store very close to my house can order them in bulk for me and they can be delivered there. Has anyone ever done this?

Any other tips/suggestions you may have, please share.

Thanks in advance!

labro

I did Costco but I think it's the same process as Sam's Club. You pick a date you want the flowers delivered on (the first time I ordered bulk flowers they delivered exactly on the date selected, the second time, they arrive a day earlier) and they deliver the flowers to whatever address you select. The only thing you want to be sure of is that someone will be available to accept the flowers and get them in water right away. I unpackaged all of my flowers first thing, trimmed the ends, and got them all in vases in the fridge to keep them from opening up too soon and wilting. But I think the most important points are water and a cool dry location.

I think 2 days is pretty safe. You don't want them TOO soon because they'll open up too early, but at the same time, you don't want them too late either in case of delivery issues or flowers not being open. I've never ordered bulk babies breath. I did roses and a variety of other flowers (I think lilies). My experience was the roses opened up first and the lilies were the last to open but everything was pretty much in full bloom the day of the event and looked great! I'm pretty sure I took the flowers out of the fridge very early the morning of (for our 7 pm rehearsal dinner).

julieanne912

I did not do my own, but my aunt did as her gift to me (she's a professional florist in a different state).  We got them from a wholesale place, but I believe they required her resale license.  She placed the order and we picked them up the day before.  We also got to go through the warehouse and swap what we wanted, or add to the order.  She pointed out some flowers that weren't opened up yet so we avoided those, but they would have been good if we were 2 or 3 days out.

Beforehand she suggested that I buy a bunch of buckets from Home Depot so we'd have a place to put the flowers right after buying them, so I would do that ahead of time even if they're delivered to your house.  They're only around $3.00 each.

[Deleted User]

If you're doing baby's breath flowers you've also got a bigger window of life overal,l I think. I am doing BB for my centerpieces and looked into ordering them in bulk before I decided to use a florist. They live longer than other flowers so even if you got them a few days early they are likely to still look great on the wedding day. I thought this was awesome because I would have made my centerpieces a bit earlier than 1-2 days out to avoid just another thing to do in that very busy time.

I did some test bunches at home and my flowers looked the same on nine as they did on day one.

MesmrEwe

Sam's delivers to whatever address you specify the order to be delivered.  As others mentioned - make sure someone is there to get them and something to hold water. I used a storage bin because it was bigger and the sides weren't as tall as a 5-gallon bucket.  Summer is not as big of a deal as winter when it comes to flower temperatures, so as the PP mentioned, make sure someone's there when they arrive and hope to heck they ring the darn doorbell!  (The one time I ordered they'd been sitting there but no one ever rang the doorbell to signal its arrival).. 

If all you're ordering is baby's breath, I'd order in earlier than 2 days ahead and give yourself a little more time since it's one of the few flowers that looks as good two weeks after as the day you got them.  Why make yourself put it to the last second when you can work on them early in the week and give them a chance to fully open.  The times I ordered, the flowers had to be ordered over 10 days ahead of the date you want them delivered.  With Baby's Breath, I'd order for Monday/Tuesday..  Any of their other arrangements, I'd order for Thursday for a Saturday event.

tdessert

I'm doing my own centerpiece's- check out this website.
www.globalrose.com/Roses-Wholesale‎
Fresh flowers and wholesale prices