To those who DIY your own flowers

NathanandJordan

Where did you store them?  We are buying all our flowers from Sam's (bouquets, centerpieces, aisle decor, etc).  I know they need to be kept chilled/ in water, but I am uncertain about how to go about this. We don't have a refrigerator to keep them in.  I was thinking of putting ice in a cooler and standing my bouquets in a vase with water.  Is this a good idea?  Any advice ladies? TIA

sarathirza

When we did the flowers for my step-sister's wedding, we just kept them in 5 gallon buckets with water, and kept the AC running really low.  I don't know if you'd want to actually store them in ice water - that may keep them from opening? Also, if you put anything in the fridge (bouts, corsages, etc after they're done) make sure you don't have any fruit in your fridge.  The florist warned us about this - the weirdest stuff can cause your flowers to wilt and discolor. 

This links you to rose care, but seems to apply for many flowers. HTH!

http://www.jrroses.com/weddingflowers5.html

Jen6862

If you get them the day before and they are stored in an air-conditioned room I should think you should be fine. Especially if they aren't fully opened yet.

You can also clean out your fridge to store the personal flowers. I've also heard not to store them with food.

-Jen

angelsong21

Ditto PP that storing them in ice water is probably not a good idea and would prevent them from opening.  Some of the places that ship to you tell you to put them cool water up until they are ready to be used or if they need to be used right away, put them in lukewarm water to open them up.  That's what I've read, that's not from personal experience.

NathanandJordan

I am more that likely going to have to pick them up on thursday, which is two days before my wedding so I actually don't want them opening up too much before saturday.  Thank you for your input ladies!  I will definitely take your advice into account

sarathirza

Just so you know - we picked up the flowers on Wednesday and still had some that hadn't opened by Saturday evening (not a lot, but a few) and we kept them in the buckets with the ac low.  A Sam's employee might be able to offer some insight as to when you can expect to see the flowers open based on how long they've been cut,etc? Hope it all works out for you!

marksle84

my grandparents are retired florists and doing all my flowers. When we did my sisters wedding they filled the hotel bathtub (because it was a DW) with ice and placed buckets of cold water in it to keep them at the right tempature. We will be using large ice chests and doing the same thing for my wedding.

NathanandJordan

marksle- thats about what i was planning on doing.

rcpm44

Ok, this is going to be long so hold on.

We DIY our flowers and we bought them from Sam's. We ordered 700 white Ecuadorian flowers online. We did online but even if you ordered them at the store and had them delivered to the store when you picked them up they would still be packaged for delievery. By having the flowers delivered to my MIL's house just saved us a trip to Sam's. Our wedding was at 7:30 on Saturday evening on October 2. All the time and season details are important in relation to the flowers.

I wanted big open flowers for our evening wedding. So I had my flowers delivered on Wednesday. Now, when you order online from Sam's they say if you live in the city you get them at "X" time and if you live in the burbs you get them at a "Y" time. They are very accurate when it comes to time of delivery! This is what they look like when they are delivered.



For our 700 stems I think we got 5 boxes (maybe it was 7 - I don't remember). We unpacked them and this is what they looked like. If you notice they are very tight. Some were closed more and some were open more, but most of them were like this:



On Wednesday the only thing we did was get them unpacked and put in water. The directions and research (I did a TON of research) said to keep them in the cardboard so that the while the flower is hydrating the stem will straighten up. Until Thursday this is what all our flowers look like:


 
and...



We left them on the counters Wednesday day and through the evening into Thursday. On Thursday morning we got to cutting the stems. This is when we cut the stems underwater (VERY important that you cut under water) and put them in clean TEPID water with plant food (which was provided by Sam's).

This took awhile and once we were finished we put the buckets of flowers in the bathroom with the lights off. This is what they looked like:



Again, all the research we found said not to put the flowers in cold water or ice or the fridge. If we did that then we would be "stunting" the flowers. We wanted big open blooms and had we put them in the cold climate they would have stayed buds. The bathroom was dark and "cool" not cold like a fridge or ice.

We left the flowers in the bathroom Thursday night until Friday around 11 we started cutting the stems and placing them in the vases. It's important not to handle the flowers too much or touch the petals. The oils in our hands will turn the petals brown; espically if you use white flowers. We kept them in vases on the counters Friday night until Saturday afternoon until the wedding planner came and picked up the arrangements.

The flowers were big and beautiful for our wedding on Saturday night. They weren't browning and the arrangements lasted for about a week after the wedding.

This is what they looked like at the end of the wedding:



and...



If you notice they are open and full with no browning!

I know this is a lot of information so if you have any questions let me know. Hope this helps!

NathanandJordan

wow! That is extremely helpful!  So I guess instead of worrying about keeping them cold I should just start collecting buckets to put water in!  Thank you so much!  I am confident now that my flowers will hold and look great thanks to you!

rcpm44

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_those-diy-own-flowers?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:102Discussion:014d796c-ee04-47c2-a1be-08c66a8dd42fPost:dd998b0c-d33a-4011-8943-9331fb35c8b5">Re: To those who DIY your own flowers</a>:
[QUOTE]<strong>I am more that likely going to have to pick them up on thursday, which is two days before my wedding so I actually don't want them opening up too much before saturday.</strong>  Thank you for your input ladies!  I will definitely take your advice into account
Posted by NathanandJordan[/QUOTE]

Just know that if you pick the flowers up on Thursday you'll have to let them hydrate (at least 4 hours) and cut the bottom of the stems. You'll need to work rather quickly. You're basically doing two days of work in one day - not ideal.  This is a lot of work. Will you have people to help you? How many flowers are you ordering?

Also, you saw what my flowers looked like and we got them on Wednesday. If you don't want them that full then Thursday will be fine, but if you want them as big as mine were you'll want to have them delivered/picked up on Wednesday.

Just out of curiosity why are you picking them up instead of having them delivered? I ask because like I said with delivery you get the flowers early (around 8am) I don't know about times in the store. Again, if you're going to do all this on Thursday you'll want all the time you can get and Sam's doesn't even open until 10am. Something to think about.

About the buckets. Like I said we had 700 roses and I think we used somewhere around 15 buckets and that was almost not enough. You can get them at Lowe's for about $5. I'm sure Home Depot has them too.

Sorry it's long...again! Having done this I just have a lot to say.

Oh, we used gardening gloves. They saved our hands from the thorns. I still have them and will sell them to you dirt cheap if you want! <img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif" border="0" alt="Wink" title="Wink" />

NathanandJordan

I am picking them up bc I live in Lubbock and don't want them delivered here and have to cart them on the 4 hour drive to dallas.  I am using hydrangea mostly and ordered 120 stems and I ordered a little over 100 roses.  Not many so I don't think it will be to hard to work with.  I also have lots of help.  (Five BMS, FMIL, mom, and FMIL's sister). 

rcpm44

That makes sense not wanting to tote the flowers around. It sounds like you'll be fine! Good luck!

Jay&Marissa

I did what RCPM did--the flowers opened more quickly than I anticipated too!

jennthia

Thank you for all of this information. I am ordering hydrangeas, orange roses and orchids from Sam's. I am extremely concerned because I have read bad reviews about the hydrangeas. My wedding is Saturday, June 29 and I'm planning on having them delivered on Wednesday to start working on them Thursday afternoon to make into arrangements. We are leaving for the hotel in downtown Fort Worth Friday afternoon.