so just some thoughts if you are considering doing DIY flowers. okay so i know next to nothing about flowers. i know what i like and what i don't but that's about it. i did not want to spend much on flowers. my original budget was $350. and i found a very reputable florist that one of my friend's had used that said she will work with my budget. fantastic! she suggested gerbera daisies, as they are large so i can use less flowers. as well she could rent the vases to me. and she suggested doing floating flowers to keep costs low.
but then my FMIL comes along who used to be a part time florist about 20 years ago. she offered to do my flowers and said she said if we DIY then we could spend about $200 on flowers and we would get way more. so i thought great. it's a generous offer and i'm not that particular. well tastes have changed from that time and when she did a trial run on her own to show me i absolutely hated everything about it. she used carnations and ferns and stuff i don't like. it looked like something out of a nursing home. so i learned that i had to be way more involved with this flower thing then i ever wanted to be. backing out now and getting a florist to take over was out of the question. if i suggested that it would've hurt her feelings big time. so i had to buy flowers i liked and arranged it in a vase to show her what i wanted. she said that gerbera daisies were not good to use for some reason. and she insisted on using floral foam for the arrangements and not floating flowers because she said they would be easier to arrange. so fine. i am not anywhere near being a florist so i just picked hydrangeas because they are so big and easy to arrange and roses as accents. this was very stressful because i have no clue if it looks good and she cannot judge because we have such different taste. and well she is very hyper and i am laid back so our personalities really clashed. so fine whatever i have centerpieces that we both agreed to.
though because of timing we realized that she does not have time to do the bouquets and boutonnieres. as well i did not have the time, creative ability or patience to physically make a sample of what i wanted for these things. because if she did it on her own i know i would've hated it. so she agreed with hesitation that i have a florist do it and she just handle the centerpieces and some arrangements for the church. so i called the original florist i was going to use and due to the fact we're now using more expensive flowers the cost of the bouquets and bouts are $350. from researching the area i found that her pricing for what i needed was more then reasonable. then i order the centerpiece flowers from a local supermarket and it is $350. so my grand total for flowers that i didn't even care about is $700 where my original budget was $350. and on top of that there's the price of vases which costs over $50.
doing DIY not only did not save me money but also caused me a massive amount of stress dealing with the different tastes of my FMIL and having to deal with vendors and buying vases because i have no clue what i'm doing when it comes to flowers. in retrospect i should've gone with my original florist who has modern tastes and knows what flowers are inexpensive and how to work with a budget. don't get me wrong i really appreciative that my FMIL offered to do this and i've always liked her and got along with her. but i think we were both in over our heads and could've avoided a lot of stress. just some thoughts if you are considering doing this.