Florist vs. DIY

angelsong21

Met with a florist on Tuesday, really liked her, and while I'm sure her prices are reasonable, it's nearly twice what I anticipated on spending to DIY my flowers for our wedding.  I'm curious to see for those who have already had their wedding (or done a trial run of their floral arrangements) whether or not they thought it was worth it to save money and spend the time to DIY or whether it would have been worth it to leave it all up to a florist for a higher cost.

Jen6862

I ran into the same thing, so I'm thinking about having my florist do the personal (bouqets, corsages) and church decorations and then DIY for the reception. Would also be interested to hear what others have done?

bsn1752

Flowers shocked me the most... I got some pretty crazy quotes.  I shopped and shopped and shopped and found the MOST reasonable (and talented) florist that I could.  Check out Expressions of Decor... I highly recommend her.

slong@expressionsofdecor.com

Regarding DIY flowers - yes, it can be cost effective, but you have to have some serious man power (read: helpers) behind you.  Do you have bridesmaids/friends/family that could do it?

carmen9311

I agree with Brianna. Make sure you have lots of people who can help you set everything up if you want to go this route. You do not want to be putting together centerpieces the day you get married!! 

Lots of girls have gone to MarketStreet to get some good deals. I found that a Man and a Woman Floral was cheapest for me. Overall, most florists quoted me about the same based on what I wanted. 

angelsong21

Yes, I have a BM, my aunt, my mom, and my FMIL who could all help with the DIY reception flowers.  I'm a little more nervous about DIY bouquets as I think that probably requires more talent than I have.  Here are pics of what I'm looking at:














Any of this seem reasonable to DIY?  Our venue is Reflections on Spring Creek and they have those blue walls and the formal chandeliers and such, so I'm hoping the "wildflower" type look doesn't look too contrasting.  We are doing the outdoor garden ceremony, indoor reception so I'm just trying to bring that look indoors.

MLandCJ

I'm using a local florist. Growing Ideas in Midlothian. I gave her a budget and she didn't bat an eye. She simpley stated that it was VERY DOABLE for what I'm wanting. In fact, she is even coming up to the store on a Sunday when they are closed to open the shop up to let my parent's pick up the flowers.

I was going to go the DIY route but after looking into everything. I didn't want to have a hassle anyone to help.

Stef&Bobby0612

I agree with PP, if you have the help then DIY would be cost effective. I wanted to DIY my centerpieces and go to a florist for my personal flowers, but I don't feel like I have reliable help to assemble and transport everything, so I booked a florist.

Personally, I think your centerpieces would be pretty easy to DIY, the only thing I would be careful about is the tulips. They are my favorite flower and I do know that if you get them a day or 2 early they will "bend" toward the light source, so you might end up with not-so-straight stems for the centerpieces with them. I think your bouquet inspiration is really cute, but I wouldn't feel like I could replicate that. You might try Market Street, they were very reasonable for personal flowers.

I'm using The Lily Pad florist in McKinney and Kirsten is great! You could check out her as well, if you decide on the florist route.

angelsong21

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_florist-vs-diy?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:102Discussion:e90e7d71-df2b-43d7-8c25-1d4eab417949Post:5048e4ed-106e-490c-9583-ebbb69dfe290">Re: Florist vs. DIY</a>:
[QUOTE] I'm using The Lily Pad florist in McKinney and Kirsten is great! You could check out her as well, if you decide on the florist route.
Posted by Stef&Bobby0612[/QUOTE]

That's who I met with :)  I know her prices are reasonable for what she offers, but it just turns out to be above and beyond what I'm able to do at the time.  I e-mailed her back to see what we might be able to scale back on and such to cut some costs, and hopefully she doesn't mind that. 

fallbride1109

A Knottie from last year, Marissa, took a floral class and DIY'd her flowers and centerpieces.  I think she said yes she saved money, but wasn't sure she'd do it again.  (Her MIL bought her bouquet however.)

I did a mockup with tulips and I'm glad I did because they drooped all over the place and I was very unhappy so I nixed them.  They can be very unpredictable.  However, I thought Bobbieleigh's looked nice.

Flowers were important to me so I budgeted for them.  There was no way I wanted to be assembling flowers on my wedding day.  Maybe you could use a florist for your personal flowers and DIY your centerpieces--centerpieces are what drive the cost up and this might be a good compromise.

ldawg14

For my sister's wedding in January, we DIY'd her flowers through Sam's Club.  I will also be doing the same in July for my own wedding.  The first reason is to save money - my sister was quoted almost $2,500 for everything she needed - we did it for $600 ourselves.  Plus we kept all the vases and supplies for my own wedding.  Couple of things to keep in mind:

1 - Take a flower class (The Flower Market in Ft Worth), they will help you learn how to assemble & care for your flowers.  It's $40 and you get to keep your creations.  Learn about bouquets, bouts, corsages, centerpieces, etc.  They will even store your flowers if you go through them

2 - For a Saturday wedding, your flowers will come in on Wednesday.  The first 24 hours is just to hydrate and let your flowers rest.  Assemble bouquets & centerpieces Thursday night.  You will need about 2-3 people to help.  Corsages/bouts can be done Thursday, but we did first thing Friday AM.

3 - Transportation, make sure you arrange who will drop off and pick up.

4 - Crowning glory.  This stuff works wonders!

If you go through Sam's club, they were awesome but had a more limited selection of flowers.  I will probably go through fiftyflowers.com

Good luck!  It is a lot of work, but it will save you so much money.  Florists charge you for the labor.  We did pay for my sister's bouquet and they charged $85 at Market Street.  The bouquets we made looked better and were about $15.

rcpm44

Like ldawg, I got my flowers from Sam's Club. I got 700 white roses for $530. We did 20 centerpieces and made several vases to put on the bars and the fountains that were at the venue.

For a Saturday wedding if you're going to DIY you really need to have your flowers come in on Wednesday so they can hydrate. Wednesday, not Thursday, not Tuesday, but Wednesday. We didn't really do anything with the roses from Sam's again until Friday. It was me and 4 other ladies who worked on cutting and placing the flowers in the vases. It took the 5 of us to cut and arrange 700 white roses about 3 hours.

For the ceremony flowers I had Tom Thumb do them for me. She did 2 bridal bouquets, 5 bouquets, 4 bouts, and 4 corsages for $440ish.

I had a TON of flowers that were beautiful for less than $1000. Everyone complimented them. I thought it was worth it and I would do it again. Just make sure that you have enough help!

Good luck!

juliebug1997

I was a Market Street girl and all my flowers were $1100 and that included delivery.  I had my bouquet, MOH's bouquet, a throwing bouquet, seven corsages, eight bouts, two altar arrangements, flowers for my cake, and my centerpieces.  I bought the vases myself.

angelsong21

Thank you guys so much for your input!  There are a lot of things you have brought up that I wouldn't have thought about, like the tulips bending and when it's best to order them.  Our wedding will be on a Friday evening so I'm guessing I need to pick them up on Tuesday afternoon to let them hydrate?  I'm thinking of using the big floral wholesaler in Ft. Worth but I haven't made the trip out there to check out their prices yet, so that's still pretty tentative.  I think $1,000 is reasonable for what you get and the delivery, which is what Kirsten at Lily Pad quoted me, but it's just not in our budget. She's going to work on cutting back some things to see if that helps;  if not, I may DIY the centerpieces and have her just do the bouquets and the bouts.

Thanks again!  Any more ideas or tips you have, I'd LOVE to hear them!

fallbride1109

Your bridal/wedding party flowers are probably going to run several hundred dollars alone from any florist.  You most likely need to think about non-floral centerpiece alternatives or DIYing everything and going the route Idawg suggested.  You need to be realistic because the flowers are going to cost something, no matter where you order them from. 

professorscience

Your florist really should be willing to work with you.  I am NOT a DIY girl, so I am going through a pro.  I am also not a flower girl, so flowers are not terribly important to me.  We got an initial quote that was over $2000, and I told them that wasn't going to fly.  So they (and my coordinator) made some changes and got the cost down to something I'm more comfortable with.

Have you considered decorating the tables with something other than flowers?  We are going with floral decorations on half our tables, and following our board game/wearenerds theme on the other half.  My coordinator is doing those, and she'll have a few flowers, but the vendor is giving those to her for free since she brings them so much business.

AmberMarieTX

I am BIG TIME a DIY girl, and I ended up wussing out on DIYing flowers. I am going with a pro and will likely spend around 1000-1200 for all of my flowers for the whole wedding (4 bouquets, 12 bouts, 15 arrangements).. That's a guess based on her original quote just for the bouquets and bouts. This will be a huge splurge for me, and it took a while for me to get comfortable with the idea of paying that much for something that will die (even though I absolutely love love love flowers, I usually prefer the kind that are planted in the ground!).

TexanTreasure08

$1,000 for flowers is pretty good actually. I wish I could get my quotes down to that, all of mine are over $1,800.

fallbride1109

Amber I am glad you are doing that!  I hated the thought of you trying to buy your flowers on your wedding day and trying to put it all together.  You won't regret it.

I spent around $2300 but I feel like I got alot for that--I had 13 centerpieces (including a bigger one for my head table), a guest book arrangement, 3 bouquets, 4 corsages, 7 bouts, cake flowers, a buffet arrangement and I used roses and lillies which are expensive.  All my arrangements were very full.  To me, it was worth it but like I said, flowers were important to me.  Hopefully this will give Angelsong an idea of what she should expect.

professorscience

One other thing my coordinator pointed out: if you do professional for the bouquets and bouttenieres, but DIY (or some other, cheaper vendor) for the arrangements, chances are your flowers won't match.  I don't think that would bother me.  In fact, I don't even remember the bouquets from the last wedding I attended (and didn't remember them as soon as I stepped out of the chapel).  But I know that would bug some people.

angelsong21

Right -- I know the flowers will definitely have a cost, I just didn't necessary want to spend $1,000 for the theme I'm going with.  I thought her prices were perfectly reasonable, but I think there may be a way to get the cost down to a slightly lower price by adding in more greenery into the centerpieces and not doing centerpieces at every single table.  I'm thinking half floral centerpieces and the other half with candles with some flowers (no stems) just propped up against the glass.  I really have NO idea yet -- just trying to start getting estimates and going from there.  I would LOVE to have a florist do it all for us, but I'm just not sure it will be an option.   My aunt is an interior decorating and she's great at arranging flowers,  so at least if I have to DIY she has offered to help me with that aspect.

Thanks everyone!

almoyo

Check out my bio for my experience with DIY flowers. My experience was good, but very time consuming. The problem I see with what you are wanting is the variety of flowers. I almost think you need to be willing to stick to as few varieties as possible and make it heavy on the roses since they are so hardy and easy to work with. I want to say that I spent less than $500 on flowers, so it was VERY affordable. That being said, I could tell that it wasn't professionally done, but my reception was so much fun that it really didn't matter.

angelsong21

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_florist-vs-diy?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:102Discussion:e90e7d71-df2b-43d7-8c25-1d4eab417949Post:263e54c9-7dce-47c0-aed4-581dcf9aa7cd">Re: Florist vs. DIY</a>:
[QUOTE]Check out my bio for my experience with DIY flowers. My experience was good, but very time consuming. The problem I see with what you are wanting is the variety of flowers. I almost think you need to be willing to stick to as few varieties as possible and make it heavy on the roses since they are so hardy and easy to work with. I want to say that I spent less than $500 on flowers, so it was VERY affordable. That being said, I could tell that it wasn't professionally done, but my reception was so much fun that it really didn't matter.
Posted by almoyo[/QUOTE]


Thanks!  As far as the flowers go, those pictures were just my inspirations -- either color or concept, so I don't plan on using a large variety of flowers. It definitely helps to stick to the hardier varities as you were saying.  I can imagine DIY takes a lot of time, and it won't have the same effect as a florist, but I'm like you-- I really don't think  its going to be something peope will notice and comment about.  My reception I want to do will still be elegant but in a simple elegance sort of way with somewhat of a handpicked vintage look.  Thanks for your comment!

professorscience

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_florist-vs-diy?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:102Discussion:e90e7d71-df2b-43d7-8c25-1d4eab417949Post:11e5aa6d-a3c6-4e7a-8b21-2813a74a31d5">Re: Florist vs. DIY</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Florist vs. DIY : Thanks!  As far as the flowers go, those pictures were just my inspirations -- either color or concept, so I don't plan on using a large variety of flowers. It definitely helps to stick to the hardier varities as you were saying.  I can imagine DIY takes a lot of time, and it won't have the same effect as a florist, but I'm like you-- I really don't think  its going to be something peope will notice and comment about.  <strong>My reception I want to do will still be elegant but in a simple elegance sort of way with somewhat of a handpicked vintage look. </strong> Thanks for your comment!
Posted by angelsong21[/QUOTE]

<div>Then I think your DIY look will actually fit quite well.  Since you are over a year out, you could start collecting old glassware to hold your flowers.  A friend of mine and his wife did that for their wedding -- they found old bottles along riverbeds and just put one or two flowers in each one and it was really beautiful.</div>