DIY flowers

Kirstenl

Hello ladies! I already asked the DIY board, but I also wanted to hear from ladies in KY.  I have a question for all the brides out there who did theyre own flowers/are going to do them. I plan on using mason jars and vintage cookie boxes and such. My wedding is Sept 17th 2011, I want to use wildflowers (not a fall wedding). My question for you all is, where should I buy the flowers? how hard is it going to be? and how far in advance should I prep the flowers? I dont know know what I need to do before hand for them to look their best on the wedding day. Thank you!!!

squirrly

I'm not sure about where to get wildflowers, but regular flowers there are a bunch of good internet bulk floral sellers - fiftyflowers.com, rosesource.com, etc.  I can't remember them all right now.  Their websites will tell you how to care for the flowers once you receive them and when to plan on doing your arranging.  It usually involves a cool dark room for storage and working on things the night before. 

How many tables will you be doing arrangements for?  Are you going to do bouquets and bouts and any other floral decor too? 

I seriously considered it, but I knew I wouldn't have the time the night before to work on them, and I did want to get at least SOME sleep. 

TideTravel (posts mostly on SnarkyBrides) did her own flowers and had great results.  I think she has a lot of info in her bio on it too, but I'm sure if you page her and ask, she'd be happy to help.  I *think* she mostly posts during the day, but I'm not certain. 

tidetravel

Squirrly paged me

We DIYed our flowers, and loved how they turned out.  Pics are in wedding bio, as are some DIY flower hints.

www.tidetravel.weebly.com

since I somehow managed to take the link out of my siggy. 

If you want a variety of flowers, consider ordering "centerpieces" from www.fiftyflowers.com (rosesource used to carry them, but they don't anymore).  We ordered roses and an order of the centerpieces, seperated the flowers once they arrived, and then put together our own bouquets.  Make sure that you check the specifications of the arrangements.  Some specify that the bouquets are made with certain flowers, while others are a "grab bag" of flowers in a certain color that are in stock at the time of shipping

Here is an example:  http://www.fiftyflowers.com/product/Party-Centerpieces-Purple-and-Blue-Flowers_23648.htm

If you do go that route, I suggest that you seperate the individual types of flowers into their own buckets, so that you can control the rate at which they open (all flowers are shipped closed) by moving them into/out of airconditioning or by adding ice to the water to slow the rate at which they open.  There's more info in my wedding bio. 

GL and page me on SB if you have anymore questions.

tidetravel

One other thing to remember about ordering DIY flowers online is that in the event that something happens with their flower supply, they reserve the right to substitute flowers, usually with flowers in your color scheme.  This happened to my friend who ordered the above bouquet, but a storm wiped out the flower farms, so they called her and sent her purple roses instead.  Just be flexible.

inkygirl

We did our own flowers.  I did green button mums and baby's breath plus we used some Queen Anne's Lace as filler.  I ordered my bulk flowers from Jill at J. Elizabeth Designs.  I've also ordered bulk flowers through Nanz and Kraft and Kroger.  We picked up the flowers on Thursday and kept them in one of the trashcans from the hotel until we started working with them.  Then we put them in 5 gallon buckets my folks had brought down.  You can easily do these 2-3 days ahead of your wedding.  Just have a good pair of clippers and an idea of what you want it to look like.  And Jill is able to give lots of great direction too....how much of what to order, how to best handle them, what's in season, what's a better price for the same look, etc.  Tell her that Emily sent you! 

amymandbrian0

Depending on where you are, you might be able to make a deal with some of the venders at the local farmers market.  I had a friend who did very similar DIY at her wedding with wild flowers.  She just went to the farmers market a few weeks before and asked the venders if she could come out to their farms and pick up some flowers.  She only paid about $200 and had 2-3 vases of beautiful wild flowers on every table.

Danielle8778

 The reason i'm writing today is because im looking for brides to see if they want to sell some of their decor, centerpices, mason jars, vintage pieces, china,  and so on after the wedding. That is If it adds to my theme.

That being said if you want to sell some of your stuff after your wedding please be in touch? Just click on to my name and read my post if you feel like you have some stuff that will add to my theme please respond on my post.