Weddings are a beautiful and memorable time filled with delicate and romantic details. It is also a known fact that weddings can be overwhelming, and expensive. According to The Knot, the national average cost of a wedding is $32,641, with $2,300 of that spent on flowers. If you are up for a DIY project, and looking to save a little cash, doing your own flower arrangements is the perfect solution. The task may seem daunting if you don’t consider yourself to be especially crafty, but it can actually be a very simple experience!
Don’t be frantic come your special day (or the days and weeks leading up), and follow our DIY wedding flower advice:
1. Order from The Bouqs Co.
You knew this was coming! This is the official Bouqs.com blog, after all. But listen to us; our bulk flowers and wedding packages are priced lower than other wholesale distributors and we offer free shipping. Our farms already fill individual deliveries. Therefore, we are able to process smaller and more varied orders. In our experience, most brides do not need 1,000 white roses, the minimum order size at some places!
We offer a variety of different packages in our wedding collectiona>, with prices ranging from $499 – $899 – way below the national average of $2,300!
2. Know what colors and styles you like
Don’t start thinking about flowers until after you have decided on the color theme, location, and time of year. When it is time to tackle flowers, look for inspiration photos. That’s right, get on Pinterest, make you “wedding flowers” board and get those ideas flowing.
3. K.I.S.(Keep it simple)
Stick with 2-3 types of flowers and one accent. Ordering a wide variety of flowers is a common mistake. Your arrangements will end up looking meek if you do not have sturdy and consistent flowers. Sticking with two hardy, full bloom types, one delicate variety, and one accent will be plenty for achieving an effortlessly chic style. For example, roses and hydrangeas make for perfect main flowers, ranunculus fill in to add extra elegance, and gypsophilia or eucalptus finish arrangements off with natural abundance.
4. Enlist design and assembly help
Invite your wedding party to a flower arranging event the day before your nuptials to help assemble the bouquets. Or if you don’t trust them, (productivity does sometimes diminish after a few blushing bride cocktails…) another option is to hire a freelance florist. Most designers can be hired at around $20-$30 an hour. Save yourself the stress, and still save money–by purchasing flowers at wholesale, you will still come up under budget, even with the florist fairy godmother there to pitch in.
Roses, Garden Roses, and Eucalyptus elements
5. Buy floral materials in advance
The last thing you will want is to send your future father-in-law on multiple trips to Home Depot and the local craft store the day of your wedding. Make sure that you carefully purchase everything you might need in advance. This will mean buckets for the flowers, flower trimmers, de-thorners, floral tape, pins, vases, and any decorative materials that your heart desires.
6. Give the flowers some time
Our flowers come straight from the farm, meaning they will still be in bud form, and in need of a little bloom-time. Certain varieties, like ranunculus and lisianthus may even arrive looking listless. Don’t panic! The flowers simply need to be trimmed, then place aside in water for a little R&R after their journey from the farm. We suggest having your flowers arrive three days before the ‘big day.’ This way the flowers will be perfectly bloomed for all those photos.
7. Plan for storage
First, you cared for the flowers with water and a trim stem, now they will need to be stored somewhere clean and safe in order for them to properly bloom. It’s likely that the venue will not allow you to keep the flowers around in advance, meaning you will need to think of the best alternate location for storage. This does not need to be a refrigerated environment, but it should be a relatively cool place (room temperature or slightly lower is usually fine) that gets some natural light. Utility buckets, which can be purchased at any hardware store, are great for keep the flowers hydrated en masse, even after they are in bouquet form.
8. Arrange transportation
Think about how the flowers are going to make it from where they were assembled to where they will be installed. If that means you dust off your old red wagon and haul them on foot, then by all means, go for it. Just think about the point A to point B journey. Many people arrange the flowers at their home the day before the wedding, but moving fragile bouquets and vases filled with water is not always simple. Plan it out. You will thank us later!
9. Don’t try to control the flowers
It may not be possible to manipulate the flowers to look exactly like your inspiration pictures. Each flower is unique. Stems curves, leaf placement, and bloom diameter will vary. Try to go off a general mood and theme. From there, allow yourself and the flowers to relax and just be where they want to be. Instead of trying to bend a stem in to place, try relocating it to another spot in the arrangement, where it can effortlessly fall in to place. Remember, that flowers are natural objects, so let go, let flow, and enjoy them for the beautiful products of the earth that they are!
10. Enjoy!
This is the most important tip of all. Follow these simple suggestions, and the result will be lovely flowers for your special day, that also saved you a pretty penny. And remember, at the end of the day, what really matters is that you have found someone special to share your life with, and everything else is just in celebration of that very fact.
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