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For our wedding in October 2015, we were supposed to work with this wedding florist who came highly recommended. However, not only did it take several months for her to return with a quote, she exceeded our $1,000 budget and gave us a quote of ~$4,600! The most expensive item in the quote was my bridal bouquet which cost $225! We were shocked and angry. It was two months before our wedding and we then had to work with her to adjust our budget, find someone else, or do it ourselves. After taking a few days to talk about it with my then-fiance, we cancelled our contract with the florists, checked out other vendors, and eventually decided to DIY most of our wedding flowers. Our total cost: ~$700.00.
We first figured out what flowers we needed for our wedding and how much we needed: my bouquet (1); bridesmaids’ bouquets (8); boutonnieres for groomsmen, ring bearer, minister, dads, and sponsors (22); church flower arrangements (2); reception centerpieces (50), leis for the moms (3); flower girl flowers (3); and a paper flower wall.
Since we had zero experience in flower arrangements, we thought that we couldn’t handle making the church centerpieces so we decided to outsource these to a local flower shop that didn’t specialize in weddings. We gave them a budget of $75 per vase and ordered two. We talked to them about the shape, flowers, and colors we wanted but we mainly left it up to them since we had a limited budget. We also ordered three white ginger leis from them at ~$8 per lei. Unfortunately, the church centerpieces did not turn out so well. They were very small and were drooping before the ceremony even began. Moreover, they woke me up a few hours before the wedding asking how I wanted the vases to look like. Grrr! I wished we did ourselves knowing my husband’s new talent in floral arrangement.
I then thought it could save us a bunch of money if we used satin flowers for the boutonnieres. I bought these beautiful and real-looking white and pink satin roses on etsy for a few dollars and some gold pins on Amazon which I attached together using a glue gun to make white boutonnieres for our sponsors and pink boutonnieres for the groomsmen, ringbearer, dads, and the minister. It cost ~$2 per boutonniere and took an hour at most to complete all 22 boutonnieres on my own.
For the rest of the flowers, we bought several bouquets of roses, carnations, and baby’s breath from Safeway and arranged them ourselves. A week or so after the wedding florist fiasco, my husband, a few bridesmaids, and I did a practice run for the centerpieces and bouquets by buying some flowers we liked and trying to put it together. It didn’t turn out too well but we learned which ones we liked and how we thought we could arrange them for the wedding. My husband and I also calculated the cost and amount for each type of flower and ordered these from Safeway about a month before the wedding. We looked at other places for flowers too but they didn’t have the right price, variety, and service that Safeway gave to us at that time.
For the centerpiece, we bought some vases at Walmart for ~$3 each that matched our style and flowers and I ordered some lace ribbon and pearls from Amazon to dress up the vases. My husband, a couple of bridesmaids, and I spent a couple of hours adding the lace and pearls to the vases as soon as we got all the supplies. Then, a few days before the wedding, my husband, groomsmen, and bridesmaids cut and arranged the roses, carnations, and baby’s breath under my husband’s direction (I didn’t do a thing!). They also added some water and boxed them up for easy transportation. We used about 12 of the centerpieces for the church and brought them back to the hotel to use with the rest of the centerpieces for the reception. It cost ~$7 each. The vases took a whole afternoon with just the four of us but adding the flowers took only a few hours between my husband and a handful of our bridal party.
For the flower girls, we used one bouquet of pink and white roses and plucked them from the stem before the wedding ceremony. This cost ~$10 total. I also bought some flower girl baskets for ~$10 on Amazon and added some fabric flowers from Etsy for a few dollars. All three baskets took only a few minutes to complete and fill with flowers.
For the bouquets, I bought some gold glitter ribbon from Amazon and pearl pins from a local store. After my husband and our bridal party picked up the flowers at Safeway, he immediately dove in and tried to make my bridal bouquet at our hotel suite while the bridesmaids tried to make their own. It didn’t turn out so well but my husband eventually got the hang of it that he showed them how to coat the glitter in mod podge (to keep the glitter from getting everywhere!), cut and arrange the flowers in a proper bouquet (rounded and not sticking out), and wrap and pin the ribbon on the flowers. It was very amusing seeing my husband teach our bridesmaids how to make their bouquets. Some of them gave up and made him do it! They were able to finish this in one afternoon and we placed them in some water and kept the hotel A/C on to keep them from wilting. Because my bouquet had more flowers, it cost ~$15 while my bridesmaids bouquets cost ~$7 each.
We tried to keep things as simple as possible since we had a short deadline, no experience, and a limited budget but I thought everything came out beautifully and I was so proud of my husband. I wanted to show you that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on flowers for a wedding. You can still get enough flowers to add color and vibrancy to your wedding no matter the size. We had around 200 people in our wedding and there were enough flowers to fill our reception venue that it didn’t seem too plain or simple. You just have to get creative in looking outside of the wedding sphere and be willing to do it yourself to fit your budget.
