Flowers can eat up a large chunk of any wedding budget, so choosing to DIY wedding flowers can save you a fortune. Just be aware of the amount of time and coordination DIY-ing will take.
My DIY Wedding Flowers
I wanted fresh flowers on every table. Unfortunately, fresh centerpieces would cost thousands of dollars and was not in my budget. I didn’t want anything fancy, just simple rose and hydrangea arrangements. I thought it wouldn’t be difficult to do myself, so I decided to go for it.
I didn’t use corsages and boutonnieres since I had no clue how to make them and no desire to learn. I think the guys were happy that they didn’t have to wear flowers lol.
In addition to fresh flowers, I had several tall artificial flower arrangements. My dad has an engineering type of brain and can fix almost anything, so he came up with a way to create the tall centerpieces I wanted. Thanks Dad! The fake flowers were originally white and didn’t look real, so he painted them gold to match the chargers.
I kept those tall arrangements and used them to decorate my home.
Practice Makes Perfect
A few months before the big day, I bought some flowers from Safeway to practice my DIY skills before purchasing the flowers in bulk. I played around with different colors and did a mock table setup.
Buying Bulk Flowers
I spent quite a bit of time researching where to buy the best flowers and finally decided on Sam’s Club. I bought 200 50cm white roses and 30 white hydrangeas, which totaled $240 including tax and shipping. The quality was great and they shipped without any issues. I was VERY happy with this purchase.
I also bought 50 pink roses from globalrose.com for $60. I wanted a very specific blush pink for the bridesmaids’ bouquets and couldn’t find it at Sam’s Club. My heart sunk when the roses arrived. They were very small, and instead of a light blush shade, they were bright pink, almost coral and didn’t match the blush linens I purchased. There was nothing I could do now. The wedding was two days away. I took a deep breath and worked with it!
In the end, they ended up looking fine, and in all honesty, they looked better than the blush roses would have, so I ended up happy with the final result. But, I would not order from globalrose.com again.
My recommendation for DIY wedding flowers would be to stick with basic colors or to be open to color variations when ordering online. If you can, order a small sample batch before purchasing in bulk.
DIY Wedding Flower Prep
Preparing the flowers is a multi-day process. You need to order your wedding flowers a few days in advance because they are shipped with a closed bud and need a few days to open up.
The flowers were delivered two days before our wedding. We planned on going to Napa that day to celebrate Josh’s birthday. I started to stress out because I didn’t think about who was going to receive the delivery. The flowers ended up sitting out in the hot July weather for several hours while we were in Napa, but they perked right up once we put them in water.
If you purchase hundreds of flowers, you’re going to need lots and lots of buckets. I bought my buckets for $1 a piece at the dollar store, and they worked just fine. We filled the buckets with water and added the flower food that came with the flowers along with some extra Miracle Grow.
The next day, the flowers opened up nicely. We spent all day cleaning and arranging them. By this point, I was starting to regret doing this ourselves. Why did I ever think I could do this myself?!
The flowers looked beautiful, but I had lots of people in town to see us, and we were too busy arranging flowers to spend time with them.
Wedding Day!
On the day of our wedding, we stuffed our cars full of decorations. The cars nearly overflowed with flowers! My seat was as close to the dashboard as I could get it to make room for all the flowers. I had flowers behind, under, and beside me. The hour long commute was so uncomfortable.
I didn’t think the decorations would take up as much space as they did. There was no room for my dress in any of the cars, so my photographers saved the day and kindly offered to transport it for me.
Once we arrived, we had 3 hours to set up AND get ready, so I divvied up tasks to the wedding party beforehand. I had a sheet printed out with what everyone was assigned to do. Had I not made that printout, mass chaos would have broken out. I was really the only one who knew where everything went, and I didn’t have time to direct! It was so stressful, and we were on a huge time crunch, but luckily I had the best wedding party and group of friends. They made everything beautiful!
In the end, the head table flowers didn’t make it from the ceremony site to the table, but no big deal. The reception was still beautiful, and I was probably the only person who knew that the flowers didn’t make it. I thought so much more would go wrong, but it didn’t! We all had so much fun, and the wedding was so beautiful to me that I didn’t even care that things were imperfect.
Were DIY Wedding Flowers Worth It?
I ended up spending about $550 on the flowers and supplies, which saved us $1,500-$2,000. I honestly don’t think the DIY wedding flowers were worth the savings and stress. This is the only DIY project I would hire out if given the chance to do it over again. My sister warned me of the dangers of DIY wedding flowers, but I didn’t listen to her. What can I say, I’m stubborn and hindsight is 20/20.
Almost all our guests were from out of town, and I wish we had extra time to spend with them. I would have gladly spent the extra $2,000 or opted for cheaper centerpieces in exchange for extra time spent with our loved ones. Weddings are about celebrating the joining of two families, and I wish I had focused more on that than on the esthetics and budget of our wedding.
I owe a big THANK YOU to my wedding party and also to Tom, Ryan, Star, Jay, Vanessa, Kyle and Nicole, and to Steve and Jesse from Farrell Photography. I couldn’t have done it without you! And a special shoutout to Rhia Buchholz for her floral expertise!
