Weddingbee Blog

Has anyone else used Costco.com for flowers? They are pretty awesome. I had considered a couple other sites to order flowers for Sister Starfish’s shower, but ultimately felt comfortable using Costco since I’ve used them for all my other bulk purchasing needs in life (anyone else Scrapbook? If you use lots of glue sticks, Costco’s bulk packs are amazing!). I have also purchased flowers in the Costco stores before and I’ve always been happy with the purchases. The only drawback is that you have to be a member.

The flowers came in and they were not quite what I expected them to be.  Starfish Mom and Mr. Starfish were both home the day they arrived.

Here’s Starfish dog, aka Sky, guarding the flowers.

And here is how the flowers arrived. I bet you weren’t expecting this box when I said we were getting a 100 flower delivery; I wasn’t either. Apparently Mr. Starfish and Starfish Mom weren’t either, because they took a ton of photos so I would be able to see it and share it all with you.

It looks like they were handled with care.

The quality was good. They recommend having the flowers delivered two days before the event, to allow the flowers time to open up. So, a Friday delivery was perfect timing.

Here they are after lots of unwrapping and trimming. If you order flowers in bulk, Starfish Mom recommends having scissors and plenty of buckets filled with water ready. We also picked up 10 Hydrangea bunches from the Boston Flower Exchange.

One of our last DIYs for Sister Starfish’s shower was the floral arrangements. Starfish Mom lovessssss flowers and tries to incorporate them into all of our events. She even wanted to look into floral designers for the shower, but then reality set in, and we realized that it was way out of the budget. So we decided to go the DIY route. We went to a few places for the supplies including Costco.com, The Flower Exchange in Boston, A.C. Moore, Michaels and PaperSource. Plus, we had a couple of supplies at home including 4 extra vases, and scissors.

Here is the cost breakdown:

• Costco.com: White Roses - about $106.00 with shipping and taxes
• The Flower Exchange in Boston: White Hydrangeas for $28.00
• Michaels: 7 vases @ 2.99 each and thick white ribbon at $6.99 (before the 20% off total purchase coupon) = $22.34 (after 20% off)
• A.C. Moore: Foam for $4.19 (at 40% off), 7 packs colored pearl beads at $2.99 each - $20.93, 2 packs of white pearl beads at $1.99 a pack -$3.98, wire at $1.99, White floral arrangement sticks 2 packs at $1.99 each -$3.98,
• PaperSource: Adhesive Pearls 2 packs @ $2.99 each= $5.98

The grand total came out to be $197.39 for 7 centerpieces, 3 accent pieces, and 1 arrangement for Starfish Mom, or about $17.95 per arrangement with a good amount of leftover supplies.

I love how they turned out. We saved money, but we also had to be more creative and ended up with exactly what we wanted!

Here’s a sneak peek at one of the arrangements:

Photo by me*

Have you ever arranged DIY flower centerpieces? Were you happy with the results?