Of all the decisions a bride must make in regard to her wedding day, there’s one specific area of the budget that can honestly, truly cause her to go bonkers: the flowers.
Now I know what you’re thinking—a wedding just isn’t a wedding without a bountiful supply of beautiful, fragrant blooms scattered throughout the ceremony and reception spaces. I mean, flowers have an important role to play in the wedding decor, between making a statement in the bride’s bouquet and fancying up centerpieces for the tables at the reception. Sure, that two thousand bucks you’ll have to square away out of your wedding budget for a florist seems like a lot of money right now, but it’s so worth it. A wedding just isn’t a wedding without flowers.
Well, I agree—sort of.
I think flowers are an important part of the wedding day—after all, what other occasion will a girl have to carry a bouquet of beautiful flowers except for when she’s a bride walking down the aisle? Is there anything more romantic and magical than being surrounded by Mother Nature’s gorgeous blooms on the most wonderful day of one’s life?
Now who wants to give me two thousand bucks so I can go blow them on a delivery truck full of overpriced, temperamental flowers that’ll be dead by the end of the week?
Didn’t think so.
You guys, wedding flowers are so impractical. Just the mere idea of spending that much money for something that’ll give me nothing more than a small piece of satisfaction on my wedding day simply isn’t cutting it for me. I personally would rather spend more money on, say, the food. Or cake. Something edible. (Can you tell it’s lunchtime here?)
Silk flowers, on the other hand, could save me a decent amount of money, simply because I could arrange them myself MONTHS before the wedding and store them somewhere nice until the big day rolls around. They also will never, ever die. AND, I won’t have to worry about them looking like poo toward the end of the night, whereas the real deals could very well start to wilt and look sad when that 11 o’clock hour rolls around.
Except, there’s just something so magical and romantic about real flowers that seem to get lost in the synthetic translation. So, what’s a girl to do?
Well I’ll have my cake and I’ll be damned if I can’t eat it, too.
In an effort to save a bit of a blow to the budget and to keep my sanity in check, we’ve decided to use a combination of real and faux flowers on our wedding day. The real flowers will be used in the bride’s and bridesmaids’ bouquets, the corsages for the mothers, and the boutonnieres for the guys (basically in places where the photographer will be taking lots of photographs). The faux flowers will be used in places like in our pomander ball pew decorations. Reception centerpieces aren’t even in the equation—we’re doing some non-floral garden centerpieces. Kind of an oxymoron, I know. More on that later.
What do you think about flowers at weddings? Are they important? Are you using real flowers, silk flowers, or a combination of the two?
I totally agree with you, with the silk flowers idea. Saving money and at the same time is about being practicle after all as you can rent them.
I love that you’re doing a combination! Because we happened to book during a special AND got a discount via our venue, we’ll be doing all real flowers, but I love that you came up with a way to save some $$$ in the process AND get what you want. 
We’re going the same route as you with the flowers. All centerpieces and extraneious flowers are silk and the main ones are real. We did go crazy on the tossing boquet….it’s the wild colored daisys from HL with matching ostrich feathers. Thing will stand out! Will put up pictures once I make it…
We’re doing real bouquets/boutonnieres and very minimal real flowers for our reception and can get away with that since our venue is a small restaurant. Plus I am planning to DIY all of them. I would feel bad spending so much money on something that will die within days, especially since I can think of MANY other ways that I’d like to spend that money.
Flowers are expensive, and wedding flowers are ridiculosly expensive, I just can’t bring myself to spend that much money in something that’ll die in front of me on my wedding day.
I like looking at flowers in weddings, but it’s different when you’re the one paying for them.
I think your route is a lovely compromise I’m not big into flowers–I like them in gardens, but not so much otherwise, so we’re making all our “roses” out of ribbon and having non-floral centerpieces.
Early in our planning, I felt the same way about flowers (don’t last long, expensive, etc). We were able to find a great florist via referral that went above and beyond for less than what I thought possible. Flowers are pretty and nice to have, but this was one area where we cut back.
Most likely silk, maybe a few real large arrangements at the church..
I was planning to do something similar for my wedding. Silk flowers for whatever flowered decorations (especially because you know someone is going to steal a flower or two and make the whole arrangements look wrong, or they will die and then what was the point to begin with) and then put real flowers in the things that mattered. Just like you said, in the bouquets and boutonnieres. Don’t think I’m getting the mother’s corsages though…as honestly I feel those are not necassary. I will be buying both mothers a gift though.
We used a combination. The boutonniers and corsages were real, the bridesmaids’ bouquets were silk, my bouquet was a brooch bouquet with silk leaves, and each table got a centrepiece with a single submerged rose ($17 for 2 dozen at Costco!). That was all of the flowers at our wedding. Although our favours were homemade chocolate lollipop roses (1 red/milk chocolate and 1 white for each guest) so I guess those were flowers too. Oh, and we had pew bows with silk flowers and silk English ivy leaves in the middle.
We are using a bare minimum of real flowers. The BM bouquets and 2 arrangements for the church are going to be real…and that’s it! None of the rehearsal decorations are floral, and my bouquet is vintage jewelry.
I used real flowers from Costco. I did a simple rose and wax flower bouquet for myself and my MOH, and skipped boutonnieres and corsages (no one minded). I told the florist my colors and favorite flowers, and she created beautiful centerpieces. I paid under 300 for 8 centerpieces, 6 dozen roses (4 dozen for wedding day bouquets, 2 dozen for a practice bouquet which later became petals for the flower girl) plus floral tape, ribbon, pearl pins, etc…it was a bit of work to make the bouquets (about 45 minutes each) but worth the savings, and everyone was surprised I did them myself!
I think that’s the perfect balance. I feel like I want a bouquet of real flowers and wedding party people to have the same, but don’t necessarily care about the rest. I can’t wait to see how it all looks together.
I am sort of like you, in the middle! I think its not necessary to use flowers for decorations but you need them in bouquets and the like! I managed to keep floral costs quite low, and I am glad you’ve done the same!
I totally agree with you! We did silk flowers for the centerpieces and bouquets, but real flowers for all the boutonniers and corsages. No one knew, and it was great to not worry about any bouquets falling apart or wilting!
I am so torn here, I LOVE flowers but they can be a total budget buster. I really don’t care for artificial flowers (to the point if I can’t make the $ work I would rather not have any flowers at all) so it looks like I have some hard decisions to make 
Mrs. Armadillo, Houston, Texas Age and Occupation: 23, Graduate Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Armed Security Officer Engagement Date: September 28, 2011 Wedding Date: March 2013 Venue: First Presbyterian Church/Bay City Civic Center About Me: I’m an oldies-loving, board game-playing, coffee addicted fine arts junkie from Southeast Texas in pursuit of her master’s degree in communication studies who met the goofy, strong, artistic, and unexpected love of her life in the beautiful piney woods of East Texas. Serendipity threw us together again and again (and again) on our college campus before we eventually stuck, but when we finally did submit to destiny, we hit the ground running and never looked back! We’re planning a religious, small town, budget-friendly, DIY-infused “winter becomes springtime” ceremony and reception to celebrate the beginning of our lives together with the people we love the most, and are pouring our hearts and souls into making sure our wedding represents us as a couple down to the nitty gritty details and balances tradition with the quirky individuality that is uniquely and unequivocally “us”!
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