After Lu and I priced a few florists in the DC-area, we found that the cost for 1 bridal bouquet, 6 bridesmaids' bouquets, 2 junior bridesmaid's bouquets, 5 corsages, and 10 boutonnieres would be approximately $900... and that doesn't include flowers for decorating the church or reception centerpieces.
We decided to downgrade from traditional florists to see what grocery stores had to offer. Although the designs were still pretty and the price tag dropped to $500, the professionalism of many grocery store florists left a little to be desired. In addition, the bouquets were dependent on who'd exactly be doing them. Even though it cut the price nearly in half, quality wasn't a risk that I was willing to take.
So I put the florist out of my mind and moved on to tackle some of the other hundreds of items on my to-do list, which took me to Michaels. When one of my bridesmaids, Mrs. R., found out that I was engaged, the first thing she said was, "Michaels and Jo-Ann Fabrics are going to be your new best friends."
She was right! I've been to Michaels more in the last few months, then I've been in my entire life -- well, except when I was in my friendship bracelet stage in elementary school... and my latch hooking stage in high school... and my cross-stitching phase in college. Okay, okay. I'm already quite familiar with Michaels!
Anyway, on one trip, I decided to go through the clearance section and found beautiful artificial flowers in our wedding colors for $2/bunch. Inspired, I grabbed a few bunches, some burgundy ribbon, and some lace ribbon trimmed with pearls -- all on sale. After about half an hour of work and some hot glue gun magic, I had two jr. bridesmaids bouquets that look similar to the the one below for about $5 each.
I decided to go back and grab some different flowers for the bridesmaids and myself. After that trip, I was ready to make 9 bouquets for $55 -- less than what the florist quoted me for one bridesmaid bouquet.
We decided to downgrade from traditional florists to see what grocery stores had to offer. Although the designs were still pretty and the price tag dropped to $500, the professionalism of many grocery store florists left a little to be desired. In addition, the bouquets were dependent on who'd exactly be doing them. Even though it cut the price nearly in half, quality wasn't a risk that I was willing to take.
So I put the florist out of my mind and moved on to tackle some of the other hundreds of items on my to-do list, which took me to Michaels. When one of my bridesmaids, Mrs. R., found out that I was engaged, the first thing she said was, "Michaels and Jo-Ann Fabrics are going to be your new best friends."
She was right! I've been to Michaels more in the last few months, then I've been in my entire life -- well, except when I was in my friendship bracelet stage in elementary school... and my latch hooking stage in high school... and my cross-stitching phase in college. Okay, okay. I'm already quite familiar with Michaels!
Anyway, on one trip, I decided to go through the clearance section and found beautiful artificial flowers in our wedding colors for $2/bunch. Inspired, I grabbed a few bunches, some burgundy ribbon, and some lace ribbon trimmed with pearls -- all on sale. After about half an hour of work and some hot glue gun magic, I had two jr. bridesmaids bouquets that look similar to the the one below for about $5 each.
Swap out the white ribbon for burgundy, add a lace and pearl bow, and you have our jr. bridesmaids' bouquets!
With the bouquets squared away, we still had to decide what to do about boutonnieres and corsages. This wasn't a DIY-area that I felt comfortable entering into, so I turned to another new friend: Etsy. If you're not familiar with the website, it's basically an online art fair where people can buy and sell handmade, vintage, and arts and supplies items.
I put up a post describing our wedding theme, colors, and the materials we wanted to use. Then several artists placed bids, and we selected an amazing artist to do our corsages and boutonnieres. We even negotiated a price that cut the total order down by $20 -- not much, but when you're planning, every dollar adds up fast!
The artist was great to work with, making several prototypes of what we envisioned and tweaking each until we had exactly what we wanted:
Boutonnieres for Lu and our fathers
Boutonnieres for the groomsmen and ring bearer
Corsages for the maid of honor, matron of honor, our mothers, and Lu's grandmother
I must admit that I did have some initial hesitations about using artificial flowers -- mostly how they would look and the "stigma" associated with them. Besides, Lu always brings me gorgeous real flowers that I absolutely love. However, then I started thinking...
1) They look gorgeous! (Isn't that the most important part anyway?)
2) My allergies will be kept at bay. Ever seen a bride have a sneezing attack during her wedding because she decided to hold a bunch of flowers two feet from her face during peak allergy season? No? Good -- you won't see that at my wedding either!
3) We don't have to worry about wilting or damage. I'm not the most gentle flower arranger, and the flowers have held up just fine under my shoving, snipping, and bending. Besides, we can take fun pictures like the one below.
4) Everything can be made in advance and brought to the site ourselves.... No day-of surprises about how the florist interpreted my "vision"of what they should look like, delivery charges, or timing concerns.
5) We can pick whatever flowers we want without paying to ship them from some exotic locale.
6) The price can't be beat. Instead of our quoted $500-900, we're getting everything for $158.65 plus a few hours of labor.
7) I'll be able to keep my bouquet forever. :-)
I love it...way to be savvy!
This is exactly what we did for our wedding and I still have my bouquet. Not to mention I was able to have the colors I wanted which would not have happened had I used fresh flowers.