save money on fresh flowers for your wedding
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Wedding Flowers can easily take a 20-30% chunk out of your budget if you go the traditional route of using a florist. However, by ordering your flowers through a reputable wholesale florist, you can slash costs by well over half. Easily one to two thousand dollars in savings for a 100-guest wedding. You can use the wholesale flowers for all, or just some of your wedding floral needs, and still save significant amounts of money.
Things You'll Need
- Internet Access
- An upcoming Wedding or other event in need of flowers
Instructions
1
Develop a general idea of what types of flowers you'd like to include in your ceremony and reception. At a minimum, have a plan for what colors will work best with your overall wedding style. Searching through bridal magazines is an easy way to get ideas and see examples of what flowers work well with each other.
2
Research the flowers you're interested in at online wholesale florist sites. The following merchants are the best-reviewed sites.
1. 2G Roses (www.freshroses.com). Located in California, 2G Roses offers a wide variety of high-quality flowers you can order by the bunch.
2. Sam's Club Floral (http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?catg=1539). Sam's Club gives you the option to order from their standard distributor or from fair trade growers. They have a decent selection of the common wedding favorites, but the bulk orders are quite large, so they might be best for your main flower(s).
3. Costco Wedding (http://www.costco.com/Service/FeaturePage.aspx?ProductNo=11273973). Costco offers both bulk flowers like Sam's Club and wedding packages as well--which include bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres. These packages are a great deal, but only come in pre-determined numbers, like for a bridal party of 6 or 10, and you can't adjust the amount of flowers.
3
Each site will inform you of what fresh flowers are in season on your wedding date. Since you're buying directly from the growers on all of the above sites, the flowers are generally cut the day before shipping, and are delivered via Fed-Ex overnight.
4
Decide what vases or containers you'd like to use for the centerpiece and decoration arrangements. One good option is to borrow vases from the venue where you're having the ceremony or reception. They often already have containers for just this purpose. Alternatively, you can ask friends or relatives to bring containers they have around the house. You can also go to the local crafting store and buy some simple containers.
5
Order a sample order a few months before your wedding from the wholesaler so you can try out your hand at arranging and assess the colors of what you've decided on.
6
Order your actual wedding flowers at least a couple months in advance to ensure you've reserved what you need from the grower. Plan on having the flowers delivered at least 2 days prior to the wedding. This will allow enough time for both arranging and transport, and for the flowers to open fully before your big day! Make sure someone is available to accept the flowers from the delivery guy or gal. They will need to be unpacked and placed in water immediately.
7
Ask someone to help you with the arranging--moms, sisters, and bridesmaids are perfect for this! Experiment with different arrangements and combinations. Reference bridal magazines and online sites for the best way to place the fresh flowers in containers.
8
If you're extra-creative, making your own bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages is also a great way to save money. 2G Roses has a great section on their website describing make them with bulk flowers. This is a huge undertaking, though, and should definitely be practiced in advance if that's the route you want to go.
9
Keep your arrangements in a cool, non-drafty, and generally undisturbed place until the wedding. Transport them to the venue the night before or morning of your big day.
Tips &- Warnings
Ask your friends or family members if anyone has experience arranging flowers. They could be a valuable resource for helping out when the flowers are delivered.
I personally used Sam's Club and 2G Roses (FreshRoses.com) for my wedding flowers and they turned out amazing! I ordered my roses (the bulk of my arrangements) from Sam's and the rest of my flowers from 2G Roses. Both greatly exceeded my expectations.
Once you've decided which flowers you're going to bulk-order, talk to a local florist to see if they can match your bouquets, corsages, and boutainniers to match your arrangements.
There are great reviews and feedback from brides listed on the 2G Roses and Sam's Club sites.
Be reasonable about how much of a task you're ready for. I personally used the wholesale flowers for centerpieces and decorations for the ceremony only, and used a local florist for the bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages at my wedding.
Tags: your wedding, fresh flowers, save money, before your, bouquets boutonnieres, bouquets boutonnieres corsagesSource: www.ehow.com
