Flowers for your Wedding

Flowers for Your Wedding

A combination of both Faux and Real will go over the best.

When you start planning a wedding, the prices start to add up quickly. And one of the biggest expenses is usually the florist. You’ve got dreams of miles and miles of peonies and banquette tables filled with dozens of Rose. There will be a lovely fragrance wafting down on you from the living wall of roses that comprises the back wall of your wedding altar. Once you get the estimate the bloom falls off your wedding dreams. Reality bites, but there are ways to cheat your florist bill before you have to use all fake flowers.

Cost

· Believe it or not, of these three options, real flower are generally much cheaper. Artificial flowers, even if you buy them at Dollar Tree or Walmart, will still be about the same price as real and require a lot more work on your part. That being said, if your crafty, then artificial flowers could be right up your artistic alley.

· Paper or silk flowers are pricy. If you buy them premade, they can cost a minimum of about $3 dollars a flower. If you have a dye cutting machine like Cricut, the price is cut by a third, but the time it takes you to make a bouquet is anywhere from 3 to 20 hours depending on your skill level.

Advantages / Disadvantages

· Real flowers come with a few advantages. They are natural looking, smell amazing, and come in a variety of colors and tones. There is something wonderful about being able to actually hold real stems in your hand. The only real disadvantage is that they’re fragile. I have witnessed many brides and bridesmaids scrambling to find glue or string to put the stems of a broken flower head back on. I actually carry a glue gun in my bag now just in case of this.

· Artificial flowers might be the way to go through if you’re making them yourself and/or you can reuse them after the wedding. Again though, pre-made artificial flowers can be expensive.

Tips

· Ask your venue if they have arrangements that you can rent for the day for décor and then buy the arrangements you want for bouquet and such.

· Ask friends who are crafty if they own a dye cutting machine, such as Cricut or silhouette, to cut out the flowers. Maybe they’ll love you enough to make them as a gift?

Here are my recommendations.

Here are some guidelines for using a few fake flowers at your wedding.

Never ever use all fake flowers.

That would be tacky. There’s absolutely no reason, budgetary or otherwise, for a groom to sport a silk flower boutonniere. Also remember, that you aren’t using real flowers just for their looks, they do provide the aforementioned delicate fragrance to your wedding day. Before you resort to artificial wedding flowers, consider budget friendly options like using lots of greenery (cut branches in vases can be beautiful) or using inexpensive flowers like carnations en masse. Also, try and stick with what’s in season and grows locally to keep your budget down.

Never use fake flowers in your wedding bouquet.

Trust me, you will regret that. Don’t use them in your bridesmaids’ bouquets, groomsmen’s boutonnieres, or in the corsages or small nosegays that you would give to the mother-of-the-bride or mother-of-the-groom.

It’s not tacky to use silk wedding flowers in some places that are outside of the direct line of vision.

You can use them in arrangements that are high up on a wall or in the distance. Sub a few fake flowers to swag the orchestra balcony at the church and no one will know. Consider other faraway places to place your fake flowers like in the dark dance room near the band or over door arches.

The Bottom Line

If the flower is going to have a starring role in a big wedding moment or photograph, splurge on real flowers. Save the artificial wedding flowers for out of the way spots or fillers.