How to Choose the Perfect Wedding Flowers for Your Big Day
We understand, as you’re planning your wedding, you undoubtedly have a lot on your mind. Making all those wedding planning decisions can be quite stressful, especially if you have a limited budget and big plans and dreams for your wedding. One of the biggest decisions that you’ll have to make is regarding your wedding flowers. Your wedding flowers make up the majority of your wedding decorations and help to establish the aesthetic and color scheme of your wedding. So, we’ve simplified this decision a little bit for you by compiling our best tips and tricks for choosing the perfect wedding flowers for your big day. Hopefully, this will make your wedding planning a little bit easier, at least when it comes to your wedding flowers.
1. Determine Your Budget
First on your to-do list should be determining your budget for your wedding flowers. Like many other parts of your wedding, you could easily go over budget on wedding flowers if you’re not careful. So, it is important to set a strict budget that you can plan around and abide by. Just for reference, most bridal couples end up spending around 7-10% of their wedding budget on their flowers. Of course, depending on your wedding vision (and wallet) you can end up going above or below that average amount. Once you nail down the amount of money you’re willing to spend on your wedding flowers, you’ll be able to find a florist that meets your needs and know what kind of arrangements you can expect for your ceremony and reception.
How to Save Money on Wedding Flowers
Unfortunately, wedding flowers can be quite expensive. Fresh flowers are already pricey as-is, but when you also add the expense of paying a wedding florist, the price of wedding flowers can quickly become unmanageable. If you don’t have a large enough budget to spend on your wedding flowers, there are many ways to scrimp and save. Here are some of our favorite ways to save on wedding flowers
- DIY Your Own Flowers: Let’s be honest, paying a wedding florist can be very expensive. You have to pay for their labor, brand, and experience, plus, the wedding industry inflates the cost of wedding flowers significantly. You can quickly save thousands of dollars by DIYing your own wedding flowers. Whether you do so from scratch or shop for wedding flower craft kits, this can be a creative and enjoyable way to save money on your wedding flowers.
- Use Artificial Flowers: You can also save money by switching out your fresh flowers for artificial flowers. Artificial flowers are much more budget-friendly than fresh flowers from the get-go, and they’re also reusable since they won’t wilt, fade, or die. A few popular types of artificial flowers are silk flowers, dried flowers, wood flowers, foam flowers, wax-coated flowers, and more. When you use artificial flowers for your wedding, you can reuse your floral arrangements for different purposes. For example, part of a ceremony archway can be transformed into an elegant garland for your wedding reception. You can also reuse your artificial flowers after the big day as pieces of home decor, such as a pretty, seasonal wreath.
- Add More Greenery: Another way to save money on your floral decorations is to add more greenery and decrease the number of flowers you’re going to use. Greenery is generally more affordable than flowers, especially when you use preserved or artificial greenery. These cheaper options also usually look super realistic, which you’ll love if you’re pairing them with fresh flowers.
- Choose a Minimalistic Style: If you’re looking for another way to save money on your wedding flowers, you can also choose a more minimalistic flower style. Using fewer flowers will help you to save big on your wedding flowers. For example, instead of big floral centerpieces or giant floral garlands, you can use elegant bud vases with small flowers and greenery sprigs to decorate your venue tables.
2. Nail Down Your Wedding Flower Style
After you’ve decided on your wedding flower budget, you’ll need to nail down the wedding flower style that you want for your big day. There are many different types of wedding flower styles from traditional to romantic to bohemian and everything in between. To figure out what type of flowers you’d like to have at your wedding, take some time to do some research. Look at popular wedding flower trends on Pinterest, Instagram, and well-known wedding blogs. This will help you to familiarize yourself with the flowers that other brides are currently loving. You should know the types of flowers you want, the colors you want, the textures you want, and the size and style of arrangements you want. This will help you to move forward with a specific and successful plan.
3. Find a Florist (If Needed)
If you need help from a florist, this will be your next step. One of the most important parts of finding a florist is to see if they’ll be able to work within your budget. You’ll probably find a lot of florists that have styles that you love in their portfolios. However, if they can’t work within your budget, you’ll be setting yourself up for failure. So, if you’re planning on the extra cost of paying a florist to help you with your wedding flowers, make sure you ask for a quote and clear up the cost of their help first thing. Then you can see if they can create the flowers that you’ve been dreaming of.
4. Find Flowers That Match Your Color Palette
Next, you’ll want to find the specific flowers that match your desired wedding color palette. When you’re working with fresh flowers, this can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you have unique wedding colors. You’ll need to find flowers that match your precise colors, and they might not always be in season. You might have to order flowers that will be shipped from a different part of the country or world in order to match the colors that you’re wanting. This is one huge advantage of using artificial flowers. For example, wood flowers can be dyed to match a huge variety of colors, no matter how unique your color palette may be. Just check out these wood flower dye color options to see!
5. Figure Out the Arrangements You Need
Finally, you’ll need to figure out which specific floral arrangements you’ll need for your ceremony, reception, and venue. This will largely be determined by the confines of your floral budget. However, you should also reference your vision for your dream wedding to figure out what you want. If you don’t have the budget to fit all of the different floral arrangements you’d originally imagined, prioritize to include the ones that are most important for you. This will guarantee that you get a wedding flower design that you love.
