This post is in partnership with Sola Wood Flower
Having gorgeous, stylish wedding flowers is essential to creating your ideal aesthetic and vibe for your wedding day. If you’ve ever dreamed about your wedding day like many other people, you’ve likely thought about what it would look like. Your wedding flowers help to create that magical, romantic feeling that every bride or groom wants when they walk down the aisle to their true love. But how do you do it all on a budget? Here are some of our best tips and tricks for having gorgeous, stylish wedding flowers that won’t break the bank.
Creating a Wedding Flower Budget
First off, you’ll need to create a strict wedding flower budget. Even if you have quite a bit of money to spend on your wedding flowers, it is helpful to have a number that dictates the ceiling of your budget so you still have enough money to allocate to other wedding needs. Here are a few tips for creating a wedding flower budget.
Know How Much You Want to Spend
To successfully create a wedding flower budget that will be helpful for you in the wedding planning process, you’ll need to know how much you want to spend on your wedding flowers. On average, most couples set aside 12% to 20% of their wedding budget to spend on their wedding flowers. Knowing your floral budget can help you to prioritize what wedding flower arrangements are most important to you while saving money.
Know What You Need
Next, you should consider what wedding flower arrangements you actually need for your wedding. For example, if you’re having a traditional bridal party, you’ll likely need bridesmaid flowers, boutonnieres for your groomsmen, and corsages for other important family members or friends, such as your parents. Of course, you’ll need your wedding bouquet, which is quite possibly the most important floral arrangement of your whole wedding day. You can figure out how much each of these items costs by searching average pricing online or by asking wedding florists for quotes
Choose Extras
Once you’ve nailed down the price of your floral essentials, you can choose some extras that will fit into your budget. For example, you can add some decorative bouquets that can spruce up your wedding ceremony aisle or your wedding reception tables. You can add floral installations, such as a ceremony archway or a wedding reception overhead installation. These decorative elements can definitely come with an expensive price tag, especially if they’re large, but they can truly elevate the look of your wedding venue.
Ask Florists for Quotes
To find a florist that you love, spend some time scrolling on social media and viewing their past weddings in their online portfolio. However, no matter how much you love the work that a specific florist has done in the past, you need to ask them for a quote before you start fantasizing about hiring them. Some wedding florists might be unattainably expensive, and asking for a quote will help you to realize that their services will be well outside of your floral budget. A quote will usually include the price of the flowers included, the cost of labor, as well as an additional fee for the florist’s brand, experience, and education. Many wedding florists also add an additional inflated cost just for working in the wedding industry. However, if you see that a wedding florist is out of your price range, don’t worry. There are still many ways to save money on your wedding flowers while still getting the beautiful, stylish results that you’ve dreamed of.
Sola Wood Flower Bouquet
How to Save Money on Wedding Flowers
Now if you’ve already examined your wedding flower budget and know that you’ll need to save some money to have the wedding that you’ve always dreamed of, you’ve come to the right place. Here are some of our favorite money-saving techniques that can help you to achieve stunning wedding flowers at a fraction of the typical price that most couples pay.
1. Use Artificial Flowers
First, you can use artificial flowers as opposed to fresh flowers to help keep the cost of your wedding flowers down. Artificial flowers might not have the natural, velvety feel of fresh flowers or the fragrant scent, but they have a lot of other benefits and perks that you will fall in love with. There are a number of popular types of artificial flowers that you can choose from. Here are a few of our favorites for you to consider.
- Wood Flowers: Wood flowers are handmade from tapioca root and other natural materials are expertly formed to imitate real, fresh flowers. These flowers are eco-friendly and budget-friendly. You can usually buy a bulk pack of hundreds of wood flowers for the same price that fresh bridesmaid flowers for one bouquet would cost. Wood flowers look and feel very realistic since they’re treated with a special softening treatment and dyed to match the colors of real flowers. However, if you have really unique wedding colors that have been difficult to match with fresh flowers, wood flowers might just be the perfect solution for you. They can be dyed in any color imaginable,
making them extremely versatile and customizable.
- Silk Flowers: Silk flowers are the most common type of artificial flowers. They’re made from silk fabric, wire, and plastic. You can also make your silk flowers look and feel more realistic by coating them with a special type of wax. There are some silk flower vendors that can provide this service for you, but it will likely be at an additional cost. It might also take longer to receive your ordered flowers when you want them to be coated in wax. However, the wax coating gives your silk flowers a realistic shine, a soft feel, and helps to prevent any fabric fraying.
- Foam Flowers: Foam flowers are extremely affordable artificial flowers. Foam flowers don’t always look as natural since they’re mass-produced, making every flower of a certain type entirely identical. However, if you mix in a few foam flowers among fresh flowers (or other artificial flowers) you’ll never be able to tell the difference! You’ll get a full, voluminous look for less.
2. Add More Greenery
You can also save money on your wedding flowers by adding more greenery to your arrangements and minimizing the number of flowers. Flowers are expensive, and greenery is typically more affordable. You can even use artificial or preserved greenery for even more of a reduced price. You can even have some arrangements be made entirely out of greenery, like your bridesmaid bouquets, ceremony archway, or table garlands.
3. Shop Local
Shopping from local flower shops that get their flowers from local flower farms will always be cheaper than buying flowers from other sources. Plus, then you’ll be supporting small, local businesses, and that is always a great choice! Check with your local flower farms to see what flowers they’re growing this year!
4. Use In-Season Flowers
You can also save money by using in-season flowers in your wedding arrangements. Flowers that are out-of-season will need to be shipped from a different location, which will make them much more expensive. Additionally, some flowers are more expensive than others, so it is important to figure out which types of flowers will be more affordable for you. For example, red and white roses are generally more expensive than other, more affordable types of flowers, such as daisies.
5. Choose a Minimalistic Style
Choosing minimalistic wedding flower arrangements can help to make your wedding flowers more affordable. For example, you can give your bridesmaids smaller corsages instead of bouquets. You can also have bud vases filled with smaller flowers instead of large centerpieces. These minimalistic styles will help you to have gorgeous, stylish flower arrangements that aren’t breaking the bank.
6. Buy Flowers in Bulk and DIY
If you are up for a creative challenge, you can buy your wedding flowers in bulk and DIY them to save a lot of money. This will eliminate any extra costs that a florist would charge you. If you want to go the DIY route, you should really consider using artificial flowers. These flowers won’t wilt like fresh flowers, which will make them a lot easier to craft with, and you won’t have to wait to arrange them until the last minute. You can even buy wood flowers in craft kits that will supply you with everything you need to create gorgeous, professional-looking arrangements. If you are crafty and love flowers, this is a great way to save money.
