Flowers too expensive!!

Charliezoo

I've just been quoted £1000 for my flowers:eek:

I was hoping to spend less than half that amount so was wondering if anyone could help me to get the arrangements for less, maybe advise me on cheaper flowers that would still look good. The only 'must have' flowers I want are the hydrangeas and a few roses.

My biggest worry is the table decorations at £70 a pop. The venue is a high ceiling barn so I think taller arrangements would look best but they seem very pricey.

Anyone have any advice on what I should ask for when going back to the florist to try and get the price down?

Bridal bouquet:
Handtied bouquet (large and fluffy) of baby pink hydrangea heads tied with an ivory ribbon @ £70.00

1 x Adult maid
Hand tied of sweet avalanche roses with green china grass over the heads tied with an ivory ribbon @ £40.00

2 x Male Maids
large buttonholes of 2 sweet avalanche roses with china grass loops to the side with foliage to back @ £12.00 each

1 x Flower Girl
pomander of small headed baby pink roses on an ivory ribbon @ £40.00

Groom Buttonhole
sweet avalanche rose with fern to back and china grass loops to side @ £4.00

2 x Buttonholes
as above @ £4.00 each

2 x Wrist corsages
cream rose wrist corsages with a flash of pink on a cream ribbon to tye @ £12.50 each

Ceremony Arrangements
1 x long teardrop arrangement consisting of sweet avalanche roseswhite lilly heads and hydrangeas with lots of foliage and trails of grass @ £75.00

Top Table
1 x large rented fishbowl for bridal bouquet
pink viole garlanding to the top table front @ £40.00

9 x Table Centres
High conical vase with a posy arrangement to top vase to contan crushed plain cellophane and the posy arrangemnt will have: lots of foliage including ivy drapes viburnham snowball sweet avalanche roses and avalanche (cream) roses the vase will sit on a large mirror base @ £70.00 per table

2 x dresed baytrees rented with ivory ribbon and pink hydrangea heads @ £30.00 each

chelbel1981

Charliezoo wrote: »

I've just been quoted £1000 for my flowers:eek:

I was hoping to spend less than half that amount so was wondering if anyone could help me to get the arrangements for less, maybe advise me on cheaper flowers that would still look good. The only 'must have' flowers I want are the hydrangeas and a few roses.

My biggest worry is the table decorations at £70 a pop. The venue is a high ceiling barn so I think taller arrangements would look best but they seem very pricey.

Anyone have any advice on what I should ask for when going back to the florist to try and get the price down?

Bridal bouquet:
Handtied bouquet (large and fluffy) of baby pink hydrangea heads tied with an ivory ribbon @ £70.00

1 x Adult maid
Hand tied of sweet avalanche roses with green china grass over the heads tied with an ivory ribbon @ £40.00

2 x Male Maids
large buttonholes of 2 sweet avalanche roses with china grass loops to the side with foliage to back @ £12.00 each - I wouldn't pay more for male braidsmaids than my OH button hole TBH

1 x Flower Girl
pomander of small headed baby pink roses on an ivory ribbon @ £40.00 - Do you really need this???

Groom Buttonhole
sweet avalanche rose with fern to back and china grass loops to side @ £4.00

2 x Buttonholes
as above @ £4.00 each

2 x Wrist corsages
cream rose wrist corsages with a flash of pink on a cream ribbon to tye @ £12.50 each

Ceremony Arrangements
1 x long teardrop arrangement consisting of sweet avalanche roseswhite lilly heads and hydrangeas with lots of foliage and trails of grass @ £75.00

Top Table
1 x large rented fishbowl for bridal bouquet
pink viole garlanding to the top table front @ £40.00 - Buy a cheap fish bowl (Asda/B&M's sell them for about £4) and buy the voile yourself you'll save a fortune

9 x Table Centres
High conical vase with a posy arrangement to top vase to contan crushed plain cellophane and the posy arrangemnt will have: lots of foliage including ivy drapes viburnham snowball sweet avalanche roses and avalanche (cream) roses the vase will sit on a large mirror base @ £70.00 per table - Sorry but that's way too exspensive!!!

2 x dresed baytrees rented with ivory ribbon and pink hydrangea heads @ £30.00 each - eBaby sell these plus you get to keep them and sell them on to get some money back[/QUOTE]

Can you not try else where???

mimosaurus

Perhaps you could consider getting some of them - i'm thinking particularly the flower girls one - with artificial flowers? sarah's flowers are supposed to be good (i've had samples and the quality is fairly good although i'm not 100% happy with the artificial foliage) and they do small pomanders for less than half the price of what you've been quoted. i assume the flower girl is fairly young and so if she carries real flowers they may not last long anyway?

i also agree with chelbel - source some of the bits yourself and you'll save yourself money there.

i've been talking to a florist today about bouquets, and they have said that i can get a bridal bouquet of around 10 white roses with foliage and some white stuff that i can't remember the name of (lol) for £40 max. i am only looking at small and fairly simple bouquets so perhaps that explains the price difference, but as hydrangeas require fewer blooms and naturally hide imperfections I would expect them to be cheaper than roses in a bouquet. the price of the flowers makes a huge difference - i could get the same bouquet with white gerberas instead of roses for £20. chrysanths are also a cheap option - gerberas and chrysanths come in lots of colour options.

if you're looking for tall table dec's, have you considered buying plants from a garden centre or somewhere like ikea where they do the artificial ones? some of them are gorgeous and you can get them for a fiver with a nice pot - perhaps to make them look a bit more fancy they could have lights wrapped around them.

this may be totally nothing like what you're looking for, just thought i'd share it as an idea

hydrangeas are beautiful, but you need so few heads to make a large bouquet that i am surprised to see what they've quoted you - i'm no expert though!!

look forward to seeing other peoples responses... and i hope that you find something that fits what you want and saves a bit of money!!

TediousPhoenix

Have you considered making some of them yourself?

We only had a small wedding, so only had 15 button holes, one bouquet and one centre piece. We went to New Covent Garden Flower Market in London to get the flowers at wholesale prices and got the extra pieces from http://easyfloristsupplies.co.uk.

No one realised we made everything ourselves until we told them. Me and my MOH/walker down the aisle/poem reader/driver/all-round wedding saviour made them between the two of us (with the 'help' of my now husband!). It took all afternoon and evening the night before the wedding. But I also know of another wedding who had 200 guests and they did all the flowers themselves by getting about 10 people to help out. It's actually a fun time the day before the wedding and takes the edge off the worrying about other things! I'd do it again.

In total I think it halved the cost of the flowers had we paid for a florist to do them.

Here's the pics of what we achieved:

sethsgran

They are beautiful flowers well done

curlylou1986

Wow! Thats a lot of money!! i def agree with asking for quotes at other places!!
Or are you able to make them your self? Like the other ladies have put with going to covent garden and getting them can be cheaper!!

Or what about getting hydranger plants for your garden and growing them to then cut the heads for various decorations?

£40 is v.expensive for a flowergirls flowers! What about a flower wand? thats what i have done for my flowergirls;



I made them myself - flowers £3.99 from dunelm mill, ribbon on a reel from the range, butterflys in fancy dress section on poundland. Have one flower girl who will be 3 and another who will be 10 (then 4 adult bridesmaids) You can type flower wands in on ebay and they have lots different types on there - various colours/flowers.
That way you are giving your flower girl something for her to keep as well.

Also try on ebay - http://stores.ebay.co.uk/the-essex-wedding-flower_Corsages__W0QQ_fsubZ814216013QQ_sidZ912730793QQ_trksidZp4634Q2ec0Q2em322
(hope that works) i have been emailing this lady on and off recently - will be a lot more over compoing months sorting out my order. She has been so helpful and can provide so many different images to start with to help with ideas and offers rough prices. eg - i picked a boquet of roses and gerbera's and she said she would do it for £35, so thats much better than what you have been quoted - plus will get to keep them after as they are artificial!!

Also what about looking into different ideas for your table decorations? £70 a pop is mucho expensive, have you tried other places? some of the chair hire cover people offer table decorating services - maybe be worth looking in and seeing if can get a deal on both parts?
Or what about getting the tall vases your self then incorperating a different idea? I know the range to tall martini glasses for about £8, you could get coloured/clear aqua beads (they what we are using in our square vases ) then have large flower heads in the top with artifitcial trailing ivy garlands hanging over some of the edges with a tall chunky candle in the top (wouldnt have to light it) but that would add depth to it as well.??

there has got to be ways you can cut the costs down dramatically!!

TediousPhoenix - your flowers are beautiful!! brilliant job!!!

sarah_elton

Our wedding was in a high ceilinged barn and we had these centre-pieces which were £34 each (in this photo some favour boxes are on the mirror base, imagine them without those):

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5758964&l=20688f0987&id=593489072

Candles look good in a barn. Also, if your tables are round, I wouldn't have a centre-piece that is too high as it stops people on opposite sides of the table being able to see and speak to each other.

We spent £650 on flowers, for 10 centre-pieces, small vases and petals for the top table, my bouquet, 2 BM bouquets, 2 corsages and 4 button holes.

Have you had any quotes from other florists?

Charliezoo

Thankyou for all your advice. I'm really impressed by all of you who made your own bouquets, I'm just not talented enough to take that on I'm afraid!

Here's some pics of the venue if anyone creative wants to come up with ideas on what they'd do to decorate it - http://www.tewinbury.co.uk/tythe-barn

Its my first quote so I've got a few other florists I can get quotes from, hopefully they'll be cheaper. I love candles but the barn is entirely wooden and so candles aren't allowed which is a real shame if anyone can recommend any battery-powered candles that look good I'd love to know about them!

I think the hydrangeas are expensive because my wedding is in May so they will be sourced from abroad and that rules out growing them myself. I didn't even really want the bay trees, I really wanted jasmine trees either side of the top table but the florist thought these would be impossible to source but for £30 each I think I might buy some bay trees myself and put fairy lights in them, what do you think?

My two male maids both have huge flamboyant corsages so it makes sense that they're more expensive than my htb's buttonhole. I was considering doing the centrepieces myself by just buying big bunches of ivory/pink flowers and putting them into tall vases - is that easier said than done? I'll obviously have a few practice runs first I'd love to have the pomanda for my flowergirl but I'm thinking that the amount of roses needed for this is making it expensive. I'm looking into daisy-type flowers instead.

Has anyone made their own buttonholes before? I'd love to have enough for all the male guests, just not at £4.00 each

Thanks again for all your help, I've got so many ideas to look into now!

fran-o

Hi there

We are getting married in a barn venue too and I've just been discussing ideas with the florist this weekend for next January. We had loads of ideas about what we wanted, and then got a real shock at the prices...! We have decided just to scale back our ideas and go for the cheapest option - simple low table centrepieces at £25 a table. Been quoted £80-£100 for a bridal bouquet and not going to have buttonholes.
Although I had lots of grand ideas for decorating the venue, I have realised that spending extra £100s is just too much for me and the barn is gorgeous as it is.

PS - saw a little dried-rose pomander at a market recently for under £20, is it worth considering dried or silk flowers for some of your items?

piglet25

I have just read your quote and to be fair for what you have asked for that is a fair price. Hyds grown in a garden are not the same as the ones supplied by a florist and you also have to remember that even if you will be only having a couple of one type of flower if they are something thata florist doesn't stock then they have to place a minimum order of that variety just for you to have a couple. I also think the amount of planning and prep which the florist willl be doing is being underestimated here, it can take hours to prepare wedding flowers and I am assuming the table decs are being set up for you at the venue and your wedding party flowers are being delivered to your house? Its not just the cost of the flowers you have to pay for. I think you have got a good price for what you have chosen and if the florist you have been to has a good reputation I would definately accept it.
I know there have been suggestions that you create your own bouquet ect but would you make your own cake and dress? What if it all went wrong - those flowers will be on your photographs forever. Also as for the pomander price being too high, I don't think people appreciate just how many heads it takes to make a pomander, essp roses as they don't sit together naturally so to cover the spacings you need to use more.
If you can't afford it then cut back on the table decs as they will be the ones that get forgotten by the guests first.

Charliezoo

Thanks piglet25, its good to know that the price isn't too bad afterall. I'd like to meet with the florist again to choose a few cheaper types of flowers so hopefully I can find ways to save a few pounds.