Becoming a florist: DIY bridal bouquets

I don’t recommend every bride do their own flowers.  Honestly I wasn’t even sure I was going to pull it off, but I had already decided I wasn’t going to pay $300 for a rose bridal bouquet so there was no going back from there. 

The whole process began when my friend Amy recommended her florist from her wedding.  Since I had chosen pretty common and readily available flowers I figured it would cost that much to accomplish the look I had in mind.  I didn’t want to just go with the first florist that was recommended to me so I started doing some research.  As I got deeper and deeper into the prices of simple floral center pieces I realized that even just 10 small floral arrangements was going to eat my whole flower budget and then where did that leave me for my bouquets?  Over budget, that’s where.

I was talking to my step-mom one day about flowers and she mentioned that her boss’s son ordered wholesale flowers from a friend who used to work with her and that he could save us a ton on flowers but we would have to do all of the arrangements our self.  So we went about buying some test flowers from the Cloverdale flea market and spent an afternoon getting an idea of the formula we would need to use to create all of the arrangements the day before the wedding.  After about 3 hours we pretty much had it figured out along with how many and what kinds of flowers we would need.  Since our colours were teal and red, we decided that all the flowers should be red since all the table over lays would be teal. 

We used flowers that were the same shape and size as flowers we would use in the actual arrangements.

About a month later I went about finding a florist to do just my bridal bouquets.  Again, I search online fro good reviews and low prices.  The lowest I found was $300 for a bridal bouquet and $150 for bridesmaids bouquets.  I guess we are cancelling all our floral arrangements cause that’s our whole budget (Over actually). I put in a call as well as several emails to the florist recommended by my friend and received no response.  Maybe my order wasn’t big enough to justify a call back? I began thinking about it.  How hard could it be to bind some flowers together?  With that I took to my computer once again and watched as many bridal bouquet tutorials I could find.  One piece of advice I’m so glad I took was to allow for plenty of time to accomplish all of the bouquets and also to do a trial run to absolutely determine if this was a task I could accomplish. 

One of my bridesmaids Kim and I took to purchasing the right flowers for the job and my wonderful not-yet husband built us a little work table to go about our business.  4 hours, tutorial videos on repeat, many alcoholic beverages and a sun burn later we had completed ONE beautiful bridal bouquet!  At this point we are feeling pretty competent Kim and I.  All liquored up and having accomplished the one bouquet we are thinking we should open up our own shop!  All confidence dissipated a month later when it was time to order the flowers and I began having nightmares about hideous flowers.  Too late now, just go with it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvr1Kq9gols

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYRfGeKXpuQ

Not bad for newbies!  We used three carnations bunched together to create the same size flower as a cabbage rose.

Over the next 2 months I went about collecting all of the supplies I would need to pull this off. Gardening shears (buy good ones cause mine sucked), floral tape (green), green craft wire (for gerbera daisies so they don’t wilt), fishing line (to bind each section together), ribbon and corsage pins.

The night before the wedding, three of the most wonderful ladies accompanied me to the hall where my flowers were awaiting me.  At 9:30pm at night we began the arduous process of de-thorning and leafing the flowers and applying the wire and floral tape to the gerbera daisies (note: do not go too far down the stem because you will need to trim the stems and you don’t want the floral tape and wire to be visible at the end of the stems when you are finished.  Only about 5 inches from the base of the flower is necessary. We got carried away).  Once we had 3 gerbera daisies wrapped and 25 roses de-thorned I began to create my bridesmaid bouquets.  I’m not going to lie; I got better as I went.  The trick with creating a rounded bouquet look is to cross your stems.  I started with three in the center and then added flowers working around the base, all the while crossing the stems.  It looks bulky at first but once you bid them it isn’t at all.  I bound each layer so it would be easy to maneuver the bouquet as I worked.  Once I had the size and shape I wanted I would look it over from every angle, determine if there were holes, pull some flowers up, push some down and then wrap the stems in floral tape starting two inches from the base and working my way down.  Leave two inches of stem from the base of the ribbon and floral tape because you will have to put the flowers in water. Trim your stems and then add your ribbon.  We tied our ribbon to the base of our bouquets leaving two inches of ribbon to tuck and cover.  Slowly wrap the ribbon around the stems in the same direction you crossed your stems.  This will help keep the flowers in position.  If you try to wrap in the opposite direction you will be pushing the stems away from each other which will move the flowers out of position potentially.  Once you have your stems wrapped, tuck the ribbon under on itself so you can’t see the rough edge of the ribbon and pin with corsage pins.

We finished all 6 bouquets by 12:45am.  That’s not bad when you think about all the work involved.  I finished my bouquet in 15 mins which I think was the record.  Because I used larger garden roses as well as regular roses and gerberas it didn’t take as long.  An all rose bouquet has less forgiveness on shape than if you used fluffier roses or other flowers.  

I would definitely do my friends flowers for their weddings since we are totally pro now! HAHHAAHAHAHAHAAHA

But seriously, I saved so much money doing my own flowers.  I ordered 5 bunches of 25 cabbage roses, 6 bunches of 25 roses, 7 bunches of 10 gerberas, 2 bunches of 25 carnations and two bunches of baby’s breath for $470.

If you have the time and patience and any skill what-so-ever I definitely suggest going this route!

What do you think this is? Charity??

Craigslist is a joke.  I prepare you this is going to get all ranty up in here.

When I am looking to buy used items on craigslist I am just astonished by how much colossal crap people are selling and then how much they think their crap is worth.  Over the past 12 months I have scoured craigslist for décor items for the wedding and at one point even did a search for cheap wedding dresses.  What I found was a whole lot of ugly junk!  Okay, I’m not being fair.  Some of it was reasonably priced and decent stuff….. but that stuff disappears very quickly!

So now I am on the other end of the craigslist ad.  I have become the seller.  Here is what I have discovered as a seller.  Even if you price your merchandise for less than what you paid, people are still going to come at you with some ridiculous offers.  I understand that as a seller I need to be prepared to come down on my prices and be able to bundle things together to save the seller some cash.  What I don’t understand is someone offering me $60 for three items totally $150.  Come on! 

I put the hard work in.  I searched for months!  I ordered things from the states, had them shipped to my parents American shipping address, paid to pick them up and then had to drive there and back to pick it all up.  I did the online research.  I found the best prices and then to re-sell these items I posted the prices minus the shipping minus the exchange rate minus the taxes and less than ticket price and I’m still being low balled!

Here’s the thing.  We didn’t go into debt to pay for our wedding.  We did everything on a budget and we stayed pretty darn close to that budget.  I made branch centre pieces. I made my own garters.  I killed myself for 12 months to make sure we didn’t spend a penny over what anything was worth.  Do you know how much it cost to buy tree branch centerpieces?  I did the research: $20-40 bucks a piece (just branches) and to rent them its cost around the same.  I made ours for $22 each including the vase and the filler stones.  That’s all the paint to coat them so they weren’t dirty, the sparkles, the plaster base to weigh them down in the vase.  All of it!  And some lazy bride thinks I’m just going ot give them all away for $3 a piece?!! This is not a charity! 

Here is my insight people.  Make me be the schmuck who paid full price.  Then buy my stuff at the discounted price and then sell it after your wedding for the same price you bought it for.  Wedding decor is the biggest rip off there is.  Women lose their minds when it comes to executing their vision for their wedding.  Let’s be honest.  This stuff is going to sit in my garage for a year until my husband puts it on craigslist again for 20% less than I posted it for!  Oh well.  It would be nice to just see all the stuff I collected go to good use. 

Hire a Coordinator!

Trust me!

BRIDES!! Are you listening?  If you have decided to get married on a budget and you are doing lots of DIY projects and you have your hand in everything going on in your wedding, and you’re not getting married at a hotel or a golf course but instead in a hall, barn, cabin etc where you have to book all the vendors yourself and do all of your own set up; HIRE A COORDINATOR!

Now that I have gotten that run on sentence out of my system I cannot put enough importance or emphasis on this one thing.  Even if you ask one of your close friends (who isn’t in the wedding party) or a relative to take over the day of coordinating, please for your own joy and peace of mind on the day of, delegate all of the day of responsibilities to someone else.

I planned everything and I had a very specific vision.  Very specific.  I thought I had everything covered and I was feeling pretty proud of myself until after the ceremony I was informed that all of the prep work I told the bartender would be done had gotten missed amongst all the other very important things that needed  to get done (that of course I insisted I do) the day before.  The float for the bartender apparently is an important thing to provide. Ooops.  I was lucky enough to have an amazing MC who took it upon herself to also be my on the spot in the moment wedding coordinator who handled all of the things I had forgotten.  

Chaos!

During your wedding you do not want to still be coordinating the event.  You want to be in the moment enjoying everything.  I can honestly say I didn’t relax until we had checked all of the “picture” moments off the list (cake, garter, bouquet, first dances).  Thank goodness for friends and family who take initiative because I don’t think I would have had nearly as good a time if many many responsibilities were not taken over by our loved ones.  

So, brides.  Loosen the reins and let someone else steer for that day because you will be thankful.  If you have $650-900 extra in your budget to hire a professional I can now see that they earn every dollar they charge. 

Another note from experience:  Decorating always takes twice as long as you think it is going to.  We were lucky and we were able to book our hall for a few hours the day before since we were married on a Friday.  It took us over 4 hours to decorate the whole hall, not including ceremony prep.  Granted we had a lot of assembly work to do.  Because I made all of our centre pieces they needed to be put together at the hall and all of the table numbers needed to be set up depending on if the centre piece was a flower arrangement or a branch setting since all of our picture frames were different sizes and would need to be arranged based on height; which meant the pictures and numbers couldn’t be put in until the tables were arranged and set up with centre pieces! Yikes! I’m glad I was getting my nails done at that point.  After my lovely friends and family finished setting up a couple of my girlfriends and I went back to clean up and make the bridal bouquets (that’s a whole other blog!).  The next morning I had to return to the hall to take the floral center pieces out of the fridge so the flowers would open in time for the ceremony.  The groomsmen and our fathers arrived early to set up the ceremony site which was an issue because it had rained all morning so we had to relocate the ceremony. 

Despite it all it turned out lovely!

So, like I said.  Hire someone!  Anyone! To help with set up and or coordinating. Whether you pay them or not, have someone in charge who isn’t you or your partner.  My words of wisdom passed on.

I love you more than...my former last name!

I am officially a married woman!  Can you believe it has come and gone already? To be honest I am just thankful it is over.  Don’t get me wrong, the marrying my best friend was the best part, but really truly if I knew a year ago what I know now, we would have either eloped or had a very, VERY small simple wedding. 

I figured I should make an appearance over here on the ‘ol blog since my friend Kim is putting me to shame.  Granted she hasn’t been consumed with the task of planning and executing the most stressful day of her life (yet) but she is a very busy gal who somehow still finds time to blog!  I envy her. 

I have made a list of blog topics I would like to concur this month since my hubby and I have successfully managed to make it through the past year and still love each other as much as when he proposed!  I would love to pass on some of the wisdom I have obtained on our journey and hopefully save all those naïve DIY brides out here from going through what I went through. 

Though DIY-ing saved us a lot of money in the long run, we still went over budget.  Expect to go over budget just control by how much.  Also, if you are thinking about DIY-ing and you’re not super crafty like me, make sure you have people to help you who are; it really makes a difference.  Lastly, if you are DIY-ing really consider, like really think long and hard if 1) you really need that in your wedding,  2) is having it or doing it yourself worth the time and stress and 3) do you have a contingency plan??

Here is a list of items I DIY’d:

Centre pieces: tree branches dried, painted, set in plaster

Flowers: I made all of the centre piece flower arrangements and all the bouquets

Lanterns for the trees: painted red (multiple coats), rhinestone string handles, crystal chandelier garland attachments

Garter: Ribbon, charms, lace and a sewing machine

Invites: drawn, scanned printed

Flower girl dress: Revamped and made a bit fancier with ribbon and buttons plus crinoline skirt

Table numbers: Designed, printed and added vintage pictures collected from family

Shoes: dyed and added brooch

Guest book: added individualized plaque

Card holder: Bird cage with DIY’d signage

I will gladly write tutorials on how I did all of my DIY’d decorations.  There was a lot of trial and error, trust me!  I will say that some of the things I DIY’d ended up costing just as much as if I had just bought something ie. my shoes; but I had a vision!

The first and most important piece of wisdom I can bestow upon all you future brides out there is to learn from my mistake.  I am a perfectionist and I planned down to every last detail and things still went wrong so in the long run I should have been more relaxed over the past 11 months.  I’m sure I drove my husband up the wall and he still married me.  If that’s not a testament for love concurring all I don’t know what is!  I vowed after the wedding that I would never allow another event or special occasion to consume me the way planning the wedding did.  I was an unrecognizable person.  My bridesmaids tell me they were surprised I didn’t go all bridezilla because I have the kind of personality where I really could have ripped a strip off of someone and I didn’t.  Maybe that’s because I was bridezilla-ing on my poor fiancé the whole year and particularly the week of the wedding.  There was a moment when I was speaking to the groom hands free whilst driving to pick up the flowers and I got so frustrated my MC who was accompanying me, had to commandeer the conversation so I wouldn’t get us into an accident.  All of that for one day!  ONE DAY! Yes it is one of the most important days in a young woman’s life but not so important you cause your FH to question why he chose you.  If he wasn’t questioning it I definitely was.  Thank goodness for true love cause if I were him I would have taken off in the eighth month!