Here’s our top ten tips to buying your wedding flowers.
1. Choose flowers that are in season at the time of your wedding as they are generally less expensive and longer lasting.
2. Choose flowers that will either match or enhance your chosen wedding colour scheme.
3.If you’re working to a tight budget, don’t get married at a time of year when flowers are particularly expensive such as Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day in February and March.
4. If you have your heart set on an expensive flower like Lily of the Valley, use it sparingly just in your bouquet and have cheaper blooms elsewhere.
5. Try to avoid choosing flowers that are short lived or, like tulips, flowers that wilt easily.
6. If you fancy trying your hand at doing your own wedding flowers, you can make huge savings by buying the blooms directly from the flower market rather than from your florist. You won’t get all the expertise that comes with the florist’s service but for a rustic style ‘anything goes’ wedding, if it’s just a bunch of flowers you’re looking for, the market is the place to go.
7. Do remember that when you order flowers from a florist, you are not just paying for the blooms but for the florist’s time and expertise too. Arrangements that require wiring are more time consuming and more costly.
8 To make your flowers go further, consider reusing your ceremony flowers at your reception. Pedestals and pew ends can be taken to your reception venue, just ask your ushers and best man to help move them.
9. If you’re watching the pennies, keep table centrepieces simple – a tall vase with an individual lily can be elegantly dramatic for a contemporary wedding, while a pot plant tied with pretty ribbon makes a great country wedding centerpiece. Some silk flowers could even be used and then sold on after the wedding to recoup some of the costs!
10. Make sure your partner agrees with your choice as, even if you think he has little interest in flowers, he will still want to be asked, particularly if you’re planning to have him wear a massive, bright pink bloom in his button hole!
