I’m back in the saddle talking about my wedding and how we are trying to have a great wedding without spending more than $20,000. As always, if you think $20,000 is too much to spend on a wedding then I will direct you to this post.
However, we are having a traditional wedding, which means Tag and her bridesmaids will have bouquets and there will be flowers in a lot of other different places too. Tag loves flowers and we aren’t going crazy with them but we will have some. We also wanted to make it happen as cheaply as possible without a DIY solution.
Reuse Flowers from the Ceremony
Florists want to make as much money as possible, so they will want you to spend as much money as possible. Don’t be surprised when they have a bunch of different flowers for the bridesmaids bouquets, ceremony flowers, and then a completely different set of flowers for the reception.
Tell your florist that you want to reuse everything from the ceremony at the reception. Bridesmaids bouquets can be transitioned into centerpieces. Decorative flowers at the church can be used somewhere else as well. The more you reuse, the cheaper it should be. Just keep in mind it is more work for your florist, so you might have a pay a little extra for reusing things.
Get “Cheap” Flowers
There are certain flowers that are cheaper than others, especially at different times of the year. I know next to nothing about flowers, but I recently learned that carnations are inexpensive. There are also seasonal flowers that are cheap at different times of the year, so ask multiple florists about what is cheap around your wedding.
If you load up your wedding with carnations and seasonal flowers then you can get a bunch of flowers at a low price, and most people will have no idea those are the “cheap” ones. And if you have people at your wedding who are looking down on you because you got inexpensive flowers at your wedding, then you might want to consider not hanging out with those people anymore.
Can You Match That Price?
This is the same advice I’ll give for every vendor you deal with, but get multiple quotes and use them against each other. When you find a vendor you like, here are a few phrases you can use to lower your costs:
“Flowers XYZ is offering my bouquets at $125 a piece instead of the $150 you are charging. Can you match that price?”
“The delivery charge for Wedding Flowers Unlimited is 1/2 the cost of your delivery charge. Can you match that price?”
“A Flower Company is offering me a 5% discount if I pay in full today. Can you offer the same deal?”
You’d be surprised how much money we’ve saved by simply comparing one quote to another in front of the florist.
We Spent $1,263.81 on Flowers for Our Wedding
Using all of these tips combined, we spent just $1,263.81. I know that probably sounds like a lot of money to most people, but all of our initial quotes were in the $1,600-2,000 range. An average wedding spends $1,800 on flowers, so we did ours at almost a 30% discount.
Readers: Do you have any tips to help people save money on flowers for their wedding?
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
I definitely want a lot of flowers at my wedding. Luckily where we are having our wedding we can pick wildflowers from the fields. Wildflowers are exactly what I want as well so it’s perfect!
We got all of our flowers from the local supermarket for only $200, and they were beautiful! It’s not a service that they advertise, but I asked and the florist was happy to do it. I supplied the vases, which I bought at thrift shops.
We also got our cake from there! we recieved so many compliments on it and no one suspected it came from the local market.
I should mention that I worked as a cake decorator at that same supermarket while I was in college, so I was pretty confident in the skill level of the employees.
Wow, Kelly, that’s indeed a great deal. My wedding bouquet was 30 bucks only, purchased from a local market. The lady was told how I’d want it (she had various pics anyway so that we’re on the same page) and did a great job. I’d have paid way more if it was made by someone who ‘specializes’ in wedding flowers.
Also consider arrangements or bulk flowers from Costco. You’d have to have a discerning eye to make your own decisions about what you want but they typically trounch specialty florists in price.
We have no flowers in the Dagobah System.
less flowers to no flowers-weddings are starting to surface. There are a lot of couples who opt for non-floral arrangements nowadays. Or some of them go for very minimal flower arrangement and still have a very beautiful and meaningful wedding.
I had a $30K wedding for about $10K last year, and flowers was definitely the place where I saved a LOT of money. I actually did a combination of the above, and spent a total of $300.
1. Groomsmen picked wild flowers of white, purple and yellow (I swear they had a blast doing it, there is video).
2. We bought filler flowers at a grocery store (call ahead and ask when the fresh ones are delivered – they cost the same as the old ones). We used these with the wildflowers for all the table arrangements in mason jars (put together by the bridesmaids.
3. We had a flourish (likely for me my Aunt – so she said it would have been about $300 more to pay someone) did all of the bouquets (which you can pick up yourself instead of having them delivered).
See the pictures at https://chrisandvanessafinally.shutterfly.com/pictures/2382