Budgeting for your Wedding Blooms

22nd November 2019

Welcome! As you've found your way here, we're guessing you're ready to start thinking seriously about the flowers for your wedding day. We've put together another blog on Finding Inspiration for your Wedding Flowers, with some handy tips and tricks which we'd recommend you take a look at before reading the below. 

Now, you hopefully have a clear idea in your minds of what type of colour scheme, flowers, arrangements and scale you'd like on your big day. It's time to think about how to put that in to practice...

Putting a Price on Your Petals

Of course, each couple is individual and everyone has different priorities. Some couples opt for elegant & extravagant flower arches made entirely of rose buds, wheras others may opt for hanging foliage and greenery for a more rustic feel. 

The average typical spend for wedding flowers and decorations combined tends to be between 3 – 10% of the overall wedding budget. On average, you should expect the cost of wedding flowers from a florist will be between £1,200 and £1,500.

It's very important to think about whether you want to hire a florist. Yes, you’ve done your research and you probably know what flowers and styling you’d like to have now, but ordering and arranging flowers is a whole different ball game, and can be a lot of work on your wedding day!

Deciding to be your own florist for your wedding can be an easy way to cut costs, especially if the flowers you have in mind are relatively easy and won’t be too much stress to arrange. However, if you’re going for something a little more complicated or stylish, it’s definitely best to book a florist. Remember, it’s likely your flowers will be in every photo from the big day and you don't want wonky blooms or wilting bouquets to be spoiling the shots!

You need to think about:

• Bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids
• Lapels and buttonholes for the groom and groomsmen
• Blooms for the flower girl
• Petals for confetti
• Flowers to decorate the ceremony venue
• Flowers to decorate the reception venue, including table displays
• Vases which can go around your venue to keep your blooms looking perky all day

Sourcing and arranging your own flowers can be a lot of work and the end results may not look as beautiful as you imagined. You also need to be very on top of your timescale - your flowers want to be looking their absolute best on the wedding day, so you need to carefully plan when they will arrive, how long they’ll survive in or out of water, on top of how to style them around your venue.

If this seems a little daunting, we’d definitely recommend finding a florist to help you.

Finding Your Florist

Start with word of mouth recommendations, as it’s very likely your friends & family will have worked with florists in the past, whether it's for their own weddings, parties or other celebrations, so it's definitely worth seeing if they have had any very positive experiences. If they have recommendations, this is a great way to find a 'tried and tested' florist who has already done a great job for someone you trust. 

Go online - sometimes there’s so many options online that it can be overwhelming, but there are plenty of sites that list recommended florists for your area so it can be worth reading through a few of these and seeing which names keep cropping up. 

You could also explore more specific or local hashtags on Instagram, and see if any particular arrangements or posts really take your fancy, for example:

Once you have a few different florists on your favourites list, you can deep dive their websites and social media, and browse examples of their past work. Some may be able to send you a portfolio, others may recommend you stay tuned on their social media channels to see what they’re currently working on.

Most florists offer an option to book a consultation and meet face to face, especially for wedding planning. You want to make sure you get along as chances are you'll spend a good amount of time together working on your wedding plans, and you also want to make sure they share your vision for your perfect blooms!

Make sure you discuss:

• Availability – they need to be free on your wedding date, and possibly even the day before & after for any preparation and also dismantling the arrangements.
• Your Vision – you should pitch your ‘ideal’ vision of your flowers on the big day, what blooms you have in mind, colour schemes, where the flowers will all go, how they will be arranged, along with how many bridesmaids and groomsmen you have, and guest amount, just so they understand the scale of your wedding.
• Budget – You want to get a quote on your ‘ideal’ vision, and then if that is seeming over budget, you could start discussing ways to bring the cost down.
• Venue – It would be really helpful to show your potential florist photos of the ceremony & reception venues, so they can get an idea of scale. Better yet, if the florist has worked at your chosen venue before you could ask to see photos from what they did there for previous clients. You could also ask whether visiting the venue together would be a possibility before the wedding.
• The Big Day – What will they do on the day, and will they need help from you? 

Once you've agreed on a budget and a plan for your flowers, you can book your florist! 

They then have a lot of work to do as your blooms need to be ordered (remember some may need to come from further afield depending on the seasons and availability in the UK), then arranged beautifully, and transported to your venue. 

You need to speak to your venue (for both your ceremony and reception) as to when you can prepare the space. Some may allow you a full day before your wedding to set everything up, whereas others will offer you a time slot, likely the morning before your wedding. Your florist needs to be fully aware of this time scale in order for the arrangements to look as beautiful as possible - so communication is key here! On the flip side, you also need to speak to the venue about how to leave the space, whether they allow you to take down your arrangements the next day after your celebrations, or whether they request everything to be done on the same day. If this is the case, you should check that your florist is happy with a possible late night get out, especially if they're packing up flowers after your reception, after midnight!

Budget Blooms – Ways to Bring the Costs Down

If you're feeling a little daunted about the costs of wedding flowers and florists, there are a couple of things you can do to bring your costs down:

• Instead of going with a highly experienced and established florist, you could instead explore the possibility of using an aspiring florist who is eager to expand their portfolio. You could find someone with all the skills and passion, just much earlier in their career, for a fraction of the price. These florists will likely be posting and marketing their talents on their social media pages and websites, so keep your eyes peeled.
• Use less flowers and more foliage – embrace the greenery. It is the buds and flowers which really bring costs up for weddings, so you could bulk out your arrangements with more greenery. Eucalyptus for example looks amazing in arrangements and bouquets, and is a fraction of the cost of flowers. You could also hang trailing ivy from beams or ceilings for a beautiful rustic look.
• An easy way to save money on flowers is the re-use the blooms from your ceremony venue, and move them to the reception venue once the ceremony is over. You will need a plan in place of how this can be done (either by your florist or a willing family member or friend!), but it's a great penny saver.
• Use lookalikes – your dream flowers may have a much cheaper ‘lookalike’, and even you may not be able to tell the difference! We give a few cheeky lookalike examples in our Finding Inspiration for your Wedding Flowers blog.
• Think about using silk flowers – there are some amazing companies nowadays with very realistic blooms, saving you the stress of wilting flowers, and hopefully some £££ too.

After the Wedding

 It’s likely flowers will be the last thing you’re thinking of after celebrating your big day, so it’s good to make a plan in advance. You’ve spent the last few months thinking about these flowers so it would be a real shame to let them go to waste. Grab a few bunches to put around your house, and give out some blooms to your family and friends as they leave the reception. Spread the love and encourage your guests to leave with a lovely floral reminder of your beautiful day.

Once your flowers are starting to look a little sad in their water, don’t forget to compost them or add them to your green waste, and let them rejuvenate the earth, ready to bring life to more flowers in the future!