wedding wednesday: diy flowers

flowers...  a detail not to be overlooked, but one where you can certainly cut financial corners. yep, you guessed it...we did our own flowers for our big day. this "we" included help from some of our green thumb family and friends. we kept it simple, but really couldn't have done it without their help...we would have stressed our socks off. i am telling you, do not take this on if you stress out easily (trust me you have enough to worry about) and don't have helpful hands available that you can trust to take on this challenge. 

being the control freak that i am, i was adamant about making my bouquet and the two boutonnieres knowing that these would be the most photographed floral pieces. i did research prior to (nerd alert) taking on this ordeal and followed the directions for creating a bouquet here and an example of a boutonniere here. we did this all a day ahead of time and the bouquet and boutonnieres lasted beautifully in a refrigerator.

we kept most of the flowers in the white/ivory family with touches of yellow and greenery. this made flower shopping a cinch as we travelled from costco to local grocery stores to collect our bounty. for the bouquet, I wanted to make sure i had a good base of hydrangeas for fill to create a base to build from. it worked smashingly well. i was more than pleased with the result. as for the tabletops, we filled milk glass vases with the flower varietals. once the wedding planning process began, my mom and i started thrifting milk glass and found most vases for under 2 bucks. they were a lovely addition to our simple table decor.

wedding flowers are a major wedding diy to take on...but the benefits far outweigh the added stressors they bring on. that is what this lady believes, but trust me not everyone agrees with my craziness. my big advice...do your homework, keep it simple, and practice if need be. we estimate that we saved between 1,000 and 1,500 dollars by doing it on our own. boom. i'll take it.

good luck with it and happy arranging.