Rule #1: Take Your Time

I know that this is last thing that any bride (or groom!) wants to hear. But this doesn't necessarily mean that you need to have a year and a half engagement.

What I mean is this: Don't rush into anything. Don't ever accept the first price you hear. Anything with the label "wedding" on it is immediately more expensive, so if you're able to avoid traditional wedding vendors, you will save so much money! I'll show you just how much with an example of my most recent project: wedding flowers.

I went to a florist about a month ago, and after seeing an $800+ bill (over twice my budgeted amount for flowers) for the bare minimum (bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages for the important people and two arrangements for the church), I started researching other options. This is what  I mean by taking your time. Don't just go to one vendor and immediately accept their price.

Since I am generally an independent and slightly crafty person, my instinct is always to go DIY. So I found some websites that have fresh, wholesale flowers. (I also have seen ideas of going to a farmers market or Costco the morning of and getting flowers there -- however, that will give you a higher risk for not finding exact colors and flowers that you want and less ability to plan ahead. If you're not terribly particular though, that's a really good option) At one website, www.freshroses.com, I calculated out my needs, and my bill would be about $300 for all the flowers and supplies instead. Saving $500? That's no contest. Not comfortable trying to make your bridal bouquet for the first time on the morning of your wedding? Me neither. Here are some suggestions to make DIY fresh flowers a little less stressful and scary:

• Find a friend or family friend who does flowers. Maybe they will do them for you if you just cover the cost of the flowers. 
• Or, if you don't know anyone so well that they would do that much for you, maybe you could ask them to just be around on the day that you and your bridesmaids and moms are putting the arrangements together, to offer advice, help out, and save the day when you mess something up. 

I am currently looking into these options, but it didn't stop me from researching even more options. I have a friend who got married in June and their whole wedding party used silk flowers. Wedding websites are split on this. No, nothing can replace the smell and feel of a real rose. But, on a small budget, are you willing to compromise in order to put the money where you prefer it to go? Not only are fake flowers so much cheaper, but you can DIY without the stress and have them done months before the wedding! That is a HUGE selling point for me, personally, since I'll be busy with finishing up college in the semester before the wedding.

Now if you're worried about silk flowers looking tacky (a genuine fear, and one that I have as well), what about looking into other DIY options? These days, weddings can be whatever you want, and you don't have to have traditional-looking flowers if you don't want to. Bouquets out of brooches, pinwheels, and all sorts of other materials are all over Pinterest these days. One of the themes of decorations at my wedding is going to be sheet music, and I found tutorials for simple and beautiful DIY sheet music flowers. Personally though, I'm in love with the beauty of real flowers, so even though my fiancé was on board with the idea, I didn't want full bouquets of flowers made of sheet music.

An example of a sheet music flower that I made this summer after
finding an old hymnal sitting in our garage.

My latest discovery (and favorite option so far) are DIY organza flowers (or really whatever fabric you want). The thing I love about them is that they mimic the colors and textures of real flowers (especially if you are into large romantic flowers like peonies), but they aren't really trying to look like real flowers like silk flowers, so that eliminates the potential tackiness of using fake flowers and greenery. After calculating out the costs of making bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, and hair pieces out of these flowers, it looks like they total cost will be about $100 (but of course I'm budgeting $150). What? Saving about $700 by not going to a traditional florist? Is this real life? Yes. Yes it is. Of course, this is based on the fact that I plan on taking in Hobby Lobby's 40% off coupon (available all the time!) when I go to buy the material, and I'll search their weekly ad throughout this semester to try and get deals on the rest of the materials as well. Then over Christmas break, I can have a bridesmaid party where we'll all get together and cut, sew, and singe flowers to our heart's content (and probably even a bit more than that.) And because the material is cheaper than fresh flowers, I'll have a bit more freedom to play around with what I have and make bouquets that look beautiful (plus I've been perusing etsy.com for ideas!).

If I go with the organza flowers, I'll be saving hundreds of dollars, lots of stress, and have bouquets and flowers that will last for years. However, I don't really want fake flowers in the vases on the tables at the reception. My solution? I'm going for a romantic look, so I got some thin vases at the thrift store, will put one on each table, and then put one pink rose into each vase. That means that I just have to send someone to the grocery store the morning of the wedding to pick up 2 dozen roses for $5 each. Simple, cheap, and beautiful.


Do you see what I mean by taking your time? If I had just booked my florist then and there, I would have spent $800 on flowers that will look beautiful in pictures, but would have just died a few days later, and on a small budget, that's just impractical. Now, if you have the money to spend on flowers, that's great! Go for it, save yourself a lot of time. But if you're on a budget, you learn to make some sacrifices and spend time on things. It will really pay off if you do!


Note: I did not add links to the tutorials I have found and have used or plan to use. However, if you do a web search or a search on Pinterest, you can easily find good tutorials for anything DIY wedding.