DIY FLOWER HINTS:

The time that it takes you will depend on how many people you have helping and how complex you want your flowers to be. We had all of the girls get together the night before to do our flowers, and got them done in a few hours.

 

We spent about $300 on flowers/supplies for 1 bridal bouquet, 5 bridesmaids' bouquets, 1 toss bouquet, 4 corsages, 8 or 10 bouts, and centerpieces for 10 tables.

Roses and alstroemeria (Peruvian lilies) tend to be inexpensive and hardy flowers to work with when you are DIYing. 

If you use lilies, be sure to cut the stamen out of the center – the pollen will stain your dress.

Flowers with hollow stems, such as Gerbera Daisies should be wired to prevent the heads from drooping.

White flowers bruise easily.  Be careful not to handle the heads too much 
We ordered 100 roses and combined them with pre-made bouquets, which at the time were offered through rosesource.  I don't know that they offer them still.  The bouquets acted as filler flowers to the roses.

If you order from www.rosesource.com  tell them that a friend referred you; you can probably get a 10% discount 

Go to a grocery store and buy flowers to do a trial run. This will give you an idea of how long it will take you to make bouquets/bouts/corsages/centerpieces, etc and will also give you a feel for how many flowers you will need and how they hold up

Most places ship the flowers so they arrive 2-3 days prior to the event. They are shipped closed and need to be prepped. Someone needs to be home that day to receive the flowers. Then the stems should be cut (underwater), the flowers placed in a cool room and be left to open.  If you order roses, be prepared to de-thorn them.

When the flowers come, they may appear wilted - don't freak out. Prep them, put them in water and allow them to open overnight.  You can pull off any wilted or bruised outer petals when you put together the bouquets.

We scheduled our flowers to arrive 3 days before the wedding. All of the flowers were tightly closed. When they arrived, we unpacked them all and prepared the flowers by cutting their stems (underwater) and pulling a lot of the leaves off.  We stored them in buckets w/ water in a closed room with a window air conditioner. Our air conditioner was having issues (it doesn't really blow "cold" air because it is old) so we fought hard to keep the flowers cool enough that they didn't open too fast, but in a room with a working air conditioner, they should be fine.
 
Store different types of flowers in seperate buckets, because they may open at different rates. The warmer the air, the faster they will open. If you find that the flowers are opening too fast, add ice to the water to slow the opening.  Make sure you change the water every day. 

The evening before the wedding, we went through and made the bouquets, corsages, bouts, etc. For the bouquets, we re-cut the stems to the length that we wanted, arranged the flowers, wrapped the length of the bouquet with floral tape, hand-tied the ribbon and left about 2-3 inches of the stems exposed. We put them back in the buckets of water, and stored them in the cool room.
 
If you put the bouquets in the fridge, don't put them near the back or you risk freezing the bouquets.  Also, make sure that you do not have any fruit in the fridge; the gases they emit will wilt the flowers.

For the corsages and bouts, we cut the stems, arranged the flowers wrapped them in floral ribbon, placed them individually in zip lock bags, blew air into them, and stored them in the refrigerator.

On the day of the wedding, we left the flowers in the cool areas for as long as possible. They held really well throughout the day 
 



 

 

DIY flowers from friend's wedding. 

Flowers ordered from www.rosesource.com