Are DIY wedding flowers actually cheaper?
DIY wedding flowers can be a slightly controversial topic in the floristry world.
But my view is, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing your own flowers - as long as you know what you’re signing yourself up for.
Timelines, quality, delivery, conditioning, prep, mechanics, designing, moving, securing... there’s a lot that happens between ordering flowers and seeing them looking lovely on your wedding day. So the question I’d ask is: do you genuinely see yourself spending the eve of your wedding - and potentially the morning itself - creating, moving and placing flowers?
Yes, buying flowers yourself can be cheaper than using a florist. But you’re not comparing like for like. When you pay for a wedding florist, you’re also paying for peace of mind, less stressful planning, expertise and an eye for the details.
Buying wholesale flowers isn’t quite as simple as picking what you like and ordering a few bunches. There are different minimum orders, stem lengths and quality grades to understand, wrap quantities to work out and delivery timings to get right. Then there’s knowing what needs conditioning, how different flowers behave and what will actually work for the designs you have in mind.
Florists also build relationships with suppliers over time. We get to know who we’re buying from, what quality to expect and where to turn when something isn’t quite right. And beyond the flowers themselves, there are buckets, tools, mechanics and all the other sundries that go into actually creating the designs.
Then there’s experience. I’m six years into floristry and I’m still constantly learning how to make things better - whether that’s the mechanics behind a design, the ingredients I choose or a more efficient way of working.
None of that means you can’t DIY your wedding flowers. You absolutely can. But the saving comes partly from taking that work, learning and responsibility on yourself.
You’ll also need somewhere suitable to store everything (working with flowers in the Summer is not for the faint hearted or even slightly warm environments!), enough space to work, transport and people you trust to help set everything up.
So if you love flowers, have the time and genuinely want to make them yourself, go for it. I genuinely admire creativity of any expression and seeing someone else do what I get to do for a living is so lush.
But if you’re considering DIY purely because it looks cheaper on paper, factor in the tools, sundries, wastage, time and logistics too - not just the price of the flowers.