Branches cost what?!?!

Here is a page that shows some images of the curly willow branches I am looking for. BUt they seem to be even harder to find this tall and even more expensive. But sooo beautiful

http://www.branchingoutfloral.com/portfolio.htm

Have you tried talking to craft stores? As in actually talking to someone not just looking. they may know where to find something like that, or maybe wedding rental stores or flower shops might know too. Or at least point you in a general direction.

You could check out like Michaels or some other crafty store for the curly willow but I'd suggest getting as much as you can yourself. It'll save a ton of money and I'm sure it would be a nice relaxing chore outdoors.

For transporting them, you can borrow someones truck/suv or flip down the back seats in your car and line the interior with old blankets or towels to minimize the debris.

You could even spay paint them yourself if that was something you're interested it. We did that for my wedding and it turned out great!

I am a florist in CA, The picture you had is not of Branches, BUT winter trees, The trees are birch and VERY expensive, they have added additional willow but in general the look you want will be high end.

IF you have access to a forest and can legally harvest the wood, yes you need to check, fines are enormous!

you will have to cut and then store to insure there are no bugs.

after they are clean you place in wet cement to create the potted look.

they will need to be stable and solid.

You should hire someone for the setup, as this is not brides work on the wedding day, We do this for a living and its hard and time consuming! LOL

If I may suggest, I would see if your local rental party prop house has the trees, OR you might look for a interior landscape service to rent from.

Since your wedding is in the spring, think of renting tall flowering trees , It will be more romantic and less winter looking.

Good Luck

Branches over 4' tall can be a bit pricey. I have used curly willow braches as tall as 10' in my design work. I would be more than happy to offer pricing depending on how many individual branches you will need. Also, depending on the design you have in mind, you may have set them in a cement base (which is crazy heavy!) to keep them stable. Let me know if I can help- ****@*******************.***

Try this website. It might be helpful and cheaper.

http://www.nettletonhollow.com/branches.html

Try this website- I'm considering purchasing my branches here. http://www.nettletonhollow.com/branches.html

Hi there,

I live in Los Angeles and we have glorious down town, where you can find just about anything you can imagine. I recently helped with my friends baby shower and we did potted winter trees and I found them in the wholesale district in down town i paided i believe $12.00 for a flowering tree about 6' tall. If you have a wholesale flower district thats where you should start....

You can also try www.bloomsandbranches.com The branches are not "cheap" but they are completely processed and bug free. However, setting these up and transporting these will be a struggle. I recomend hiring a decorator to set these up for you. This is not something I would ever consider having one of my couples doing on the wedding day.

Laura -cuting the branches your self will work .check out my web site at deespartyhosting.com the branchs in the center pieces on the tables under rentals are ones we cut, painted and hand strung beads and put down the branchs to look like dew. ihad so many people calling me to order these branches.thanks !dee

Hey Laura! I don't have experience buying these branches, but my mom deals with all kinds of boughs and greens during winter when she's making wreaths, and the only affordable way to do it is to cut them yourself, we also have property with trees where we can do this. If you know somebody who has a pickup you could borrow this would be the best idea. Also, what somebody else said about them actuallly being young trees appears to be correct, branches don't typically get that long while being that size (though they might work exactly the way you want them to anyway), and the curly willow branches are definitely trees, we have one in our front yard about that size and they are VERY slow growers, which is probably why they are so spendy. One thing that you could look into is checking with local nurserys and seeing if they would be willing to loan or rent you some of their small trees for the day of, they might even transport. This could give them some advertising time too with the guests.

I'd think that you would almost certainly be able to find somebody to do this when people's minds are so bent away from buying, if you were willing to promote their trees by having little ornamental type hearts of something hang from them saying 'see your love grow with this tree, as we have let ours grow' with the name/number of the nursery nearby, you might be able to get them loaned for free, or agree to pay them for 'renting' them if none sell. This is a pretty cool idea, I know that when my parents were married my dad planted a cherry tree in our backyard and now it branches out over the whole house, and every spring it flowers, which is a very visible sign of something beautiful and special. (Not that that's too relevant but I thought it was cool). If not that, you might try to look into finding the people who supply greens/boughs for commercial wreath-makers. I know you can get specialty boughs like juniper & holly, why not normal tree branches?

My wife got all sorts of willow branches by working with a guy at the farmers market. Very inexpensive and positively fresh.

If you end up cutting down your own branches (which is what i'm doing and highly recommend to cut costs), ask to borrow a truck and a little flatbed trailer to transport the branches to your house (or wherever they're going). just place them gently on the trailer so you don't damage the branches and sticks. if you're using really tall branches/trees, use concrete. if you're using shorter ones, you can use plaster of paris. i wouldn't use that for taller than 4' though.