My DIY 1,000 Costco Wedding Flower ummm... tutorial?

So, I’ll dive into the details. I did all roses. I ordered my roses through Costco. I’ve always ordered through them, and they have always been perfect with no issues.

Price: $74.99 for 100 long stemmed roses. It prices out to be approximately .75 cents per rose.. I live in Iowa, and for giggles, I priced them at the local florist. $4.00 per rose. I’m not sure how that compares to larger cities, I’m literally in small town USA. I would have paid $4,000 *just* for the flowers – that wouldn’t have included any filler, arrangements or bouquets.

What you will need: Buckets, quantity depends of course on the # of flowers you have. Fresh water, rose shears, (some people use strippers, I prefer shears), lots of space, - and keep in mind, this will be messy. Depending on your flowers, you may need refrigeration. Also, flower food – it typically always comes with the flowers, but I always get extra so I can freshen the water. Depending on how many you order, you may want help! My mom is like me and loves doing this, we had a blast. (PLEASE DON'T force bridesmaids or friends into helping..)

Ordering & Delivery: Costco only lets you place your order 3-5 weeks ahead of time. I placed my order on 5/26, for my 6/18 wedding. My wedding was on Saturday, and I wanted them to arrive on Wednesday. When you order, you select your delivery date. I’ve never had a late delivery, ever.

Speaking of delivery date – you want to give your roses enough time to open up. When they arrive, they are really tight buds. I wanted my roses to be really full and open on Saturday. Had I wanted them to be tighter, I would have gone with a Thursday delivery.

Also- you MUST be home when they deliver. They won’t just drop them off. This time, mine actually came on two different trucks, which was nice, because it gave me time to process nearly half of them before the next boxes arrived.

This is one of the boxes. There are exactly 100 roses in there, I promise! The box is heavy..

Each box contained 4 carefully wrapped packages of 25 roses that looks like this.

This is what one of the packs of 25 looks like, some are hiding, but they are all in there.

I started by taking each “pack” of 25 out of the box, and just literally getting them in water. It’s amazing that they arrive in no water, and look as great as they do. I then took 1 pack at a time to my kitchen table. I had premeasured approx. how long I wanted them to be. (literally each stem was approx. 24 inches) Here’s where it gets tricky, and prickly. Roses have thorns. Lots of them. I’d start by cutting the rose to length with my shears. Always cut at a diagonal. This allows maximum water to get into the flower.

I then stripped off any leaves that would be below the water line of the flowers. (actually, I’m not sure I left many leaves at all – I didn’t want them in my CPs) Now came the “fun” part – cutting off every single thorn. I suppose you could skip this step, but honestly, who wants work with, and arrange flowers that are full of thorns? Not this girl. And, I was making bouquets, so – I wanted them all gone. I got a few pokes, but it wasn’t bad at all. Next, I removed any petals that weren’t absolutely perfect. If there was slight discoloration, odd shape/form or bruising, I’d gently remove them. I put them in large 2gal Ziploc baggies, and kept them in the fridge. I used them to line the aisle, and also the flower girls used them in their baskets.

These are the petals we removed from the roses, they were still beautiful, and I had tons of them. I loved the way they looked lining the aisle!

After cutting, stripping the leaves, cutting off the thorns, and removing any petals, I’d put the stem into a bucket that I had premixed with water and flower food. After about 8 hours (that I enjoyed every second of) – all of the roses were in buckets and looked gorgeous. (I couldn’t use my kitchen, because every counter top was literally full of buckets – but – my house smelled incredible)

I kept them at room temp at home all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. We transported them to our venue on Thursday evening. They were starting to open rather quickly (faster than I had hoped) - so we took advantage of the large cooler/fridge at the venue. This slowed them from opening so rapidly.

Filler: I bought some greenery, (two types) and baby's breath, and another airy white filler from a local florist for next to nothing.

This is me after like 6 hours..

I really wish I had a picture of my kitchen table area.. It was a MESS. Leaves, thorns and stems everywhere.

DH swept everything up and took it to the burn pile - that part was easy peasy (for me anyway)

I overfilled some of the first buckets - after I got into the swing of things, I figured out just the right # for each bucket.

These.. are overfilled. But still, soooo pretty!

Ok guys- I'm sorry - I have to go for a bit. I'll finish this later. Any questions, let me know and I'll gladly answer what I can!

Nooooo!!!!! I was enjoying your pictures. I love the yellow roses.

Did you make centerpiece arrangements? any pictures?

you picked the same flowers my aunt that I was named after did for her wedding, made me smile

Thanks for the tips! The petals along the aisle are so beautiful. What a great use of the extra petals!

I can't wait to see the pics of the centerpieces!

Following. This is awesome! I am also doing just yellow roses for my wedding in April. sounds like Costco is cheaper than global roses, too!

Thank you for going into so much detail with this process. Your roses look beautiful & I love the color.

I would love to see the centerpieces, I'm doing very simple diy flower centerpieces and haven't completely decided on exactly how I'm going to do them. So I'm interested in seeing what you did...

I want the rest!

For anyone wanting to do this, there a thorn strippers and they cost like 8 dollars. You can get them on Amazon.