Real flowers or artificial flowers for wedding?

I prefer real but artificial flowers will be cheaper. DIY real flowers vs hiring a florist is also an option to lighten the cost.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much!! I’ve been stressing about this and contemplating on it 😅

Real flowers can be expensive if you have a very specific vision in mind that involves lots of big floral arrangements, or if you want ‘premium’ flowers which can go for as much as $15-20 per stem such as David Austen roses, peonies, café au lait dahlias etc. By the same token, really good quality fake flowers (the kind that you would not think to be fake unless you very closely observed them) can also amount to be quite expensive.

Personally, I can’t stand fake flowers so I made a conscious decision to allocate a chunk of my budget to florals ($5,000) but I also have a vision in mind which will involve some heavy investing (and I have also chosen two premium flowers being burgundy cafe au lait dahlias and quicksand roses).

If you don’t mind fake flowers then generally you will always pay less for them (unless they are of the top notch quality I mentioned above) but if you would prefer real, perhaps first speak to a florist and see if they can work with you to use reasonably priced flowers to keep costs minimal.

We decided on silk flowers from Wedding Flowers for Rent for several reasons. Firstly, we’ll be eloping and couldn’t see ourselves keeping the florals alive for a few days before our destination beach wedding. Renting florals also meant that we could transport, set up, and tear down with ease. The company we settled on specializes in making sure their florals look realistic (we shall see when they come in... I’m crossing my fingers but their online pictures look promising). Lastly, it was just cheaper for us to rent a few items (garland, boutonnière, and bouquet) rather than DIYing or getting them from a florist.

I did real flowers but also didn’t want to break the bank! So, we ended up spending total of $1,300 on flowers and ended up with 3 bridesmaids bouquets, 1 bridal bouquet, 6 boutonnières, 2 corsages, rented a bamboo arch, and have 2 large arrangements for the arch. I feel like that is pretty good for the price we paid in my opinion.

View Quoted Comment That actually doesn’t sound bad! I didn’t think of that thanks!

View Quoted Comment Awesome thank you so much!!

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much I’ll look into that !

View Quoted Comment Thank you!!

I did sams club and Costco flowers for my wedding this weekend for about $500 we got 24 hydrangeas 100 white carnations, 200 white roses, 16 bunches of assorted greenery, and 24 feet of garland greenery!! Me and my MOH are going to arrange them tomorrow (you just order them for the Thursday before your event!)

View Quoted Comment I love that idea thanks !

We had a small budget and did a mix of fresh and faux. We did eucalyptus and white/ivory flowers.


Fresh: my bouquet, hubby's boutonniere, centerpieces, cake flowers and baby's breath around the aisle.
I bought them wholesale two days before the wedding and arranged centerpieces myself. A friend made my bouquet (wasn't perfect and I wish it had been a but bigger but still super grateful). Paid under 200 Dollar.
Faux: Arch decoration and cake stand decorations. Not sure about cost since a friend gifted them to us. We went for faux because it could be arranged ahead of time (we did pretty much everything ourselves) and because it could be re-used.

Faux and fresh matched and complimented each other perfectly. And it looked great.

First I was thinking about using faux for centerpieces as well and possibly not having a bouquet. But I am so happy I opted for fresh flowers because I love flowers.

We are doing both. The bouquets will be real but the rest of the flowers will be artificial we found great deals online and honestly the dollar tree has great flowers. My sister used dollar store flowers too and people were in love with them.

I think it's a personal choice and a lot go into the decision but I was in the same predicament as you a few months ago! Ultimately we decided to go real because I love flowers, I love how they smell and look and I just couldn't bring myself to compromise with fake stuff. A tip...reach out to your venue's recommended florist if they offer one! We did this, our venue actually provides centerpieces for each event so we contacted the florist who does the centerpieces and she gave us a discount because of her work with the venue.

We are getting my bouquet, 5 bridesmaids' bouquets, 7 boutonnieres, 3 corsages, all of our centerpieces, ceremony decor which includes a white curtain for the gazebo we are getting married in front of, rose petals down the aisle and lanterns lining the aisle, and a fireplace decoration because our table at the reception is in front of a fireplace, so it's going to be like a garland. All of it was $850. So it is possible to find florists who aren't outrageous and I highly recommend checking out anyone your vendor recommends because they will very often offer some kind of deal.

I always prefer real flowers. I do not like the look of fake flowers. I would find over places in your budget to cut back, if you can.

In addition to cost, I would suggest factoring in the amount of time you want to spend as well. For example: originally I thought I'd do all florals myself, mixing real and silk, and arrange things leading up to the wedding. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that's not where I wanted to allocate my time. My FH and I both work over 40 hrs/week, and we want to be able to relax as much as possible in the weeks leading up to the wedding, so paying a little more for a professional to create and set up flowers for us ended up being the better option.

Side note: I know it doesn't fit with everyone's vibe, but incorporating some dried flowers can also be a great way to save!

We prefer real flowers because there is no comparison. Also they are actually cheaper than silks/wood/foam, whether you DIY from fiftyflowers.com or the local grocery store or flower warehouse or if you go through Costco.com for premade or a local florist. We’re going pretty simple with just roses. So no exotics, out of season, or greenery.

View Quoted Comment That’s not a bad idea ! Thank you !

View Quoted Comment Thank you ! I’ll check that out !

View Quoted Comment Thank you !!