Wedding Budget For Flowers

by Millie
(Bristol)

My daughter is getting married in our local church and I’d like to know about how much of our wedding budget we should allow for flowers. I know that the it's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string, but what is the 'normal' spend on this?

Answer:

You’re right, it is a bit tricky and a bit like ‘how long is a piece of string’. The first thing I would do is find out if the church supplies flowers for weddings. Some churches have strict rules, particularly if it’s an active or large church. You may find that by paying a nominal fee, they’ll provide the flowers for the church.

For the rest of the wedding, it really depends on how far you want to go. Flowers are expensive and you can easily spend thousands! I kept my budget to £200 and that was with cost price flowers and with my mother-in-law doing all the flowers for the reception. We only got my bouquet, corsages and buttonholes done professionally.

I can not stress how important it is to shop around. I received three quotes ranging from £25 to £90 for exactly the same bouquet. As you can imagine, I went with the £25 one! So, speak to three local flower shops and see what they can do or recommend.

For my £200 I got:
- Two large pedestals (we used them in the church and then took them to the venue. We returned them to the church afterwards as well. The actual pedestals belonged to the church so we had to!)
- 10 table decorations (peony with bear grass in a hired vase - £1 for the flower head and £1 for the vase)
- Bridal bouquet
- 2 corsages (simple 2 flower corsage for the bridesmaids – much cheaper than a bouquet)
- 10 button holes (single flower cream roses for the boys, pink roses for the girls)
- Three small arrangements for cake decorations

A couple of ways to keep your costs down are to use in-season flowers. Speak to your florist which flowers are suitable. Alternatively, choose flowers with lots of flowers per stem – that way you’ll get more bang for your buck.

I hope that helps!