Flowers, Flowers

I should preface this post by saying I've never really been a flower person, per se. This is not to say that I don't love flowers when I see them in the super market, because I absolutely do. But I can't identify flowers just by looking at them, and I don't necessarily have a favorite flower. And I certainly hadn't considered flowers a priority for my wedding, but I found some inspiration nonetheless.

Inspiration #1: Crespedia

Clockwise (from top left): Once Wed, Tying the Knot, Once Wed, The Knot

Inspiration #2: Dahlias

Clockwise (from top left): Once Wed, The Knot, The Knot, Martha Stewart Weddings

Inspiration #3: Ranunculus

Clockwise (from top left): Once Wed, Style Me Pretty, Once Wed, Dash Pinch Smidgen, Indianapolis Monthly

As pretty as all of these flowers are, they became even less of a priority when I learned that the average cost of wedding flowers can be somewhere between $700 and $2,000, and as much as $5,000. Seriously? This may work for some budgets, but for my budget and my preferences, I say, "No, thank you."

My plan of action to avoid these costs is two-pronged.

First, I'll be doing flowerless centerpieces, which I'm sure to reveal more about later on.

Second, I'll be going it alone. That is, I plan to order wholesale flowers and make the bouquets and boutonnières myself. This might seem crazy, but I'm pretty confident about this plan. As Wedding Aces explains here and here ad nauseam, there is a lot of effort and cost that goes into a florist's services, and I'm sure it's well worth it. But It's not the approach for me.

Many a wedding blog and wedding chat board has vouched for going the wholesale flower approach. Online wholesalers like Fifty Flowers and Whole Blooms claim to provide a large selection, early delivery, and high quality flowers, and several chat boards seems to back these claims up (example, example, example). So, I'm sold on that front!

And tutorials for DIY bouquets and boutonnières are easy to come by. For example, bouquet tutorials can be found here and here, and a boutonnière tutorial here. Since I'll presumably be making these the day before the wedding, it will undoubtedly be for the best for me to try my hand at this at least once before then, so I'll likely be making a super market flower purchase in the near future. Stay tuned for that.

To make it as easy as possible on myself, I'm just going to stick with one kind of flower, so without further ado, I introduce you to my wedding flower--the yellow Ranunculus. I mean, seriously, how pretty are these flowers?! I had already been considering them, and then Design Sponge did a nice little write up on them that pretty much sealed the deal in my mind.

Source

Seriously, these flowers could totally make me into a flower person.