My daughter recently got married and wanted a lot of flowers. Since I have some experience arranging flowers as a hobby, I volunteered to do them to save money.
After doing some research I settled on ordering most of the flowers from Flower Moxie and supplemented with some flowers from Whole Blossoms and local sources (floral wholesaler and Trader Joe’s) when the number of arrangements needed increased at the last minute and some of the Flower Moxie blooms arrived late and wilted/rotten.
What I ordered
FLOWER MOXIE
25 White Escimo Roses, 25 White Carnations, 30 White Stock (all but 10 rotted), 30 Peach Ranunculus (most were pink not peach), 25 Peach Tiffany Roses, 12 Peach Juliet Garden Roses (never arrived), 20 Blue Delphinium, 10 Blue Hydrangeas, 25 Blue Tinted Carnations, 5 bunches Silver Dollar Eucalyptus (most rotten), 1 bunch Italian Ruscus, 5 bunches Seeded Eucalyptus
Total Cost - $900 ($240 refunded)
WHOLE BLOSSOMS
50 White Dahlias, 100 Peach Spray Roses
Total Cost - $320
LOCAL WHOLESALE/TRADER JOE'S
25 Peach Shimmer Roses, 25 White Escimo Roses, 5 White Lisianthus, 20 Blue Delphinium, 10 White Stock, 10 White Ranunculus, 10 White Poms, 5 Blue Hydrangeas, Assorted greenery
Total Cost - $210
I spent another $240 on vase, floral foam, and other misc. supplies (floral wire and tape, extra pruning shears, crowning glory spray, ribbon, etc.)
What I made
12 large guest table arrangements
1 large head table arrangement 1 bridal bouquet (no bridal party)
1 welcome sign flower box
1 bout
~50 Bud vases
36 feet of greenery garland (guest tables and other misc. locations)
Ordering
I did a bulk order from Flower Moxie since I knew the look we wanted and which flowers would work in what quantities. However, they also offer tons of DIY packages and a custom order option where you can meet virtually with a florist who will work within your budget to give you flower/quantity recommendations and recipes. I also did a Whole Blossoms bulk order because I only wanted white Dahlias (which Flower Moxie doesn’t sell) and peach spray roses (that were cheaper than Flower Moxie). In both cases the ordering was straightforward but Whole Blossoms offers much fewer DIY resources and requires a higher minimum quantity for most flowers. However, you can order many of their flowers with less than a week’s notice vs. Flower Moxie where a month lead time is required.
Prep
Although I had experience doing table arrangements I still watched a ton of YouTube tutorials from Flower Moxie and other sources on YouTube.
Schedule
The wedding was on Saturday evening so I arranged for delivery from both Flower Moxie and Whole Blossoms on Wed before noon.
WEDNESDAY
Most of the flowers arrived on schedule in several shipments with the exception of one Flower Moxie box that contained the Juliet Garden Roses, White Stock and Seeded eucalyptus. I was notified that there was a UPS shipping delay and they wouldn’t arrive until Thursday which was worrisome. However, I went ahead and processed all the flowers that came. I cut all the stems at an angle and stripped all the greenery.
The quality of the flowers were great except for the peach spray roses from Whole Blossoms which were wilted and sad looking. Also, most of the ranunculus were pink rather than peach. I attempted to fix with design master peach spray but it just made them more pink. TIP: pay attention to how short you’re cutting the stems in relation to the height of the hydration bucket you’re putting them in to make sure the heads of the flowers aren’t down inside getting squished. I put the more delicate flowers (ranunculus, dahlias, lisianthus) in their own glass cylinder vases from Walmart being careful not to crowd them. The rest of the flowers I put in small 1.5 and 2.5 gallon trash cans from the Dollar Store and Walmart. Greenery I put in 5 gallon buckets from Home Depot. I used cold water for all of them to keep them from opening too quickly. TIP: buy more hydration buckets than you think you’ll need. It’s important not to crowd the flowers so that they’ll open.
I set the AC on 68 and put them all in the dining room with the curtains pulled shut so they weren’t getting direct sunlight. The only exceptions were the dahlias which are notoriously fussy with a short vase life. Those I put in an empty fridge in our garage with the temperature raised a bit. I also had to wire my ranunculus since they were so curvy. I did the processing with the help of one person and it took a few hours.
THURSDAY
In the morning I checked to see if the roses were opening and they weren’t so I changed the water to slightly warm and placed them in a room with a little more sunlight. I also checked to make sure all the flowers had plenty of water. The second box from Flower Moxie arrived in the morning and as I suspected everything was in rough shape. The seeded eucalyptus was dried out and rotted as was the stock. There were also 25 hot pink wilted standard roses rather than the 12 pink Juliet Garden Roses I ordered. I immediately took pictures and notified Flower Moxie. I was a little panicked at that point since the peach garden roses and white stock were both a big part of the planned design so I ran out to a local wholesaler and Trader Joe’s and bought some extra blooms I thought would work that were the right colors. The plan was to do the table arrangements and bridal bouquet on Thursday night so late Thursday afternoon I started manually opening the roses that hadn’t blown out yet by holding them upside down and spinning them between the palms of my hand. I also reflexed some of the roses to give them a more dramatic look. Thursday night I had several people come over to help arrange. I did the first table arrangement to see if my recipe worked and then had everyone else duplicate it. A couple people would pull all the flowers needed and take them to the person who was doing the arranging. TIP: hydrangeas do not like floral foam and will wilt quickly so if you are doing arrangements more than 24 hours before the wedding use water tubes for those blooms so they have a direct water source (or use chicken wire rather than foam if you’re comfortable with that); after you snip the stems dip them in alum.
I had a total of 5 people including myself to help but only 2 of us were actually doing arrangements - the rest were pulling flowers for us and doing bud vases. It took probably 5 hours total. I went ahead and arranged the bridal bouquet, zip tied it, and put it in its own vase. I also did the flowers for the welcome sign.
I put all the finished arrangements in the boxes the flowers came in and put them back in the walk in pantry along with the extra flowers that were still in buckets. TIP: pull the best flowers for the bouquet ahead of time and set aside. Also save any snapped flower heads and greenery scraps for bud vases or cake flowers.
FRIDAY
I was busy setting up the venue Friday so aside from checking on the flowers I didn’t do anything with them. I noticed a few of the dahlias were wilting already along with a couple of hydrangeas that had drank all the water in their tubes. I decided to wait until the next day to swap them out with the extras. TIP: make sure to spray everything with crowning glory spray to keep things fresh.
SATURDAY
We got up early to transport all the flowers to the venue. The boxes the flowers came in were perfect for transporting the table arrangements. I used liquor store boxes with partitions for the bud vases. The bouquet I kept in its own vase and made someone hold it while I drove. I also brought all the extra buckets of flowers to the venue so I could swap out the sad blooms. After I replaced those flowers I made the bout and put it in a shot glass in the fridge with a wet paper towel over it. Right before the ceremony I cut the bridal bouquet stems very short and wrapped with ribbon.
Overall takeaways
Everything turned out well, but dealing with the rotten and wrong colored flowers from Flower Moxie was stressful and ate up a lot of time. If I had to do it again I would probably just try to place an order ahead of time with a local wholesaler for the flowers I wanted even if it was slightly more expensive.
Great flowers
Carnations - have a long vase life and you can’t kill them.
Tiffany, Escimo and Shimmer roses - opened beautifully and were very hardy.
Delphinium - beautiful but shed a lot so be prepared.
Lisianthus - can be fussy but turned out gorgeous in the bridal bouquet.
Poms - very hardy and add can interesting texture to an arrangement.
Recommended with reservations
Hydrangeas - they are a great volume flower but can wilt easily so it’s important to keep them hydrated and always have extras to swap in if needed.
Ranunculus - beautiful flowers but may need to be wired so stay away if that’s not something you’re comfortable with.
Dahlias - amazing but unless you have an empty fridge or floral cooler I wouldn’t recommend for DIY as they are just too fussy and die very quickly. It’s also very easy to snap the heads off so if you go this route I would order plenty of extras to account for loss.