A Heart-felt Opinion on...Bridal Party Bouquets

Gorgeous peonies from marthastewart.com.

I have four words:

Wedding flowers are expensive.

Of course, they're beautiful, (usually) smell great, and can make a wedding ceremony--and especially the reception area--look extra gorgeous, but shelling out thousands of dollars on flowers that will last less than a week seems beyond silly and frivolous to me.

At the same time, however, I don't want to not go without flowers on my wedding day. One of the things I pay attention to at my friends' weddings is what the bride's bouquet looks like, what the bridesmaids bouquets look like, and what kind of flowers are used (if any) for the centerpieces.

According to an interesting website, www.costofwedding.com, the bridal bouquet alone averages $121-$165. (The average wedding itself costs $25,631.) If you want to get a bridal bouquet from a "well experienced professional" and/or "unique or custom products and services," that cost quickly shoots up like a weed to $198-$264+. What? That's insane!

The website goes on to say that the average cost of bridesmaid bouquets is between $121-$201. I don't know if that means per bridesmaid or for the whole bridal party, but we have nine bridesmaids in our wedding (see post below).

A sample bouquet from Muncle Fred Art.

I couldn't bring myself to contributing such a large chunk of our wedding budget to something that was going to die in a few days. While I was all about going the wholesale flower route to save money, I was a little nervous about doing that for the bridal party bouquets. Messy can look beautiful, sure, but I mostly didn't want to be trying to create ten bouquets two days before the wedding.

When I stumbled upon a shop on Etsy called Muncle Fred Art, I immediately fell in love with all the different felt flowers they had to offer. Even better, I could pick and choose the blooms I wanted; it was kind of like going to a real florist. All the bouquet samples were stunning, whimsical, and a little on the rustic-y side, which would be perfect for our simple outdoor rose garden ceremony. Plus, they were reasonably priced and could last well after my fiancé and I said our "I do's." I was sold!

First, I sent the shop an email, asking for a quote. Not only did one of the shop owners respond incredibly fast, she also allowed me to set up a payment plan to make paying for ten bouquets easy and completely doable. Additionally, she put together a mock-up bouquet and sent me pictures so I'd know exactly what I was getting. Next, I picked out the colors I wanted (out of dozens!). I then told the seller that I was nervous to receive the flowers so early in advance (we have three dogs...), so she said I could have them sent to me whenever I wanted. I decided to have them sent a month before the big day.

Oh, I also was told that I'd get a free toss bouquet for being the shop's 100th customer. Whoo hoo!

I have one payment left, and I can't wait for when all ten bouquets arrive in mid-April. I think my bridesmaids will love having flowers they can keep, and I love the fact that these flowers are a little different than what most people go for...or expect. No, they won't smell as lovely as real flowers, but we'll all be busy laughing, dancing, eating, and taking pictures to even notice that little oversight. I think I'm okay with that.