Flowers

It's really down to personal preference. I love real flowers so no way was I having fake ones!

If you want things that are out of season, then it is likely to be much cheaper to have fake ones. But if you are happy to go with in season or 'florist's choice' (you give the florist a colour theme and he/she puts together a bouquet in those colours from whatever is cheapest at the time) then it will be cheaper.

Your best bet is to contact a couple of local florists whose work you like and ask them for quotes.

After many 100s of weddings here are my thoughts on artificial flowers.
You are not limited by colour
They are not affected by seasonal supply and availability.
You can get the artificial ones months in advance. Many times I have seen brides stressed because the flowers were late being delivered on the day.
Artificial ones will not get bruised / floppy or loose any heads from being snapped off during the days use
They do not attract wasps - bees and flies.
You can keep them forever.
Artificial ones are very light weight. Some real flower bouquets can be quite heavy to carry around all day.
In the photos you can not tell that they are artificial. But some are better than others and if you are not happy then you can send them back.
But at the end of the day they are not real and for some only real will do and a professional florist is a must.

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That's great advice, thanks!

I would also add depends on your budget and how much you are willing to spend on flowers. If you want to go for real ones, it can get expensive quite quickly, not only that but they will die after a few days so it's kinda thousands of pounds for nothing but looks. I personally cannot justify it so will be going with fake ones but need to find a good supplier or a decor business who has a good reputation so I can trust it will not look cheap.

I was seriously wanting to go with silk flowers, and our venue has restrictions on who we can use as florists. Luckily one of their approved florists works solely with silk flowers. We saw them at an open day and really liked how the big floral pieces looked so realistic, although I will say the bouquet up close was quite obviously not real. You buy your bouquets and button holes and then hire everything else ie centerpieces, arches etc. So I emailed asking for a quote and was told minimum spend was £2500, JUST for the hireable items, so of course the bouquets/buttonholes don't count towards this total.


I'll be honest I was floored. We're not big flower people anyway but even still £2500 seems an extortionate amount. One of the venue's other approved florists, who works with real flowers, has great affordable packages that total under £1000 so we'll likely go with them.

We got real flowers because they worked out way cheaper & I could have what I wanted. We were going for a very natural wildflower theme (all in season ones so it matched the wildflower meadow & courtyard at the venue), we focused on lots of greens with a bit of blue and white. All dainty flowers as opposed to traditional big bloomers like roses & carnations which is what you see a lot of on the artificial side.
I also dried my bouquet after and cast it in big resin heart block, making some small resin blocks for close family & friends too so it’s turned into a wonderful memento.
It’s all down to personal preference, but I don’t regret real flowers at all, they’re in nearly all my main staged photos, and they look wonderful.

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No regrets here either - we gave my OHs buttonhole to our elderly housebound neighbour and she loved being 'included' in our wedding that way. And we took my bouquet to Cornwall on honeymoon with us and had it as a table centrepiece for every meal - it lasted the whole 10 days we were there. The lavender dried naturally, as did the rose petals, and I included them in a resin gift I had made for my mother to commemorate the day. Plus having a real bouquet brought me so much joy that I just wouldn't have had from a fake one. Worth every penny.

We’ve gone fresh! I think there’s lots of misconceptions that artificial are cheap, but they can be more expensive in some cases!


If you do go artificial, have a look doing it yourself, it’s a brilliant way to say money.