How to Make Affordable Summer Wedding Flowers

My sisters and I made the centerpieces for my niece’s wedding. I can’t wait to show you these affordable summer wedding flowers.

There are many ways to make summer wedding flowers. And with a little bit of planning, you can make a lot. We made 30 affordable centerpieces that turned out beautifully. Most importantly, we had fun along the way!

A Backyard Wedding

My brother and sister-in-law hosted the most beautiful wedding at their home, and everything was spectacular. My two sisters and I made all of the centerpieces in colors that complemented the bridal party, and I just love these purple and white flowers!

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Tips for Making Affordable Summer Wedding Flowers

Today I am going to take you through the steps we used to make these summer wedding flowers for my niece. You can use some or all of these steps anytime you are creating flowers for a dinner, a large dinner party, or even a big celebration such as a wedding reception.

#1 – Use Inspiration Photos

My sisters and I asked the bride to send us photos of how she wanted the centerpieces to look. This helped us so much because we immediately saw the style and types of flowers we should use for our summer wedding.

Four of the photos she sent are above. They are all so beautiful and were a great inspiration!

#2 – Get Creative with Vases

One of the first things you need to do is decide which vases you will use.

Even though I used the word “vases,” you don’t need to only use traditional vases. Mason jars, galvanized buckets, and crocks are some of my favorite vases, and they can be very inexpensive. I highly suggest you look around your home and see what you already have and can borrow.

We did not care if the vases matched exactly for this reception, but we knew we wanted to use glass (some were square, round, and different sizes). Between my sisters and I, we already owned enough similar vases for 30 arrangements.

#3 – Determine How Many Flowers You Need

I have to admit, I panicked when I started thinking about how many flowers we needed to buy for 30 centerpieces! But then I realized it wasn’t hard at all.

I took one of the vases and made a practice arrangement. I used some fresh and faux flowers because all I wanted to determine was how many flowers I needed for each arrangement.

The magic number was 16, meaning we needed approximately 480 flowers, or 40 dozen. Yikes!

#4 – Select Flowers by Color and Size Not Type

There are a few things you need to accept about this process. Two words do not apply to making this many centerpieces, and those two words are perfect and matching. If I had expected every single centerpiece to look exactly the same and perfect, then this would have been a miserable experience.

At the flower mart, we shopped for flowers that were the right size, color, and style, and bought as close to 40 dozen as we could. I did not realize that the vendors at the Los Angeles Flower Mart sell flowers in bunches of ten and twelve. This means we did not buy exactly 30 of every type of flower. We got close, and that worked great. Also, for some flowers, we bought enough to put three in each arrangement because we liked them and they were well-priced.

#5 – Research the Best Prices for Buying

Speaking of prices, you should do a little price shopping. If you are fortunate to have a local Flower Mart, you are likely best off shopping there. Just be sure to check the times that the public is allowed to shop and confirm that they allow non-wholesale vendors to shop. In LA, our flower mart charges $2 to enter the wholesale mart. That’s a bargain!

Otherwise, you can find great prices on flowers at grocery stores such as Trader Joe’s and Costco. You can also order them in advance. You can also try vendors at your local Farmer’s Market who can likely help you out.

#6 – Assembling the Flowers

We went to the flower mart on Thursday morning, then to my brother’s house to arrange the flowers. Normally, we would have done this on Friday (the day before the wedding), but since my brother has a large wine cellar (kept at a very cool temperature), we made the arrangements on Thursday and stored them there for two days.

We placed six tables in the garage and set out all the vases on half of them. We filled them with water, opened up all the flowers, and cut them to the desired length. (Of course, we cut some of them again later to get it right.)

We were so busy filling the vases that I forgot to take pictures. But we started with the greens and put some in each vase. Then, we started with the first flower on the table and added one to each vase. We did this about sixteen times until all the vases were full.

As we added more flowers, we trimmed their stems so they would fit in the vases.

Once we were done, we placed all the flowers in the wine cellar. I took this photo standing above the centerpieces. This is so cool!

The wedding was amazing.

We had so much fun at the wedding. Even though Michael couldn’t make it (due to a business conflict), we had a lot of fun. I have four siblings and a huge family, so seeing everyone was a blast!

I am sure you want to know how much we spent on the flowers. We spent an average of $20 on each arrangement!

Gorgeous Faux Florals for All of Your Arranging Needs!

More Wedding Inspiration

My blog has many posts about wedding preparation. Tap on any of the links here.

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