Picking Flowers For Your Wedding Celebration

Weddings can never be complete without the requisite grand flower arrangements and decorations. From the altar flower, to the table flower centerpiece in the reception, flowers enliven the occasion and leave a mark on every stage of the celebration. Depending on the theme and your budget, there is a plethora of choices available to answer your wedding's flower and ornamental needs. The following are a few helpful tips on getting the best flower deals.

Know your budget. With all the spending here and there, it is easy to overlook allotments for other non-immediate but necessary items. It is important to know beforehand how much you can spare by making a list of all your expenditures, making sure that you leave just the right amount for flowers. But if budget is not a major issue, plan ahead and do the budgeting later.

Know where to start looking. You can buy your wedding flowers anywhere, anytime. But knowing the right, if not perfect kind of flowers and its arrangements needs more than careful and deliberate planning. You can get ideas from flower shops' portfolio or sample displays, magazines, or books on flower arrangements for special occasions. For the latest trends, check out the Internet for websites specializing on flowers and weddings. Gather as many ideas as you can before you start working with your florist.

Sweet flowers, anyone? Fresh flowers are quite expensive and require more care to keep it fresh and pretty for a longer time. You can actually make it lighter on the budget by adding candy flowers alternately made of silk and candies to your fresh flower arrangements. Find out if you can make some arrangements with local cake suppliers, or have it included in your wedding cake or catering package.

Cut down on fresh flowers. Aside from the preceding tip, there are other ingenious and creative ways of cutting down on your fresh flower requirements. Instead of having flower bouquets for your bridesmaids, let them have 2 or 3 long stemmed flowers adorned with simple ribbon drapery. For table centerpieces, use beautiful wrought iron candle holders with simple but elegant candle pieces as an alternative to flower centerpieces.

Consult the professionals. If you find yourself spending more than enough time worrying about what ribbon would best match your bouquets, let the florist take over and do the work. Make sure, though, that you have your ideas, particularly letting informing her what flowers and items to avoid or to go for. But be open to suggestions, as florists are more experienced in that aspect, and might actually have more creative ideas that you would like to include in your plans.

Be your own florist. If you're going for simple but elegant flower arrangements, and you think that you can do the job yourself with a little help from your friends, then go for it. However, this involves a lot of work and the safest way to do this is to do the planning two months before the wedding date, at the very least. If you're totally inexperienced in flower arrangement, stack up on books or magazine articles on the topic, and make a serious job of learning the basic techniques of flower arrangement. Particularly look up on tips for proper storage of freshly cut flowers.

Make an organized list of supplies needed. Do not get into the last-minute shopping trap. With so little time and so many tasks at hand, make a separate list and shopping schedule for the supplies that you need. Knowing what you have to shop for would save you precious time spent for making hurried trips to shop for missed out items.