How Much Do Couples Typically Spend on Wedding Flowers?
Here are six common formats for buying wedding florals and their average price.
Real Blooms • Full Service
This is the most traditional route for floral service and the most expensive. Nearly all full-service florists require a minimum spend, usually starting around $5 - $7k. You can easily spend over $10k on a comprehensive package, however. Be prepared to allocate a healthy portion of your budget to florals if you want ceremony installations, aisle arrangements, table centerpieces, and bouquets. Full-service wedding floral services require extensive work before, during, and after the event. This includes design consultations, sourcing and ordering florals from wholesale suppliers, prepping, arranging, storing, transporting, and setting up on the day of. It also takes a team of skilled florists to pull off larger events, so expect to pay for this labor in your total project fee. Due to the amount of work that is required for each project, florists can’t coordinate and service 100 weddings per year. Their availability is limited and therefore, they need to be able to pay their bills and earn an income through 10 - 20 annual events. Even florists bringing in multiple six-figure revenues only take home modest personal incomes once all their expenses are covered.
Real Blooms • Pre-Made
There are a few online retailers that have begun offering pre-made arrangements that ship directly to you. Since they ship already assembled, the available arrangements are limited to things like bouquets, boutonnieres, centerpieces, and arrangements that can fit into a standard-size shipping box. Pricing starts around $300 for mini packages, but plan to spend at least $1k if you want enough pieces to cover things like bouquets and table centerpieces. You will also be limited to just a small selection of styles and colors.
Real Blooms • DIY
You can now order florals online and a few days before the wedding, they ship directly to you. With this model, you are responsible for all the prepping and arranging. You’re also on the hook to purchase all the supplemental supplies like water buckets, floral foam, wire, shears, gloves, zip ties, and vases. We recommend practicing with some grocery store flowers first if you’re selecting this method. You don’t want to ruin your limited inventory by practicing for the first time on the florals that shipped for your wedding. Pricing for packages that include enough inventory for bouquets, centerpieces, and ceremony flowers usually starts around $1k.
Faux Blooms • Pre-Made
These are faux floral arrangements and bouquets that you purchase or rent online. These are convenient, but most retailers won’t offer you the ability to customize. If you rent, you’re responsible to ensure everything gets returned. Pricing for individual items will range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. Just like pre-made real blooms, you will be limited to just a small selection of styles and colors. If your florals are rentals, the company may not use real touch artificial florals, as these are more delicate and tend to get damaged easily. They are going to opt for sturdier fabrics and materials that may result in florals and greenery that don’t look very realistic. Some of these faux floral rental retailers will ship you a sample for a small fee so you can see the quality. If this is offered, definitely get a sample shipped so you can try before you buy. Also, look for customer reviews with pictures, if available.
Faux Blooms • DIY
This method is much easier than DIY real blooms since you’re not up at 2am trying to arrange 15 centerpieces the night before your wedding. You can purchase blooms from your local craft store or online. We recommend purchasing a few samples before you commit to large quantities if you’re ordering from an online retailer. Keep in mind that high quality faux florals can be expensive. Real touch florals are often $5 - $15 EACH. Check out our other article, The Case for Faux Florals, for advice and tips on buying artificial flowers.
Faux Blooms • Full Service
This one’s our favorite, of course! If this service is available in your area, it’s a great option. You still get the experience and customization of a full-service florist, while saving money by renting high-quality faux blooms. Faux florists can also take on more annual events since the project’s inventory isn’t having to be sourced from scratch for each event. Artificial flowers can also be assembled before-hand, as there’s no time crunch and fear of the florals wilting. A team isn’t required to assemble a large installation like an arch on the day of the event. Instead, a single florist can put together this item ahead of time in their workshop and deliver it already assembled. Because of this, there are some labor costs savings with this service as compared to florists working with real blooms. Plan to spend at least $1,500 on items like custom floral arches or large installations. cOMPREHENSIVE faux FLORAL SERVICES CAN RANGE FROM $2,500 AND UP depending on how many items you want created for your wedding.
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