Question about BM flowers..

Ok so we all know weddings are EXPENSIVE and the biggets cost aside from band and reception is usually the wedding flowers and what happens to the bouquets? They get tossed after the pictures and there goes a lot of moola to waste.

Since the FH and I are on a super tight budget. we are DIYing a lot and cutting corners where we can. Our florist wants to charge us 85 dollars per BM bouquet for only roses and gerber daisies. Nothing exotic in there folks. He gave us the same estimate for plain roses, for plain gerbers and carnations and roses....

Sooo we are considering nixing the BM bouquets either completely or making them ourselves because I like the 'just picked' hand-tied look and honestly we can probably do each one for under 15 dollars. So that is one idea.

The other is to nix them completely and do something else. Our wedding is outside so we were considering 2 other options.

1. Colored paper parasols. The girls are wearing very brightly colored dresses (they are in my album) so I thought parasols would be a cute touch.

2. Fans. I saw this in Martha Stweart and loved it but not sure if people would think it 'weird.'

What do you ladies think?

FAN IDEAS:


sandalood fan:


paper fans(I really love these colors though they don't have them in red now due to chinese new year)


silk fan (out of stock till May but I LOVE the color. I will be wearing red heels under my dress and the FH is wearing red doc martens)


PARASOL IDEAS: (these are our wedding colors-each girl will be wearing a diff color so I thought the parasols could be the opposite of their dress)






This one would probably be what MOH would carry because her dress is a bit diff than other girls-she will be wearing bright pink, trimmed with ivory.



HELP! I need input!

BTW these are the BM dresses. The last one is the MOH dress-it will be that same shade of pink as BM with ivory ribbon.

I love the idea of the parasols and the colors are beautiful! I am actually using those color gerber daisies for my BM.

If you are still interested in pricing flowers, I would try Keyth at Lovin' Oven. He is doing gorgeous gerber/rose boquets for my girls and the price was within my budget. Let me know if you want to see pictures.

hey, I think those are really intersting and unique ideas!

If you want another price for bo-k's you could try Ken and Eva's Flower Cottage. Every floral arrangement I have ever gotten from there was very reasonable.

If you really wanna make them yourself, I reccommend getting the flowers from price club (costco). You can get 2 dozen gorgeous roses for like $13 or something, and other flowers are even cheaper...

i love the parasol idea...
also here a websitewholesale flowers ...they have weddings in a box etc...fairly priced

heres a link for some pretty parasols that are very reasonbly priced PARASOL

And here is a link to a lot of dfferent styled fans
FANS

Thanks BrideInBlue. Question folks; since our theme is not asian inspired at all, does it lookk weird to have asian printed fans? Most of the ones I am finding are and our flowers are basically gerbers...not very zen.

I considered solid colors but people seem to think it would be too plain.

I found these...

What do you guys think?

These come in sets of 6 (i only need four but they are reasonably priced) and are handpainted in these designs. They look fairly mainstream right? Just pretty florals?



Or these...



Same sandalwood material but they are etched with a 'sunflower' pattern. It doesnt really look sunflowerish to me-just floral though they seem to be a pale yellow.

Either one with the dresses or no deal?

Fans aren't only an asian thing, they are also a victorian thing. (olden days movies with women in dresses with many little buttons, high collars, and fans... and those poufy bun hairstyles... or just watch Tombstone...)

I think if you like it, you should go for it!