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Here are the results form the last poll I did on my blog. Our question was: For a 100 guest wedding, what should the average floral budget be?
Under $1000 (34%)
Between $1000 - $3000 (30%)
Between $3000 - $6000 (20%)
10% of total Wedding Costs (15%)
Flowers are important, so skies the limit! (3%)
This was one of the most interesting polls that I've had on my blog, so I decided to do some shopping. I went to cyberspace to see what $1000 would get me. The results are fascinating:
Total before shipping, delivery, local taxes and vases: $994.83
After seeing the results, do you think you would change your answer?
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I am spending under $1,000 for anticipated attendance of 80-90 guests and a wedding party of three. Your web search results may be sparse, but calla lilies are very expensive! I could not afford them in my budget, but there are plenty of lovely alternatives.
Thanks zelatrix and rs0518.
My question is this, were you able to do flowers and get everything? I would love to see what you are getting, zelatrix. I think readers would be really interested.
hmmm….I really don’t think this could be true. You can just go to the farmer’s market and get bouquets for $10-$20 each as centerpieces. Even if you go to http://www.fiftyflowers.com or Whole Foods there are TONS of affordable combinations that would fall way under $1000 for a wedding of that size (other ‘budget’ wedding blogs have addressed DIY flowers much better than I can in this limited comment). Of course it depends on the size of your bridal party, but I truly think this is a case of the wedding industry raising the expectations of brides to feed demand for their services. While everyone loves beautiful flowers, they don’t last and they are definitely not the first thing on my mind when I think about the weddings I’ve been to. You can use herbs, potted plants, simple and lovely local flowers…candles…or paper flowers. $1000 as an average budget seems on the high side to me.
I’m with ella - while flowers are important, it ranks lower than my dress, photography, and venue, etc. if i can get away with DIY flowers, I would because the prices for florals is ridiculous
I’m really impressed with the readers and am very glad to see that many have made very wise and good choice. Good for you. I’m glad to hear that people can get $10 to $20 centerpieces. Great. Yes, you absolutely can do herbs, potted plants, and candles.
Great…I’m so glad to hear of this and I feel that $1000 will do the job for those looking for farmer market bouquets.
I’ll make sure to point brides to you for such great advise in the future when people have $1000 to spend.
My one final point, I am a floral designer so this isn’t about DIY. I want to address those who aren’t doing it themselves. Everything you point out is for DIY. Not everyone is as talented as you, Ella who can pull things together. Not everyone has the time to do it nor do they have the patience to go that route. Of course, if you are doing it yourself, you can drive straight to the supermarket and put them together. I don’t think that’s the point of this. What do you do if you aren’t a DIY? What if you don’t like the flowers on fiftyflowers.com? What if you aren’t near a farmer’s market or a potted resource plant.
I hear what Nancy is saying. My wedding had about 70 guests and was in Kansas (not the most expensive part of the country). I am an amateur photographer, so that was important to me, but I love flowers and had a vision that required succulents (my husband and I are big on the southwest and wanted our wedding to reflect that). My florist expense was $2,000. The first florist I initially chose was $1,400 (and I got another quote for that amount, too), but she was having trouble getting the succulents I wanted, so it was worth it to me to go with the more expensive florist! (My photographer only cost $1,200, plus $800 for a wedding album I never have received nor paid for–will probably do my own).
What I’m trying to say is that I learned that $1,400-2,000 was typical for my 70-person wedding. I wouldn’t have the nerve to take a chance on doing my own, in case they didn’t turn out well–I would have been a nervous wreck, so it was worth it to me to pay a good florist to do it! 
(Oh, and we had a small wedding party — just one maid of honor, but corsages and boutennieres for family and ushers and such. Our flowers included succulents plus roses, hydrangeas, a couple kinds of orchids, spider mums, ranunculus, and so on.)
I guess it would depend on the total wedding budget, wouldn’t it? I mean, if I were to spend $1,000 on flowers, that would be 1/5 of my budget! My flower budget is $500 for 170 guest wedding with 5 bridesmaids, 7 groomsmen, my bouquet, a toss bouquet and limited arrangements — no more than 5 blooms per table for 8-10 tables.
Oh, I should probably mention that I definitely emphasized to my florist that I wanted small bouquets made from flowers that were easy to get and wouldn’t have to be shipped from Holland or South America or somewhere. I know that with my budget, I’m not going to get those big, beautiful, full arrangements, but I’m OK with that.
Yeah, I think it really depends if you’re going the DIY or PRO route. If you’re not doing it yourself and are okay with whatever flowers you find that weekend - that’s one thing. If you’re going for a certain look and you want specific flowers, then you’re much more likely to need a pro for that. Not to mention things like bouts which I (personally) have no idea how to make. Our floral budget is about 1200 not including centerpieces (DIY) for an 80 person wedding. If you’re using a professional then I don’t think $1,000+ is outrageous or anything.
Our florist expense was approximately under $950 and included 10 centerpieces (beautiful with roses and carnations, blue delphiniums and greenery), 4 BM bouquets and vases to put them in, bridal bouquet and toss bouquet, 5 boutonierres (sp?), 3 corsages, and cake flowers. My florist did a phenomenal job and my main flower wa the rose; the BM and corsages, etc were all roses, so I don’t know if that makes it more or less expensive. We had 85-90 guests.
I find this very fascinating. I have no bridal party, so I don’t have to worry about them, but there is my bouquet and several bouts and corsages for family. We have about 140 ppl in attendance, and no ceremony flowers b/c it’s already nicely decorated. I told my amazing florist that I didn’t want to spend more than $5 for a mason jar centerpiece. She’s going to negotiate with farmers from the market, and we’ve invested into growing some of our own flowers. Altogether, my flower budget is coming in less than $500. The downside to this is that I can’t decide on flower types or colors until the week before the wedding b/c we’re not quite sure what’s going to be locally in season.
I made priorities with my floral list to stay in budget. We are going to have beautiful, lush bouquets, but we decided to skip floral boutonierres. We’re also getting married in the beautiful mountains, so we decided to forgo ceremony or other decorations so that we could do nice centerpieces.
I think it’s important to have a realistic budget for what you actually want, but I think it’s made harder with florals because pricing hasn’t been so transparent. I know that I had sticker shock with a couple of the quotes I got, and was stunned to see the incredibly wide range of pricing that I received from different florists for the same exact elements. It was all over the map.
Ultimately, I didn’t go with the most expensive, but I didn’t go with the cheapest either. Rather, I went with the florist who listened to and was able to articulate our vision most accurately and then gave good suggestions with how to enhance it.
$1000 is plenty of money if flowers are not your priority. In my December 80 person cocktail party wedding we spent under $500 on flowers and we used a floral designer. We had 3 attendants who had bouquets plus mine, no boutineers, and we used bubble vases with large dahlias and floating candles. My bouquet was amazing and on the expensive side with mini callas and ranunnculuses (sp?) but we downsized the attendants bouquets. We realized that we wanted to spend the money on things that would last past the day, but the flowers we used had such a great impact on our space.
Oooh, I forgot the under $950 included to ceremony vases and 14 pew bows as well - sorry!
I made the bouquet for my friend’s wedding…peonies, ranunculus, and freesia from a local florist’s. Total cost = $28. It was beautiful and smelled amazing! I’m sure it was not as pro as what a florist might do, but it was pretty and colorful and did the job. I think it really depends on how big your wedding is…sometimes increasing the scale means it’s more likely that you’ll need pro help. But with the recession on I think we’re likely to see more small weddings and DIY.
If flowers are not your biggest priority (or you have some DIY skills up your sleeve) something like this is a great deal:
Yes, you have to do the work yourself and arrange it, make the bouquets and bout’s but it could be worth it is you working with a tiny budget. Its possible to have flowers for under $1k, it just depends on the circumstances.
We’re doing the flowers ourselves for my sister’s wedding with flowers we’ll order online, and it should be about $400 for everything. We did do a trial run bouquet and are making the bouts ahead of time not out of flowers so that will help too. $1000 for flowers would be 1/3 of the entire budget and just not possible for us.
our flora budget is a little over $2,000 for a 120 person wedding, and we’re getting all the bouquets (roses, ranunculus, daisies), bouts, rose petal aisle, floral arch (daisies and vines), rose cones, reception centerpieces (ranunculus), and a few other goodies for that price. maybe it’s just that calla lilies are ridiculously expensive, but we’ve found it fairly easy to get everything we want and not break the bank, even with a small budget
Wow…I had no idea that the result of this poll would create such great discussion. I have to confess to all of you wonderful weddingbee readers that as a custom floral and event designer, it is very hard for us to create weddings for 100 guests for $1000 including delivery/taxes. Keep in mind SF tax is 9.5%. But I hear all of your comments and I learn from you.
I hope all of you won’t be hurt if I say that it is challenging though not impossible for a SF base floral designers to design a custom wedding for $1k. Yes, it really depends on the number of pieces as all of you know and the types of flowers. I could see it working but certain not realistic for all types of weddings or full scale events.
Even for my wedding in 2000(very average), I spent three to ten times what some of you spent. Where were all of you when I got married??? I could have used your input then.
Please remember that I am not telling anyone what to spend. Your budget is your budget. I respect that and applaud of you for taking the initiative. I truly hope that my comments are not off putting and that you will still allow me to indulge in creating floral designers and writing about our SF floral events and weddings.
BTW, we are looking for wedding under $1000 to feature on my Brown Bag. Please put them in an inspiration board and we will feature it. Thanks.
Our flower budget is about $400. What are we getting for that? Two bridal rose arm bouquets with peach roses, snowberry, seeded eucalyptus and plumsous. A matching nosegay for our maid of honor. A matching bout for our “dude of honor.” Fifty cups of freeze dried rose petals for table decoration. A few artificial flowers and Floralytes to go inside our clear acrylic cake stands. Some last-minute Whole Foods flowers to decorate the cake.
We don’t have a “church arrangement,” but our pew bows, gold satin sashes, and ivory charmeuse chuppah highlighted with spotlights will be enough decoration for the synagogue. Our centerpieces are long-stemmed glasses with diamond drops and floating candles in them.
Yes, it is quite possible to go well over $1,000 for flowers, if you have a large wedding party, are using flowers as your primary decoration, and want premium flowers. However, our wedding ceremony will be small. Our reception will be in the evening, so we are using candles and other lights more than flowers for decor. And we really like the arm bouquets with roses more than a more structured arrangement.
I think it might have a lot to do with where you’re located. I live in Ohio and my sister lives in L.A. She says everything is more expensive in California, and I imagine flowers follow that rule.
I’ve loved your posts so far, Nancy! I look forward to reading more!
For ~$800 I am getting:
1 bridal bouquet - roses, tulips, hypericum
2 bridesmaids bouquets - tulips
2 boutonnieres - rose, hypericum
12 centerpieces - curly willow, james storei orchids
1 stem cymbidium orchids for the cake
Cost includes delivery, but not setup.
Zelatrix…would you be alright sharing images? thanks…really appreciate your comments and input. You are all fabulous readers and I’m so honored to be here with you.
Thank you Miss Bunny….Let me know if there’s a question about floral budgets that I can resolve.
Like I said in many emails, I’d love to show my readers and all of you what a $1000 wedding looks like. I think that would be very inspiring. However, it definitely should be for around 100 guests…(no DIY b/c that’s not apples to apples).
I’m sorry - my wedding is in October 2009, so no photos to share yet! $800 was the upper range of my florist’s estimate.
I am using a Whole Food’s florist, hence the savings. For reference, I live in the Boston area.
I received an estimate for the same flowers from an independent floral designer, and the cost came to $1100 including set up. So I agree that your $1000 baseline is reasonable for non-DIY.
This was an interesting poll, Nancy! For a 100-guest wedding on Maui, the floral budget will be anywhere from $3,000 to $6000 easy.
Well, I am having a cocktail reception with 60 guest, NO bridal party. I spoke to a florist and she wanted to charge me a $1000 for the following:
1 - bridal bouquet
1 - groom boutonnière
8 - cocktail table arrangements
3 - tall arrangements
Of course the $1000 did not include the $200 for delivery and set up, plus tax in L.A. which is 9.25%.
I live in L.A. and I have been down to the floral market early on the am serveral times because I’ve made arragements for friends in the past for bridal and baby showers. The prices are VERY reasonable, so I know the mark-up by florist is a gauge, plain and simple.
Great post Nancy! As a fellow florist and flower lover, it always pains me to hear people say “oh well, the flowers die.” Yes, that’s true, but couldn’t we say that about almost everything at a wedding? The food is digested, the cake is devoured, the invitations are read and then tucked away or even trashed, the music fades… Gosh, I sound so poetic. I know this is debatable, but flowers make a wedding look like a wedding. They make the pictures more colorful and beautiful. They are a living and breathing work of art. And goodness, they take a lot of labor to design, purchase, process, assemble, keep alive, deliver, and set up. I’m not saying that people need to go broke over flowers or anything at their weddings, but they should understand why florists need to charge what they charge in order to stay in business. If they can and want to DIY, more power to them! I DIY’d my flowers
But let me add that my DIY’d flowers cost me 2200.00 to buy wholesale. And they took a small army to create and set up. And my fingernails had green stuff in them on my wedding day. haha! Had I gone through another florist, I would have expected to pay a pretty penny. It was a lot of work and should be compensated.
Fascinating post and comments.
I always enjoy watching the disconnect between wedding professionals and today’s brides.
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Nancy @ Nancy Liu Chin Designs, San Francisco
Vendor: Florist
Website: Nancy Liu Chin Designs
About Me: A San Francisco native, Nancy graduated from the University of California - Berkeley's Haas Business School where she studied finance and marketing. Beyond running her floral studio, Nancy is a huge fan of Top Chef, loves to travel to exotic locations, is an avid reader of contemporary fiction and considers herself on Team Edward (Twilight fan!), entertains friends in her loft style home in San Francisco's SOMA neighborhood, and can be found at SF Giant's home games. Nancy and her husband, Kevin are a dynamic pair and can be frequently seen walking their white Bichon Frisee, Chin Chin around the city and lounging at cafes sipping Italian sodas.
I think it also depends on your wedding party and the number of bouquets can add up if you have a large party. I see a lot of brides (including myself) using submerged orchids for the centerpieces or non-floral centerpieces, which can save a lot of money.