I wasn't planning on getting that many flowers from FiftyFlowers until the week of my wedding, when I found out that local flowers wouldn't be available. FiftyFlowers has the BEST customer service and absolutely came through for me!
Since about a year before my wedding, I'd been in contact with two local farms to buy flowers from them. I was going to pick them up early Saturday morning for my Sunday wedding. However, we had terrible weather and both farms reached out to me on Monday (six days before the wedding). One said they didn't have anything, and the other said they only had a small amount (10 bunches). If I were to do it all over again I would definitely still try to go the local route because it is so important to support local farmers, but I also can't say enough good things about FiftyFlowers. I called FiftyFlowers on Monday afternoon and they were able to ship the flowers that I wanted by Thursday and Friday, free shipping.
In addition to the flowers from this site, I ended up getting about 40-50 bunches locally (the farm that said they had 10 ended up having more). Therefore, the poppies, the butterfly ranunculus, and some of the ranunculus (white, red, the brighter pink, and the more pastel yellow/orange) in my pictures are not from FiftyFlowers. However, the brighter yellow ranunculus and the “Peachy Watermelon†ranunculus in the pictures is from FiftyFlowers.
With all these flowers, I made 1 bridal bouquet, 2 bridesmaids bouquets, 8 boutonnieres/corsages, a garland, arrangements for 7 dinner tables, and about a million other jars of flowers to place around absolutely everywhere. I started arranging them about 8:00 in the morning. My mom joined me at 9:30 and a friend joined me at 10:00. We all worked until around 12, took a lunch break, and then they both left around 3:00 and I continued until 5:00. In total that's about 22 hours of labor hours. It got rushed towards the end and I wish I had a few more hours, but live and learn! Having the day to arrange flowers with some of my favorite people was so fun and such a special part of the weekend.
In case it helps, here's some details about how we made everything. We are exactly the opposite of pros, but it all worked out great.
Bridal bouquet: I held it in my hands as I went, started with the largest flower in the center, and worked out. When it was too much to hold without the bouquet falling apart I'd wrap wire around the stems (with another set of hands for help!), and then when it was secure again I kept adding more flowers. At the end I added some ruscus, wired it again, and then used ribbon to cover up the wire.
Corsages/boutonnieres: I made the tiny arrangements in my hand, then wrapped the stems together with green floral tape. Then I wrapped that in either ribbon (for the corsages) or twine (for the boutonnieres), but I left the stems long and hydrated in a dish of water. I cut the stems short once we were at the venue getting dressed. No idea if this was necessary, but everything held up with no problems--even the ranunculus and scabiosa.
Dinner table arrangements: Each table had 9 jars: 3 quart jars, 3 medium jars (roughly a pint, but in various shapes), and 3 small jars. For some of the quart jars (dinner table and other quart jars that we set out all over the place) I used clear floral tape to make a grid, then screwed the outside part of the lid over the tape to keep it secure. The tape wasn't really necessary but it was helpful. The arrangements were perfect because they were huge but not too tall so people could still see each other.
Garland: I ordered a garland from FiftyFlowers as a base. I also ordered extra Sprengeri Greens and Ruscus to stick into the garland to make it fuller. I was surprised how easy it was; we didn't end up needing to wire it or anything, and the greens lasted just fine out of water. I also stuck some artificial poppies in it that I happened to have (the white and yellow flowers). In addition, we cut a bunch of other flowers short (used leftover garden roses and disbuds), stuck them in floral water picks, and transported them to the venue separately. We zip-tied the garland to the arch and then stuck the floral picks in (again no tools or wire necessary). After the ceremony a couple friends moved the garland from the arch to the swingset, and after the wedding my dad took the garland and repurposed it, flowers and all. It lasted a long time!
Our flowers were just incredible and I loved the thrown-together look. It took absolutely no skill or practice; the flowers were so beautiful on their own that they didn't need anything except a jar of water. Everyone said they were the most beautiful flowers they'd ever seen! At the end of the night, we asked everyone to take home as many flowers as they wanted and some people's reactions were so cute! It felt amazing to be able to send our friends with (literally) boxes full of flowers!
