Full disclosure, I work at FiftyFlowers, and have for over 6 years, so DIYing my flowers was definitely something I had planned on doing for a while, especially since I wanted a lot of flowers! Keep in mind, I wouldn't recommend this amount of flowers for most DIY Brides, but since I knew what I was getting myself into and had lots of help I knew we could pull it off. My flowers were delivered 3 days before my wedding, the same day we were getting into town, but thankfully I had the best MOH, who received and started processing all 15 or so boxes. It took a lot of buckets for all these flowers, I honestly couldn't even tell you how many because we ran out and then had to use trash cans, coolers, whatever we could find that would hold water and flowers. Haha. We let the flowers hydrate overnight and then the next evening we had a lil flower arranging party to make all the centerpieces. I had help from my bridesmaids, my mom, mother-in-law and some of my new sisters-in-law and it was so much fun just getting to play with flowers. We set aside some flowers for the bouquets and bouts, since we were going to wait to make those the day before, but then I let them do whatever they wanted since we were having long feasting tables (made by my husband) and I wanted non-matching arrangements placed down the centers of the tables. The centerpieces all went in perfectly rustic birch bark wrapped cans made by one of our amazing customers, Lori Dyer, Lori, I can't thank you enough! (Search her name in our flower stories to see the amazing weddings she's done with our flowers!) Violet, our resident wedding flower planner, and a friend I am glad to have, created all our bouquets and boutonnieres the day before the wedding. This gave me some time to relax and go to our rehearsal dinner. You don't have to do it all when you DIY, just do what you feel comfortable with! All the leftover flowers went to the Bouquet Bar. I have never liked the tradition of the bouquet and garter toss, so the bouquet bar was my way of sharing my job and what I love with our guests. It was a huge hit, especially with the kids, but anyone who wanted could create a lil bouquet to keep or give to someone special. We had a Whisky Bar for my husband. That was a huge hit with the adults. Haha. Our wedding day was truly one of the best days of my life, being surrounded with all our friends and family and all the flowers I could have ever imagined!
