Bouquets and floral decor: mixing diy & florist flowers?

I am a part time florist. From what I’ve heard from wedding florists this can be very offensive and most florists require a $2000 minimum.


I might suggest to find a small hobby florist who can supply you with wholesale flowers from their vendor, and you hire them to do your hand tied bouquets and any installations.
There’s a lot of equipment you need (sanitized branch cutters, sanitized paring knife, clean buckets, liquid flower food, foam or chicken wire, floral tape, vases etc) to really achieve healthy and professional florals. If you order wholesale you need hours to clean and prep the flowers as well.
I totally think it’s doable but sometimes the live-product can be overwhelming. I’ve been having a very hard time with quality and supply issues as a small florist through the pandemic so you may end up giving yourself unnecessary headaches!
Having said all that, I’d be happy to help you with flower selections and supplying wholesale flowers if that’s the route you want to go.... I don’t really do weddings but I have a couple wholesale venders in Toronto that I can help you source flowers from. Feel free to reach out at @soleilfloral on instagram

Mixing both may be an issue with the florist if you tell her your concept. She would feel unrepresented of her work and efforts for what services your asking of her to do for you. Putting together artificial floral arrangement for the reception may be an idea as one did so you don't have to do more than needed for the latter evening part unless you continue to use the florals from the wedding into the reception portion of the celebration. The best choice I made was renting a floral ball that fit the vase centerpiece for each table. The cost itself was less and looked great.

The only push back from a florist I can see if they feel they're being misrepresented like if a couple tags the florist as their flower provider but the picture shows a DIY project that is not up to the florists standards.

Florists also tend to provide discounts to couples who can give them photos from the wedding that they can use as future marketing material. If the bouquet is altered by yourself to add in additional faux flowers, they won't accept that. And if the only arrangement they do is the bouquets, they likely won't provide a discount since they don't have much to show off.

I think if your doing real for one thing and faux for another and they aren't touching each other people won't notice. Especially flowers that aren't near people's faces (where they can't smell them as easily) like pew flowers or floral arches. It saves you a lot of time and set up (and money) to have some things premade that can just be brought to the church or the reception and placed easily.


I can't speak to how your florist will feel, but if you don't rub it in they likely won't mind. I don't think it's uncommon to only buy bouquets!

I am hoping to do this. There are a lot of flower farms in my area that offer florist services and diy options. I am planning on purchasing a few diy buckets of flowers to create centrepieces and a few other arrangements and then getting my bouquet and anything else that might be too difficult for me to diy through them. Since my florals will be based on what they have seasonally, I am hoping my diy pieces and professionally done pieces will look fine together and be cohesive.

Absolutely, yes, this can be done! For my sister’s wedding, she ordered her bouquet and the bridesmaids’ bouquets through the florist (there were only three of us so it was four bouquets total) and then for the groom’s and grooms men’s’ boutonnières my mom, us bridesmaids and my aunt made them by hand, along with the table arraignments, ceremony floral pieces and other decorative bits, which were a mix of faux and real flowers. The real flowers were bulk ordered from a warehouse and the faux flowers were a mix from what my aunt had from her daughters’ weddings and the dollar store. It took a little extra work, but they looked beautiful in the end and my sister saved a TON of money on flowers!

I'm planning on using fake flowers for the reception so we can set them up the night before then I will use a florist for our bouquets!

If you're planning on doing the set up yourself (or having a friend/family member/day of coordinator) do it then I don't see an issue. However if you're hiring a florist it's likely that they'll be transporting and setting up the florals themselves so I don't see how it would be possible to add in your own flowers to existing arrangements. I suppose if they're dropping off bouquets the night before or morning of your wedding you could add florals to them but IMO that will be extremely stressful and you don't want to be dealing with any potential issues the night or day of your wedding.

But for example if you chose to get all of your bouquets through a florist and then DIYed the rest of the florals I don't think there would be an issue unless there is an exclusivity clause in your contract (i.e. the florist may say in their contract that they are to be the sole provider of florals at your wedding).

Something to consider is that florists can purchase florals/greenery at wholesale prices so it's possible that DIYing may not even save you that much money and you'll also have to sort out actually setting everything up. I would speak with your florist first about everything that you want and then if it's outside of your budget ask what you could do to reduce the price.