Florist vendors/ diy

Hi!



I feel like I am trying to lock down vendors way ahead of time, we are just under 2 years away from our wedding date but currently it seems like florists aren't even booking until a year out.
We did even up having a consultation with a florist today and turned out that she wouldn't even take us on as clients due to our wedding date being the day before mothers day (it's just her and she has a shop she runs, so we understood). She was really transparent but now I feel really panicked because I didn't think of how much more flowers would cost because of mother's day being the same week. She was saying sometimes 2-3x more 😩
Has anyone done a mix of faux/real or made some of their own arrangements? If so what did you prefer and where did you get your faux flowers from?
I feel like I am a pretty creative person but nervous to make my own and not sure where to start or where to get the good stuff ahaha