Wedding Flowers: The Ultimate Money Saving Hack You Need

Hello my fellow plant obsessives‘ and welcome to my first post of 2025!! I’ve got to confess, I have been a bit lax with my writing over the winter, but life just has a way of taking over doesn’t it? With winter still firmly upon us, and the garden and allotment looking pretty drab, I thought I would tell you all about some exciting news and spread my joy somewhat. There is going to be a WEDDING! And it involves lots of wedding FLOWERS!! 💍🍾🥳

Introduction to my wedding flower journey

This post is a very exciting one! And you won’t be surprised to find out what it is about, as clearly, the clue is quite literally is in the title. There is going to be a wedding, with lots of wedding flowers, and I am the one that’s getting married! Yes, we have finally set the date and not only am I excited about the wedding (obvs), I am VERY excited about the flowers! 

I guess you probably already realised I like flowers, but the even more exiting part of this post, is to announce with some level of trepidation, that I have chosen to sow, grow and design my own wedding flowers. This includes the bridal bouquet, the grooms button hole and of course the rest of the floral wedding decorations. 

EVERYONE: Erm 🙋🏻‍♀️, is this a good idea? ME: Yes, yes it is!!

I have decided to do this for a number of reasons.

Firstly, sadly cost is a big reason. Because we all know weddings are hellishly expensive and personally, I would rather spend the money on other things. Hence if I can save some cash on labour costs then this means I have more for other fun stuff, like champagne and a honeymoon.

Did you know in the UK, the cost of flowers for an average wedding is between 8-10% of the overall wedding cost? That works out at an average of £1100! Now, importantly for me, of all the things I do NOT want to be frugal with at my wedding, the floral display has got to be up there. Probably along with the champagne, did I mention that already? 

Therefore, by growing my own, I can have as many flowers as I can reasonably and realistically grow, without worrying about the cost. Obviously, there will be an initial outlay but that is nothing compared to what it would have been had I hired a professional.  

Secondly, and probably the main reason (let’s be honest), is that I bloody love growing flowers! So why on earth would I not want to grow my own wedding flowers? Plus, I get to choose ones that are perennial so I can enjoy those same plants for years to come. Not to mention I can save the seeds from a selection of annuals. Both of these are therefore cost effective.

Thirdly, and a bit depressingly, the wedding feels so far away; nearly 7 months 😔. So by doing this, rather than be sad that I have to wait so long, it already feels like I am already partaking in the wedding joy 🥰. 

EVERYONE: Growing your own wedding flowers…what could possibly go wrong?! ALSO ME: Absolutely Nothing!

Of course, I am pretty sure this is not going to be as easy as I am making it out be 🤔. There are a few things that could go awry 😳. For example, what if my plants don’t produce their flowers in time for the wedding. Or what if the seeds I sow don’t germinate at all. Perhaps the plants will get eaten by wildlife and I won’t have time to start again. Btw, this happened to my dahlia’s last year, and it was so disappointing.

As a result, I am going to have to be a bit stricter with myself on how I garden. By this I mean that I have a happy-go-lucky gardening style and tend to just ‘give it a go’ to see if it works. Mostly it does, but this year, I will have to be a lot more by-the-book to get the best out of my plants. For example, I need to sow my seeds at the right time, not just when I feel like it. I will have to use methods to discourage slugs, snails and all things slimey, (organic of course), rather than let them feast.

And, most importantly, I will have to feed my flower babies. This is not something I totally neglect, but I am also not as fastidious with it as I should be. I need my new plants to produce as many beautiful blooms as they can, so this will be near the top of my to do list. 

Just in case…

However, what I do know, is that irrespective of the above pitfalls, I have enough flowers in my garden/allotment already to produce something. Although this may not hit my colour scheme, at least I will have a bouquet, so really, what is the worst that can happen? 🤷🏻‍♀️. And whatever the result, I CANNOT WAIT to go through the experience of doing this and to share it with you. And you never know, this may inspire some of you to join me in growing your own wedding flowers.

Where to start with my wedding flowers?

First thing’s first. Gardening space. Where am I going to grow all my wedding flowers? The allotment of course! Probably assisted by a bit of space in my own garden. I will have to sacrifice a few of the veg beds, but I think that’s reasonable and I am sure the veg won’t mind too much. 

As an aside, mum and I treated ourselves to a poly tunnel for the allotment this year. I am in the process of clearing the last bit of unused ground so when the tunnel goes up, I will get additional space for growing. More about that later! In fact if you want to see what I did in the allotment last year (2024) you can read all about it HERE.

Wedding colour scheme

Now that I know where I am going to grow my blooms, I now need to work out what I want to grow. But of course, it is a wedding, so I need a colour scheme. I have to confess, it took a few days to work this one out, as there are so many wedding colour schemes out there. Not to mention Nick and I had to agree on one! This is where Pinterest comes into its own. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, Pinterest is my go-to place for design ideas. If you want to follow all my wedding research then click HERE and follow me on Pinterest.

The Venue

The room where we are getting married is unique to say the least, so we needed to choose a scheme which would complement the colours of that space. It is an historic room, with lots of wood and dark green furnishings. I would normally go for pastel, as lavender, baby pink and sage green are some of my favourite colours in flowers. But, I felt that we needed some bold colours to match the green and complement the room. 

Therefore we have chosen a colour scheme of purple, orange and lime green. You probably wouldn’t be surprised at the amount of social media that features these colours, therefore I have done a bit (a lot) of research and narrowed down exactly what I am looking for. If you follow me on instagram you will see a plethora of posts on my wedding flower journey, as well as plenty of updates on how my flowers are doing! Follow me HERE.

The Wedding flowers

Now that the colours have been set, it was time for the REALLY fun bit – choosing the flowers to grow.

However, the first thing I did was research flower arranging, as I have no real knowledge of this. I tend to grow my plants and put them together how I like. But because this is so important to me, I did a fair amount of googling/pinterest/instagram and all things #flowerarranging. Closer to the time, I will look at what materials I need to put my bouquets and arrangements together, e.g. wire, ribbon. Also, little hacks to make the flowers last a little bit longer, like dipping the ends in hot water to sear them.

Flower arranging – who knew?

But in order to work out what to grow, I needed to know what types of plants make up the arrangements. So as a very rough guide, I found three types.

1. Focal flowers. These are your show stoppers, the big blooms with the bright colours that draw your eye.
2. Filler flowers. These are the small flowers which complement and fill out the arrangements.
3. Foliage. This is actually important as it creates a backdrop for your flowers to really stand out, plus gives your arrangements vertical and horizontal structure.

There are also other little rules which I had never heard of, like the 3 5 8 rule. So to create a nicely balanced arrangement, you use 3 types of flowers, 5 pieces of foliage, and 8 filler flowers. There is also the rule of 3. So you would have 3 colours of flowers, or 3 different heights, or even 3 separate colours.

So, I have used my limited knowledge of flower arranging, and my reasonably extensive knowledge of growing flowers, in order to work out what flowers will be perfect for my wedding day. I also had to pay attention to the following:

a. Wedding flowers to bloom on time

VERY IMPORTANT – time of year of flowering! Obviously, any flowers I choose have to be flowering where I live in the UK at the time of my wedding. August 2025. This potentially ruled out a number of my favouite plants, in particular alliums. Alliums are known for flowering in late spring early summer, so it is highly unlikely I would get any other than shop bought ones that time of year. So, my wedding flowers choice has been narrowed a tincy tiny bit. Still loads to choose from though!

b. Wedding flowers for cutting

Another thing I needed to consider was how well the flower keeps once cut. I’m going to have to cut and make the flower bouquets/button holes/table arrangements at least the day before the wedding, so its important the flowers would still look their best on the actual day. 

c. Wedding flowers; the right shape and size

A colour scheme is the first step to a floral marriage made in heaven (applause for the pun please). The second step is how the plant material looks when put together, and for that you need carefully considered shapes and sizes. Would a large sunflower head, go with a small daisy for instance? So, for this reason, I have chosen several flowers and plants so that I will have plenty of choice. I may not use them all, but I would rather have too many than too few.  

Drum roll please…

So as a result of all my research, here is the full list of flowers and plants that I just love, and will be growing over the next 7 months.

Focal Flowers – the stars of the wedding flowers ball

Filler Flowers – the supporting cast

Foliage – the set that makes the wedding flowers shine

Wedding Flowers the beginning – concluded

In case you are keep tabs of the cost, this is how much these plants have cost me so far (n.b. I already have a few of them growing in my garden so they are zero cost): £166.25. I know soil, feed and water cost too, but this will be minimal. And of course the labour is free. I will need to buy a few more bits such as wire, ribbon etc but I am sure you will agree a few hundred pounds is much better than a few thousand!

So that’s it for now. I will try and post regularly so you can see how I am getting on. And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram as I will be posting regularly there about what I am doing and how I am doing it. Hopefully you will follow my journey from here until the big day!

Bye for now!

JT xx