Friday, October 18, 2013

Online flowers?


Hey ESB,

I have been reading for months, favorite way to start my "work" day. 

I'm getting married at my parents' house in Del Mar - a dodecahedron on the edge of Torrey Pines state park. We come from a creative set - so we are doing things pretty DIY (in a good way). Wedding is "Black Tie-ish" - (yes, we letter-pressed that onto our invitations) - and the vibe is Minimalist, vaguely Japanese - mostly white, wood, a touch of hand-dyed indigo fabric.

I have a question about flowers. I have a florist doing personals (all white, organic feeling, fluffy) - but I wanted to do all the flowers for the reception space (in the house) - and the ceremony space outdoors. 

I found this website, which seems reasonably priced, easy and almost too good to be true. Have you (or your readers) had any experience with ordering flowers online?

Thanks for your help!
Believer in internet magic

*****

Throwing this out to the evil club of mean hipster brides......


(Florals and photography by Sweet Root Village for A Daily Something)

36 comments:

  1. I ordered from them and did all our wedding flowers (including bouquets). I recommend keeping it simple, it looks the best if you don't have a lot of floral experience! And/or buy statement flowers that make a big impact without a lot of fluff (a branch of orchids in a fishbowl vase, a couple of hydrangeas...you get the idea) They were on time and good quality...I also used them for my sister's wedding, so good experiences both times.

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  2. I ordered all mine online. We did the bouquets (big bunches of baby's breath for the bridesmaids and peonies for me) and shitloads of little vases/jars for the tables. It was great. I think we got four or five types but only put one kind in each vase so there was no arranging and they looked great. The website we used (Flowers4Florists I think) delivered a day early but it was fine and I couldn't be bothered to complain since the flowers were great. I reckon we spent about $400 on the lot. I'd definitely recommend it!

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  3. I used Fifty Flowers to do all of our centerpieces (24ish). I was really happy with them, and ended up liking them more than the bouquets, which I had done professionally. It takes some time to get all the flowers out of the boxes and hydrated (they recommend getting some of those big plastic buckets from a hardware store for this task), but in the end my flowers looked great, and I spent maybe a third of what I would have to have a florist do the same thing.
    If you're particular about color, I would maybe order some samples first, as the colors of the flowers on the website don't necessarily reflect the colors of the flowers you'll actually get, though for me, it was pretty close.

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  4. I ordered from them for my wedding and it went well- I ordered showy large flowers in single types and not their arrangements which looked ugly. One of the boxes got damaged in transit and the flowers were all crushed. I sent them photographs of the damage and they same day mailed me a new box with extra flowers to make up for the damage.

    Have the flowers arrive a few days before the wedding so that they have time to suck up water and fluff out. Overall, a great experience. I now fantasize about ordering boxes of peonies on my hard days because now I know I can do that. Yay internet!

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  5. We did our own flowers and purchased from two websites. I would recommend 2G Roses because you can get smaller batches and more variety than the bigger websites.

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  6. Order white flowers - you can just hand-dye them with indigo, after all.

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    Replies
    1. I think that was snark about the twee description but it missed the mark because the questioner seems self-aware (re:the letterpress remark).

      Ah well.

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    2. huh. because i think the questioner sounds exhausting.

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    3. Because they want to know if ordering flowers on the internet is something that works and they're doing some diy stuff? That got to you? Really?

      Go take a walk or something.

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    4. Oh! Ha. I must have totally skimmed the letter the first .

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    5. well, it IS at the family dodecahedron.

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    6. She's allowed to be excited about the unique details of her wedding and doesn't need to get approval from you about it. Jesus Christ.

      LOTS of letters to ESB include similar details and don't elicit this much snark.

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    7. Did you not see how ESB addressed the readers
      "Throwing this out to the evil club of mean hipster brides."
      And do you not read ESB for snark? I highly believe that's ESBs response to a questions leads the readers to similar responses. If ESB had been bitchy to this girl, there would have been nothing but snark in the comments.

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    8. Do you not see the header? That's us. The mean girls. Don't expect to throw shade and not get it back. Especially when it isn't really warranted. I think a minimal but stylish wedding in a fun family home sounds awesome. You sound jealous.

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  7. I ordered from Whole Blossoms and was very, very happy with how our flowers turned out. Like Anon 6:36, I ordered them to arrive a few days in advance (Thursday for a Saturday wedding). I think their website, as well as the Practical Wedding blog, had good instructions for how to care for them. There are a few not-difficult but particular things about how to cut and feed them that can make a big difference in how lush and fresh they will be.
    Also, place your order early (more than a month would be good I think)! I didn't do this and almost didn't get one of the type of flowers I wanted, since if there's limited availablity early orders are filled first.
    Finally, I would recommend testing out a few vases and types of flowers on a small scale, just with a few flowers from the grocery store or a local flower shop to get a sense for how different vases and flower shapes will work together. Some vase shapes are a lot harder to use than others.

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  8. I ordered from Whole Blossoms, too, and was also very, very happy (like Julia). Mine arrived on time, looked wonderful, and the people were easy to deal with. For reference, I ordered a boatload of hydrangeas (100+ stems) and billy balls (craspedias; 100+ stems of those, too) and they were all in great shape.

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  9. For my daughter's wedding last December, we ordered flowers from Sam's Club, of all places. (Costco has them, too, but Sam's had better reviews.) She used large and small white carnations and baby's breath and made all the bouquets and reception centerpieces.

    Carnations and baby's breath are stereotyped as cheap prom flowers, but she felt like we could exploit that stereotype by using them in large, luxurious arrangements. The effect was very simple, elegant, and they got many compliments.

    At any rate, that may not be the look you're going for, but I would still recommend Sam's as a source of reasonably-priced good quality flowers. Read the reviews and take the advice people offer about timing and prepping the flowers.

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  10. Ah, you're from a "creative set," unlike the rest of us un-creative, vanilla, conformist plebeians. Thanks for pointing that out. I can tell how creative your parents are because they live in a dodecahedron, unlike my parents, who have only lived in boring old square-shaped houses.

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    1. Should we call you a whaaaaaambulance?

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  11. I ordered from Costco. They were delivered on time and were perfect and SO much cheaper than some of the other options I saw. Just make sure you (or someone you trust) has time to hang out at the house the day they are delivered.

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  12. If you are in the LA area just head down to the flower mart downtown. You can place a wholesale order and that way you will know what you are getting. I used Mayesh and they were great.

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    1. Different cities have different options for this. I think Portland and SF both have flower marts that anyone can go to. Chicago does not. You have to be a registered floral business (not just a business) to access our flower wholesalers here.

      Farmer's markets are another option. You can go in advance and talk to the different growers--see what they can do for you. But, of course, that is also area-dependent (and seasonal).

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  13. We ordered from wholeblossoms or fifty flowers for all my sister's centerpieces. The flowers were really pretty, fresh, and the fluffier more delicate ones came with nets on each blossom to keep them safe in transit. We had everyone setting up take a bucket and make centerpieces (we did one type of blossom per vase so pretty simple). Really awesome for the price-point

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  14. I ordered from Fifty Flowers for my wedding (two weeks ago) and I did about 9 centerpieces with them. I was really happy with the way they turned out. Not all the flowers were great, but only 5 or 6 were thrown away. Not bad considering we ordered 40 bunches.

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  15. ha. hahaha. oh your comments, esb. we ordered from 2g roses and were happy, but we were also not picky. sadly, the SD area flower marts are not open to the public.

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    1. http://www.wholesaleflowersandsupplies.com/

      Jamie, have you never gone there? There is also Fox Point Farms. I'm sure there are others, but just can't think of them.

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  16. I ordered sunflowers from Costco for my summer carnival wedding. The flowers were cheap and held up for 2 weeks after the wedding. Ordering online is cool but I think it's better to arrange them yourself.

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  17. I ordered bulk flowers from the florist who put together my bouquet and the bouts and then arranged the centerpieces myself. Not as cheap as getting them from online, but guaranteed good quality (so less stress) and more interesting selection than the typical floral website.

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  18. We got married on Saturday, and we had flowers delivered on Thursday, assembled on Friday. Our tables had many (like 70 for 10 tables) little arrangements, and I'm not super precise, so I sent my 10 helpers or so to work and didn't worry. I just told them this: Each arrangement gets 1, 3, or 5 stems + greens. They were done by the time I was done with my bouquet, and I LOVED THEM.

    I'll say the larger arrangements that my mom wanted last-minute were a little whack. Small arrangements were super easy to pull off, but those take a lot more work.

    We ordered from Whole Blossoms, Fifty Flowers, and Blooms by the Box, all of them arrived great and were great! Blooms by the Box also has a "diy" guide so I was less nervous I'd kill them.

    One thing: the ranunculus we used for bouts got pretty wilty, so he had some wire on hand to get them perky.

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    Replies
    1. good call on the ranunculus - that shit fades fast.

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  19. just remember that there's a reason why florists charge extra for doing shit with flowers-it's time consuming,labour intensive and can be a lot of work to make sure you get the flowers you want. like any DIY project, set yourself aside WAY more time than you expect to do the flowers- it takes a lot more time than you think to just throw flowers in a vase. or else, go down the ordering a bucket of flowers from your florist, lots of my clients do this as a cheaper option but they don't have the hassle of sourcing the flowers. good luck!

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  20. If you are ordering flowers online, the labor and time is consumed to a great extent. Moreover,the florists will prepare a bouquet for the same too.

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  21. I have done this 3 times (2x ordering online from a company that no longer exists and once having a florist friend hook me up from a local wholesaler).

    Here's my best advice / stuff I learned:

    1. It's better to do this with hearty flowers and greenery. If you'd describe a flower as "soft" or "delicate" or "petally" (obviously a made up word), they are more likely to show up damaged or wilt by the time you need them, etc (see ranunculus notes above). Delicate flowers require a ton more care.

    2. A more wildflower look is easier to achieve than something sophisticated or modern.

    3. Make sure the flowers you order are in season. And, like, really in season. Sometimes they'll import stuff or still give it to you even if it's at the beginning or end of the season and that affects how it looks. I ordered some peonies for my wedding, knowing they weren't really in season and they looked like junk.

    4. From my experiences, it's seemed like spending around $400-600 seems to be a typical range for doing a typically sized wedding.

    5. Be prepared for the unexpected. One box of roses we ordered for a wedding came and had gotten water damaged or something. They were basically rotten. We got our money back fine (take photos and file complaint immediately) but there wasn't time to get more flowers.

    6. If the wedding is on Saturday, order them for Thursday delivery. When you get them, you need to unpackage them, trim the ends (with sharp clippers), pull off any damaged leaves or petals, put them in buckets of water (you'll need a LOT of buckets) and store somewhere cool. I'm sure whatever website you order from will give you directions for all of this. It's often suggested to leave any netting or guards on roses, etc. You think unpacking the flowers will take no time? It takes forever.

    7. You'll want to arrange the day before the wedding, most likely. This takes WAY longer than you think. Like, way. For the last wedding I did, a Sunday wedding, I picked up the flowers on Friday morning, we cut and put them in buckets, but then pretty much started working right away--we didn't give them much time to rehydrate. With 3 helpers we still didn't get everything done. I had a different friend come over on Saturday and we finished the remaining centerpieces and then all the maids bouquets, boutonnières and the bridal bouquet. It was almost 2 full days of work. For a relatively small wedding. So you MAY want to start the evening before or have a lot more helpers.

    8. But to that point, helpers can be hard to manage. Especially if you have a really good idea what you want. It takes a long time to get them to understand what to do. And it'll never look as good as you want. Well, if you are me, anyway. I'd love to be able to do it all myself, but that's not possible, time-wise.

    9. You'll need a ton of clean vessels. Things with narrower necks are easier (they need less flowers and keep stems closer together). We also prepared a sugar / food mixture for the flowers. That requires way more than you'd think, too.

    10. If you are doing this off-site, transportation to the venue is tricky, too. You can't stack them.

    That's all I can think of. A lot of this advice is kind of doomy-gloomy but really, it's hard work and depending on your expectations, can not come out how you'd want. That said, it can also turn out AWESOME. For about $500 we did the best flowers for my friend's wedding (including potted succulents). A good florist would have run at least $3K, I bet.

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    Replies
    1. Hillary's advice is spot on. I recently did the flowers for both of my sister's weddings, and we were able to pre-order and purchase the flowers we wanted from the Oakland Flower Market (http://www.yelp.com/biz/oakland-flower-market-oakland). We tried to order some flowers online, and had mixed success, so if there is a flower market near you, I'd go check it out beforehand, and then order what you want to pick up two days before the wedding. That will give you time for your flowers to open up and look beautiful for the big day.

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  22. Boxes from the liquor store with hose little grid-like separator cardboard thingies are the best for transport in arrangement form!

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