Holy Cow!!!

For those of you who don't already know, I'm in the midst of planning my August 2009 wedding. Since we are funding most of this craziness ourselves we decided we'd really try to cut costs as much as possible w/o it appearing cheap. We'd make what we could make ourselves, if it wasn't cost effective (or I don't have the time to learn the super complicated stuff) we would pay someone to do it for us (ie: cake making -- NO WAY I'm doing that myself).

So, we came down to MS to see family for Christmas and about week before I came down I really started to worry myself about doing the floral arrangement stuff. I wanted our centerpieces to be pretty simple.....all roses. We figured up the cost to do it ourselves (about $25 per centerpiece that held 2 dz roses). We visited a florist yesterday afternoon and got a consult with the people. To put this massive arrangement in the urn (provided by country club) is anywhere between $300-500 depending on how many roses we'd like (few roses vs. all rose arrangement). We were expecting that so I wasn't particularly surprised. What I was surprised was the cost of the bouquets/centerpieces. Here is breakdown of their costs vs my approximate costs. All arrangements were going to be fairly simple since I wanted all roses with some hypericum berries mixed in (nothing super complicated to make). Their price quoted is listed first, my approximate is listed after of course.

Bridal Bouquet: $225 <$50
Bridesmaids: $85 <$25
All Rose Centerpiece: $125 $30

I am going to hire someone to do boutonnières and corsages because I'm going to need about 15 of the things and I figure I'll have enough to do to keep me busy the day prior to the wedding.

My total approximate savings from doing the bridal bouquet/BM bouquets and centerpieces.........*drum roll please*.....$1000. Our total flower costs should be around $1000 total since we will be paying for the urn arrangement and flowers on the wedding cake. I can live w/ the price cut in half from the $2000 we would spend to have them all done. I can live with a 50% discount. Sheesh!

Hope Santa brings everyone lots of toys! He's bringing me a Coach purse...haha! (The joy of picking your own present...hehe). Merry Christmas everyone!!