When I last left my floral drama, I gave an estimate of the budget and listed the flowers I thought we'd be getting. All of the meetings went pretty well. By the fourth one, I was pretty good at describing my flower ideas.
Mr. Camrah even came with me to meet the 2nd and 4th florist. He was like most grooms when it comes to flowers. He let me do most of the talking and planning, but he did add one surprise that I wasn't expecting. Altar flowers.
I hadn't worked those into the budget at all, and to be honest I thought we could get away with just the baby's breath aisle decorations, but Mr. Camrah's first request for the wedding was to have the ceremony in a church. So when it comes to the ceremony I really want to make sure his ideas are included as well as my own. So, the altar pieces were added to the floral order. It wasn't surprising when every florist came in over my estimate. We had some decisions to make.
Option 1: Pick one of the florists to do all of the flowers and cough up the extra cash.
Option 2: Pick one of the florists to do all of the flowers but change the order so that the flowers themselves cost less.
Option 3: Pick one of the florists to do all of the flowers except the bridesmaid's bouquets, groomsman's boutonnieres, and any extra boutonnieres. Then order flowers and do these items ourselves.
Mr. Camrah had already nixed the idea of completely doing the flowers ourselves. He was worried that I would get too stressed out right before the wedding.
Option 2 was a contender. However, this option was a little risky. There was no guarantee changing the flowers would change the total enough to meet our budget.
We decided to go with option 3. The bridesmaids bouquets and boutonnieres wouldn't be that hard/stressful for me and my family to make a couple days before the wedding. While, the hard stuff (Bridal bouquet and altar pieces) would be left up to the professionals.
I mustered up the courage to email the florist that came in first after the flower cuts. I wanted to be up front with any vendor that we booked and let them know what we wanted before anyone signed a contract.
Fast forward five days (yesterday):
The florist still hadn't gotten back to me. I had left her hanging for a while, and I was proposing a huge cut in the order. So, I assumed she decided not to do our wedding. I couldn't blame her any.
So, I sent out round number two of the email. I thought a second rejection was possible, but I stuck by our plan. I got a response after two hours. She was very helpful and made suggestions for ways to cut back. At the end of the email, she said it was our wedding and the flowers were up to us. She would be willing to be our florist even with the cutbacks. Hooray!
I was so happy about this email. I just wanted to sign the contract and get her booked for our date. I'm not sure if we will be going with option 3. With her suggestions for new bridesmaid bouquets, I think the total might come in around my estimate. I'm so glad to know that whatever we decide our florist will be willing to work with us no matter what. I can't wait to sign that contract.
Was it hard for you to make a decision about any of your vendors? Did you have any surprises to you plans that changed your budget? Or did you have to make any changes to your overall plans to accommodate a surprise decision?
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