ball park figure for flowers

[lazysummer]

How much do flowers cost? DD's friend is kindly doing the flowers at her wedding, but she needs to buy them. We are looking at table displays, for around 150 guests. We will supply some from the garden, but will need to buy the majority. DD wants informal flowers.

No help sorry but I'd like to know too!

Have a look here: Triangle Nursery It's a wholesaler, but there are some calculators on there to work out what you'll need, and the florists are helpful if you ring and ask for advice. I spent about £150 (on mainly aromatic foliage) and watched Youtube videos for tips on making garlands - it looked beautiful (if I say so myself...) but you do need to plan the time carefully, so no one's freaking out last minute.

... and this company is also excellent if you're after pretty country-garden type flowers - Great British Florist

Have a look around at your local supermarkets, if she’s not too worried about an exact colour/type then you could probably get a decent amount of seasonal flowers from there. Would be worth asking if they could order in x amount if you need a lot. Prices vary massively on flower type, season, demand etc.

150 guests you would be looking around 15 tables plus top table. You may also need/want a couple of larger displays for the ceremony area (which can be moved afterwards to be reused on top table as an example).

Don’t forget to add in cost of vases etc.

Very kind of a friend to offer, but worth making sure it doesn't end up costing you more... I looked into this for my wedding as a friend of my mum's offered, but as she wasn't a registered business herself and couldn't access the wholesalers, the only way we could have got the quantity and consistency of colour and quality of flowers we wanted was by ordering from a florist anyway. They would have had to get them from a wholesaler and add their cut on top, so in the end we went with a lady who ran her own floristry business and it was net cheaper as she provided the vases, the lot. (Before anyone asks, she wasn't interested in providing just the flowers as wouldn't have been worth her while, I guess the 'worth their while' cost is what made the florist more expensive IYSWIM).

I've just looked up my invoice to give you a comparison in case it helps-this obviously included all of the vases which we got to keep, ribbon to hand tie bouquets, pins on buttonholes, magnets on corsages etc. No idea if it was expensive but it was cheaper than the above mentioned florist quote to just provide flowers and felt ok for what we got:

£440 for bridal bouquet, 1 x bridesmaid, 8 buttonholes, 4 corsages, 1 x long top table arrangement, 10 x table centres and a cake topper, including delivery to two places and setting everything out.

Thank you. This is really helpful. I hadn't thought about wholesale prices.