Blooms on a Budget: Your DIY Flower Prep Checklist!
DIY wedding flowers can be such a fun way to stretch your floral budget — especially when you keep the designs simple and do a little prep ahead of time.
If you’re using Ella June Gardens DIY Buckets of Blooms for bud vases, small centerpieces, cake flowers, or other simple reception details, this checklist will help your flower-arranging day go much more smoothly.
Before You Pick Up Your Flowers
Have these ready before your flowers come home:
Sharp Floral Snips or Clippers
Clean, sharp tools make a clean cut and help your flowers take up water well.
Avoid dull scissors that crush or pinch the stems.
Clean Buckets + Extra Vases
Your Buckets of Blooms will come to you in water, but having a few additional clean buckets or containers makes it much easier to spread flowers out and organize them while you work.
Clean containers matter. Bacteria in dirty buckets and vases can shorten the life of your flowers.
All of Your Vases
Count them ahead of time.
If you’re making 36 bud vases, make sure you actually have 36 clean bud vases ready to go.
If you’re creating centerpieces, know which vessel belongs on each table before you begin.
Fresh Water + Floral Food
Use clean water and commercial floral food according to the package directions when available.
Skip homemade additions like sugar.
Simple, clean water is better than guessing with homemade mixtures for a wedding.
Set Up a Good Work Space
Give yourself plenty of room.
A large table covered with a washable tablecloth, plastic covering, or drop cloth works beautifully.
Work in the coolest space you reasonably can, away from direct sunlight, hot garages, open windows, or heating vents.
Flowers and heat are not friends.
Sort Before You Design
Before everyone starts grabbing flowers, take a few minutes to look through the buckets.
You may want to loosely sort them into vases for:
Larger focal flowers
Secondary blooms
Airy flowers
Filler flowers
Greenery and foliage
You don’t need to know every flower’s name.
You’re simply making it easier to see what you have and spread the special blooms throughout your arrangements.
Keep the Designs Simple
The easiest DIY wedding flowers are often the prettiest.
Think:
Bud vases with just a few stems
Small garden-style centerpieces
Simple cake flowers
Loose arrangements for a bar or welcome table
You do not need every arrangement to match stem-for-stem.
Your flowers came from a living garden. Let each little arrangement have some personality.
Helpful Mechanics
For simple bud vases or cylinder arrangements, you may not need any mechanics at all.
For wider containers, a grid of waterproof floral tape across the top of the vase can help support the stems.
Chicken wire can also work well in larger vessels when extra structure is needed.
The more complicated the mechanics become, though, the more I encourage you to consider adding that piece to your A' la Carte order instead.
Large ceremony flowers, meadow pieces, arches, urns, and lush statement arrangements can require a surprising amount of flowers, mechanics, and experience.
Give Yourself More Time Than You Think
DIY flowers are fun.
They also take time.
Plan enough time to:
Unpack and organize your flowers
Fill your vessels
Design the arrangements
Clean your workspace
Pack everything securely for transportation
A few extra helping hands can make the process much more enjoyable.
Keep Everything Hydrated
Flowers should spend as little time out of water as possible.
Once your arrangements are finished, check every vase and bucket to make sure the stems have plenty of clean water.
Keep the flowers cool and shaded until it’s time to transport them.
Plan Transportation Before Wedding Morning
Don’t wait until everything is finished to figure out how it will fit in the car.
Have sturdy boxes or crates ready to keep vases upright and secure.
Keep the vehicle cool, and avoid placing flowers in direct sunlight.
Once your wedding order is paid in full, I’ll also send you simple transportation and flower-care guidance so you know how to get everything safely from the Gardens to your venue.
Let the Season Be Part of the Fun
Your DIY Buckets of Blooms will be filled with the best flowers and foliage blooming in my gardens during your wedding week.
You choose the overall color direction.
I choose the strongest, most beautiful seasonal blooms available.
That means your flowers won’t be a stem-for-stem recreation of a Pinterest photo.
They’ll be something better:
Fresh, garden-grown flowers that truly belong to your season and your wedding day.
A Final Thought
DIY wedding flowers do not have to mean doing every floral piece yourself.
Use your DIY Buckets for the simple arrangements you’ll enjoy creating.
Let me take care of the more technical, time-consuming designs.
That balance can give you professional-quality wedding flowers, the joy of making some of them yourself, and a budget that stays focused on the flowers you love most.
Ready to plan your wedding flowers?
