Post # 1
Member
2691 posts
Sugar bee
Hi bees. I’ve seen some very old threads about using Costco or Sam’s Clubs for bouquets, boutonnieres, and for creating centerpieces. But nothing very recent, so I wanted to see if anybody still uses them for wedding florals. My wedding is so small that I only need four small, simple centerpieces. Maybe 5 tops to have an additional one for the cake table. Many specialty wedding florists basically write me off because I won’t come close to a “minimum” for them, which I understand. So, now I’m looking at DIYing these florals, which shouldn’t be too hard with what I have in mind.
So, my question is: Do you ladies have any experience ordering bulk florals from Costco or Sam’s? If so, was your experience good or bad, and do you have any tips? Or did you order bulk florals from another company that I should consider looking into?
Any help you could provide would be much appreciated – thank you so much!!
Post # 2
Member
703 posts
Busy bee
bluecutie00 : I did last year, it worked out great. I made sure I was home for delivery so I could be at home to get them in water and follow the directions. I got like 325 roses and 90 hydrangea. The greenery and filler flowers I actually got from a local flower mart.
Post # 3
Member
2691 posts
Sugar bee
rusticglambride : That’s great! I just looked at your wedding recap thread and your flowers / entire wedding was gorgeous. Was it Sam’s or Costco you purchased from? And when did you have the flowers deliver respective to your wedding date?
Post # 4
Member
1642 posts
Bumble bee
I ordered some from Sam’s, some from Fifty Flowers, and some from Blooms by the box. But, if you only need five centerpieces and aren’t having any luck with specialty/wedding florists, why not just place an order for five centerpieces from your local florist and pick them up the day before? The flowers I ordered all worked out- I didn’t have any problems with anything that we ordered, but it was a lot of work.
Post # 5
Member
2691 posts
Sugar bee
robsbeach : I honestly just assumed it would be the same story with the local florist, but I never even went down that avenue. I just figured that I could do it myself since my centerpiece idea is so simple. This is what I want – 4 to 5 of these (see below). Do you think I’d be better off buying the flowers from Sam’s for $50 bucks, or hiring a local florist?
Post # 6
Member
703 posts
Busy bee
bluecutie00 : thank you, pretty sure it was Sams, I had them delievered Thursday and did the arrangements that day then just replaced what died before out Saturday wedding.
Post # 7
Member
1642 posts
Bumble bee
bluecutie00 : Honestly, that looks easy enough to do it yourself, but do you want to? Local florists make cetnerpieces for parties, events, offices, etc., all the time, so I don’t think they would turn down the opportunity to make five cetnerpieces with roses. I ordered my roses from Sam’s and they were great. I did that based upon price (I wanted a more expensive rose from another comapany- fell in love with the color, but couldn’t justify the price- even in bulk!).
These are some pics from our wedding:
Post # 8
Member
1642 posts
Bumble bee
Sorry- accidentally posted two of the same and a non-cropped pic of the bouquet, but you get the idea. I think your arrangements are easily doable. I’ve seen cube vases like that at Michael’s and they always have coupons. Good luck!
Post # 9
Member
3460 posts
Sugar bee
I just ordered all our flowers from Costco!!
I’m a Canadian bee so my experience may be slightly different. I looked on the Costco website and chose everything I wanted. When I went into the store there was an outside company called Bloomstar, who were the only actual in store option to purchase flowers. The sales rep said that their stock and prices were completely different to what was on the Costco website. They had less choice for a slightly higher price. I could have ordered from Costco.ca but the flowers would not arrive at the store, but by courier at my address. I have seen a lot of warnings against this, as couriers are not reliable for delivering flowers and they could be sitting for 12 hours in a boiling hot truck. So I reluctantly ordered from Bloomstar so that they would be directly shipped to the store, and I could deal directly with the sales rep.
So fingers crossed that it all works out when my order comes in two weeks from today!! We are picking them up Thursday for our Sunday wedding (its like a local destination wedding, 3 hour drive so that was the absolute latest we could collect them from the store). My backup plan would be to hit every single grocery store in the area and then run through farmers fields in the dead of night collecting wildflowers lol so hopefully it doesn’t come to that.
Post # 10
Member
88 posts
Worker bee
- Wedding: June 2017 - Woodlawn Cemetery
I used sams – got them on thurs for a sat wedding … they were cheap but took some work- I’d say they turned out good but if you’re looking for top of the line then you may want to look elsewhere. I don’t know if that was just my experience and maybe because it was very hot out (90s) and our tiny chapel didn’t have a/c. I didn’t really care though I was just happy to be getting married and it was an intimate wedding so I didn’t stress about the details or things that didn’t go exactly the way I envisioned.. anyways yes I’d use them again lol
I tried attaching a photo and it wouldn’t work 🙁
Post # 11
Member
962 posts
Busy bee
bluecutie00 : I used Costco for my flowers. My wedding was 2 weeks ago. The flowers were beautiful! I ordered them to be delivered on wednesday (for a friday wedding) so they had time to open up as the site recomends. All arrengements were done on thursday.
I ordered 1 order of baby’s breath, 1 order of white carnations and one order of this one https://m.costco.ca/Garden-Wedding-Set-of-20-Mini-Euro-Bouquets.product.100360893.html
And then I also bough 20 blush peonies and 1 dozen white roses from a local florist.
I bought peonies just cause they are my fave and I wanted them and I bough the roses because a about 6 roses that were from costco were a bit “meh”, to i replaced them with the ones i bough separetelly and used the “meh” ones to make petals for the flower girl. Otherwise all the flowers from Costco were beautiful, fresh and healthy. Highly reccomend!
My sister is good a floral arrangements (she went to school for it) when the flowers arrivedd we pulled all the bunches appart and sorted by flower type and then she made all the arrangements.
We has a total of 1 bridal bouquet, 4 bridesmaids bouquest, 3 corsages, 8 boutonieres, 7 centrepieces for guest tables and a bunch of babys breath, thistle and greens for other decor and for cake and gifts table…
After the ceremony and pictures the BMs put their bouquest in the vases on the head table as centrepieces.
We had 1 bucket of greens left overs that we didnt do anything with cause we were pressed for time and they just stayed in a bucket.. never made it to the wedding, but if had wanted more dreens in the arangements there was plenty to be had.
If you go this route make sure you have a bunch of containers to store the flowers in.
Im waiting for pro pics… and I dont have any good non pro pics of the centrepieces… but her is one bad pic of my bouquet
Post # 12
Member
2691 posts
Sugar bee
rusticglambride : Awesome. I just visited their website and I see your able to choose the delivery date. Do you remember if they came on time for you?
robsbeach : Your florals were lovely – great job! Actually, my aunt really wants to do the centerpieces, so it won’t be me doing it. If she didn’t want to do them, I would do it though. The look I’m going for is so easy and understated that I couldn’t justify paying a couple of hundred bucks for a florist to do it, when I can do that myself. You know? The cake, however, I’ll leave to the professionals.
sapphire27 : OMG. You are too funny! That’s pretty much my backup plan too. I’m sure one of the twenty grocery stores on my way to the wedding will have some type of roses if this whole plan turns out to be a FAIL. Good luck! Lol
spifftiff88 : Yeah, my wedding will have between 20 – 25 people, in an intimate no-fuss ceremony. I want something that looks nice, but im not willing to spend that much on it.
ImMrsSnow : Your bouquet is gorgeous! You and your sister did a great job!! Thanks for the advice about giving the blooms time to open – I’ll keep that in mid when ordering.
Post # 13
Member
703 posts
Busy bee
bluecutie00 : yes, they came within the window of hours they told me
Post # 14
Member
1397 posts
Bumble bee
I am using Sam’s Club. We actually just ordered them. They’ll be delivered the Thursday before our Sunday wedding in 3 weeks.
I am doing really simple rose bouquets and centerpieces with roses and baby’s breath. We are also making our own boutonnieres. In total, we ordered 125 white roses, 125 lavender roses, and 10 bunches of baby’s breath.
I could have never had my vision of being surrounded by roses if I did not go the wholesale route. All the quotes I received from florists were WAY out of my budget.
Post # 15
Member
860 posts
Busy bee
- Wedding: February 2017 - historical mansion
bluecutie00 : How many roses do you need total? We used Costo and ordered 300 roses — half of them were supposed to be white and half were supposed to be lavendar. All 300 arrived and they were all lavender. The quality was pretty good, so we just made the centerpieces completely lavendar and that was fine. They refunded half of our money, so it made our total cost for flowers extremely low. However, I still wanted my bouquet and my bridesmaids’ bouquets (3 bouquets total) to be half white and half lavendar so I went to the local grocery store and bought three dozen white roses, and the quality was much better from the grocery store. It was more expensive per rose, but if looks like your centerpieces don’t have as many roses, so I would probably go the grocery store route. Good luck!