* All the floral designs featured in this post were created by Limewood Flowers with love.
Wedding planning can be overwhelming, and one of the biggest questions couples have is: How much should I spend on wedding flowers? As a wedding florist, I’ve seen many couples struggle with this question, but don’t worry – I’m here to help!
In this post, I’ll guide you through the ins and outs of wedding flower costs, how to budget for your flowers, and even give you a wedding flowers price guide to help you plan.
We’ll cover what you can expect when budgeting for wedding flowers, the key factors that influence pricing, and how to make the most of your floral investment. Let’s dive in!
Average cost of wedding flowers in the UK
Ok, this is a little bit of a red herring as I believe averages are misleading. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, as the cost of your wedding flowers depends on factors like your venue, floral vision, and overall design you want.
For example, if you’re hosting your wedding at one of the top venues in the UK like Wilderness Reserve, over a full wedding weekend with 300 guests, your average costs will look very different from a small, intimate registry office wedding on a Tuesday afternoon.
How to budget for wedding flowers?
A better way to approach this is by considering wedding flowers as a proportion of your overall budget. If you don’t have a wedding budget yet, then this is the first thing you need to do! Viewing venues, photographers, and florists outside your budget can lead to disappointment, so be sure to establish your budget first. Comparison truly is the thief of joy.
Based on a church or civil ceremony in England, most websites and blogs recommend allocating 8-10% of your wedding budget to flowers. However, at Limewood Flowers, this proportion is much higher, perhaps as high as 20%. This is because our couples love flowers and appreciate how floral design can transform a space and set the tone for the entire day. This is especially true for marquee weddings, where the blank canvas of the space calls for impactful floral installations.
Top tip – Decide what’s most important to you and prioritise spending on those elements. These are the suppliers you should contact first!
Love flowers? Check our availability for your date.
Wedding flowers price guide
What can you expect for a £4K wedding flower budget?
If you are spending around 10% of your £40k wedding budget on flowers, here are a few examples of how your day can look.
Large wedding party and 150 guests:
In this example, flowers are a big part of the day. The ceremony includes a statement installation and wow moment, yet the high guest count means the reception flowers are more of an accent.
Most couples booking with Limewood Flowers want the flowers to be integrated across all parts of their day and this is how you could make it happen with the same budget.
Smaller wedding party and 100 guests:
In this example, both the ceremony and reception have statement floral designs. Including mixing tall and low table arrangements to create real impact while also distributing colour and keeping within budget. The smaller wedding party and guest count allows spending on arrangements that could be reworked for both spaces.
Behind the scenes of wedding flowers
Let me guide you through why wedding flowers are so much more expensive than the bunch you might pick up at the supermarket. The key point here is that it’s not the ‘flowers’ that are costly, it’s the professional services of a florist.
The flowers you see on your wedding day are the result of weeks (or even months) of work leading up to your big day. Most florists would agree that arranging the flowers is the easy part. It’s the sourcing, ordering, preparing, delivery, and clean-up that are the most tricky
All these behind-the-scenes tasks significantly impact the cost of your flowers.
FAQ: Will it be cheaper with just foliage?
A common question, and the answer is both yes and no. There are many factors that affect the final cost of your wedding flowers, and the actual flowers themselves are just one part of the equation.
Here are my top five factors to consider:
- Number and scale of arrangements
- Your venue – timings and access
- Your venue – travel
- Your florist
- Season/flower choice
Have you noticed that flowers are at the bottom of the list?
Factors influencing the cost of wedding flowers
1. Number and scale of arrangements
There are only so many arrangements one person can create in a day. Flowers are a fresh product and cannot be made too far in advance, so ensuring everything is delivered on time—and looking fabulous—means we may need to increase the size of the team. The cost of the freelance florist team is included in every floral proposal I write, so you’ll know these costs upfront.
The scale and complexity of your designs also affect the team size. For example, creating simple table bowls can be done by one person in the studio. However, designing larger arrangements, especially if they require ladders or have to be built on-site, will need two or three florists working together.
The more complex the design, the larger the team required. If your wedding flowers involve several large installations and multiple arrangements, the team size will need to grow. How much depends on your venue.
2. Your venue – timings and access
Yes, this really is the second most important factor. I will explain.
POV: you are having a 1pm Saturday marquee wedding with bowls of flowers on the tables plus a large ceremony arch and a full meadow aisle.
Your marquee will likely be built on Thursday, giving all suppliers time to “dress” the space. This includes bringing in tables, chairs, linens, crockery, glasses, candles—the list goes on. As a florist, I could deliver and set up all the table flowers on Friday, and bring in the meadow arrangements the next day. On Saturday, I could build the arch in the morning and place the meadows. This could be a team of two people on each day in one van.
Now, imagine a different scenario.
POV: you are having a 1pm Saturday wedding in an exclusive-use venue with exactly the same flowers as before.
The venue needs to be closed to the public before suppliers can arrive. Many venues only allow suppliers access from 9 am on the wedding day, and some, like the Natural History Museum, grant access only for the hour before. Just. One. Hour.
With only a few hours to prepare, suppliers will be working around each other, trying to dress both the ceremony and reception spaces at the same time. The meadow aisle can’t be placed until the chairs are set out! In this case, we’d need a team of two florists working in the studio on Friday, then a team of four florists on the wedding day, with two vans. Each member of the team with their own travel expenses.
The result is a logistical cost of nearly double for the same flowers. Let that sink in for a while.
3. Your venue – travel
It’s no surprise that travel impacts costs. If your florist is traveling further or making multiple trips, the costs will add up. Larger teams often mean more travel expenses as well.
4. Your florist
This is probably the most overlooked factor when it comes to the cost of your wedding flowers. There are two key aspects to consider.
Firstly, a florist with a shop in central London will have far higher overheads than a home studio florist based in the Midlands (yes, that is Limewood Flowers!). These overhead costs are factored into the price of your flowers, which is one reason why the cost of individual arrangements can vary so much.
Secondly, think of florists in the same way you would think of restaurants. You’d expect to pay more at a Michelin-starred restaurant than at your local café, right? The food, ingredients, preparation time, service, and overall experience are all different.
The same is true of your florist.
If you value exceptional floral design and want something truly unique, then that comes with a different price tag. Quality and expertise do make a difference!
5. Season and flower choice
Finally, the flowers and foliage themselves.
To answer the question from earlier, it could be cheaper to use more foliage and fewer flowers, especially if the foliage you want is in season and plentiful. However, this isn’t the case in spring in the UK. Most winter foliages are poor quality after the cold months, and it’s too early for the new season’s foliage. In such cases, using dried flowers or foliage might actually be a better option.
Buying flowers out of ‘season’ is also more expensive. An imported peony in November can cost over five times the price of one in its flowering season whether it’s British-grown or imported. We see the same in the supermarkets. The price of strawberries is much lower in summer than it is in winter.
That said, most florists are good at balancing these seasonal costs. I use a mixture of flowers in my arrangements, using both pricier stems and less expensive ones to create a beautiful, cost-effective design.
The only time flower choice or season significantly impacts floral pricing is if your design calls for only the more expensive or out-of-season flowers. A few peonies in key spots won’t dramatically alter the cost of an arrangement, but an all-peony design in November would.
I am sure you appreciate by now there are no simple answers. This is why I recommend hiring a professional florist for your wedding flowers who can guide you through all these details!
Why do wedding flowers cost so much?
The short answer is simple: it’s not just the flowers. When you hire a professional wedding florist, you’re paying for their expertise, experience, and the entire process.
The long answer is because of design, wedding size, sourcing, purchasing, mechanics, conditioning, travel, time, season, expertise, of course, the number of arrangements. Did I miss anything?
More importantly, the real question is: are wedding flowers worth it?
My answer will always be yes—though I’m admittedly biased! I absolutely love my job and I know the transformative power of flowers. I’ve witnessed grooms go slightly wobbly as the buttonholes are pinned on, bride’s burst into tears at the sight of their bouquet and guests that cannot stop taking photos of the flowers. Your wedding is more than the flowers, but it’s always the flowers that will deliver on your vision.
If beautifully styled wedding flowers are important to you, please get in touch to check my availability for your date.
And don’t worry, everyone has bigger floral aspirations than their budget, so in our consultation, we can talk through options to meet your priorities while respecting your budget.
