Here’s the continuation of my DIY fresh flower post. In this post, I’ll be sharing with you guys the budget breakdown at the end of the post.
But first, let us tackle the construction of the actual fresh flowers wall!
THE FRESH FLOWER WALL
What I had bought from the florist:
Bought from Floristika
52 bunches of red Carnations (RM17/bunch)
60 bunches of red Pom Poms (RM13/bunch)
190 Oasis wet foam (RM27/box, 20 pieces/box)
Other supplies I used:
Buckets filled with water, to keep the flowers hydrated
Scissors, to cut the flowers to the right length
Plastic container, for the cut flowers
Bamboo skewers, to poke holes in the wet foam through the foil
My strategy:
- There were always 2 people working on it at any single time, for the first few hours, one person would be cutting the flowers to length and the other would be working on the wall itself (my job for the day).
- The flowers were cut at 5” length and stacked in the plastic containers. Once the container were full, it makes its way to me.
- I started from the top, since it was early morning and it was just me, I made sure that I filled up the hard to reach part first so that eventually when other people came, the ladder would be out of the way. That way, more people can work on the wall simultaneously at any single time.
- My trick when using wet foam with fresh flowers, especially those with soft stems, is to pre-poke the wet foam with a bamboo skewer then inserting the stem into that hole.
- I started with the pom poms and filled up the spaces in between with the carnations. It’s okay if you see tiny gaps in between the flowers since the carnations will bloom overnight and fill up those gaps.
- Keep on going at it till you fill up the wall!
Time for this: 12 hours with 2 people working on it at any single time. At one point, I had 4 people on the wall for 2 hours. Why I had only a few people working on this was because I had most people focused on filling up the door gift with the wajik and kurma. Once some people got freed up from that task, they helped me here.
This is one of my ALL TIME favourite DIY projects ever.The satisfaction was immense and it looks so good in pictures! (And in real life too). Surprisingly, this whole undertaking wasn’t stressful on me aka. the bride. I enjoyed the whole process eventhough it took me 12 hours of the day before our reception to finish this. By 7pm, all my DIY tasks were done and I had dinner with all my friends that flew in from all corners of the world. Being organized helped, the 1’ x 1’ mock up that we made months before helped me in estimating the time I needed to finish the whole wall.
You might wonder why I bought all my flowers from Floristika when there are other cheaper options from Petaling Street? For one thing, Floristika’s service is awesome and they offer deliveries AND they are reliable. I got all my flowers delivered to me on the date and time I had set with them when I bought all the flowers.
You might also be wondering how much I spent on this and if it was worth it? The wooden structure had cost me RM293.60 to get these:
- Plywood
- Nails
- Screws
- L-bracket
- Chicken coop wire
- Staples (I already own a staple gun)
For the floral wall, I had spent RM 1,999.00 to get these:
- 200 Oasis wet foam
- 52 bunches of red carnations
- 60 bunches of red pom poms
- 10 boxes of aluminium foil
The amount of flowers, wet foam and foil was enough to do the wall, 4 massive arrangements for the dais, and 3 additional medium sized arrangements.
I had pedestals, flower pots and a sofa (that meant that I didn’t need them from the pelamin people). With the stuff that I already had, I had gotten Myra Simon Weddings to use the stuff I already had and they supplied (draping, platform, lighting, carpet and set renjis) and did the rest of the pelamin for me for RM 950.00 (say whaaaaa!!). All in all, I had spent slighly over 4k for our dais for an ALL fresh flowers dais with an 8 feet tall fresh flower wall. So heck yeah, it was SO worth it!
I’ve always dreamt of one of these and if not for my reception, there wouldn’t have been another chance to have this and not feel guilty about it!