If you've ever priced wedding flowers, you know what a huge expense they can be. The bridal bouquet alone can run hundreds of dollars. I got a crash course in the cost of a wedding when my daughter got engaged. She wanted a large wedding so we were going to need a lot of bouquets, not to mention boutonniere's and corsages. There is also a seperate bouquet for the bride to toss. I never realized how many flowers we would need, till I started adding them all up.

When I started pricing wedding flowers, I realized this was one expense I was going to have to minimize. The cost of real flowers for a wedding is outrageous, and I didn't want to have to leave anyone out of the wedding party.

After comparing different florists, I found that they were all pretty much in the same price range. A range I was not comfortable with. Not sure what to do next, I began surfing the internet for ideas.

One day I accidently ran across some wedding bouquets that were made from artificial flowers. I had never considered artificial flowers, as I thought they would be tacky. To my surprise they were quite beautiful. This peaked my interest, so I began googling, artificial wedding bouquets. I was thrilled at the quality and selection of artificial flowers that I found. It was hard to tell many of them weren't real flowers. Best of all I found the cost of an artificial bouquet is a fraction of the cost of a real one.

Another benefit of artificial flowers is that when the wedding is over, you don't have to preserve your bouquet, it will last forever.

At this point I knew that I was going to use artificial flowers, I just needed to find the right package. I found that most of the wedding packages were for a small wedding party. If you needed more, there would be an additional cost. Another problem I found was, my daughter had chosen Hot Pink for her Bridesmaids, and no one I found had Hot Pink Roses in stock.

Then one day while at Hobby Lobby looking for wedding favors, I ran across some pre-made Bridal Bouquets. They were pretty plain, not what I had in mind, but it gave me an idea. After looking at the pre-made bouquets, I realized just how easy it would be to make them myself.

I went to the artificial flower isle. I was really excited to find Hot Pink Roses. I also found Off White Roses with Hot Pink accent. My daughters dress was Antique White, so these roses were perfect.The roses were made of latex and have amazing detail, they not only look real but they also feel real. The selection of artificial flowers is amazing, you can get just about any flower or color you can imagine.

I also found many little jewels and accents that you can add to your bouquet to make it uniquely yours. Hobby Lobby has 50% off on all flowers about once a month and 50% off on Wedding supplies about every other month. It really saves if you wait for the sales.

The great thing about artificial flowers is that you can make your bouquets months in advance and have them ready to go. I only had 3 months to plan my daughters wedding so I needed to save as much time and money as I could. I can't believe how much money I saved. She got exactly the colors and flowers she wanted and we were able to afford a large wedding party, due to the low cost of making them myself. Remember I waited till the flowers were on sale for 50% off. I have listed what it costed me to make each bouquet.

• Cascading Bridal Bouquet $40.00
• Round Bridal Bouquet $30.00
• Bridal Toss Bouquet $19.00
• Maid of Honor Bouquet $19.00
• Bridesmaid Bouquet $12.00
• Boutonniere's $2.00

I have listed what you will need to make your Bouquets

• Floral Tape
• Floral Wire
• Flowers
• Greenery
• Straight pins with pearl tip
• Ribbon
• Wire Cutter

Any other accents or jewels you might want to add to your Bouquet