The Pros and Cons of Using Alternative Artificial Flowers for Your Wedding

 Originally Published on ShaadiWish

Planning your wedding can be so exciting as it celebrates your love and highlights some of the biggest milestones of your life. However, if you’re not careful, your wedding can end up being quite expensive and needlessly wasteful, especially when it comes to your wedding flowers. Wedding decorations often involve many large arrangements of fresh flowers that cost thousands of dollars and only last for a few days before they wilt. If you’re wanting to stick to a more wallet-friendly budget for your wedding flowers, you should consider using an alternative source of wedding flowers, such as a type of artificial flower. This article will outline a few different types of artificial flowers and the pros and cons of using artificial flowers instead of fresh flowers.

What Are Alternative Artificial Flowers?

Alternative artificial flowers are pretty blooms that are designed and made to imitate the beauty of fresh flowers. However, compared to fresh flowers, they are much more affordable and long-lasting. You can often find different types of artificial flowers being sold at craft stores and home decor stores. Higher quality artificial flowers are also sold online and occasionally in flower shops, as these options will be more realistic and beautiful. Here are a few of the most popular types of artificial flowers that you can use as an alternative option to fresh flowers.

Silk Flowers

Silk flowers are artificial flowers that are made from silk fabric and other artificial materials. The petals and leaves of these flowers are usually made from silk, giving them a soft and shiny appearance. Stems and other parts of the flowers might be made from plastic, wax, or similar materials. Cheaper fabric flowers might even be sold at your local corner market, but high-quality silk flowers can be a little more tricky to find. Luckily, there are lots of online vendors that sell silk flowers. The best quality of silk flowers will be quite pricey, but they’ll give you “more bang for your buck” since they will last much longer than fresh flowers, and therefore, be more worth your money.

Wood Flowers

Wood flowers are one of the most popular types of artificial wedding florals because they’re affordable, customizable, and eco-friendly. Instead of being created from processed plastics and other harmful materials, wood flowers are created from tapioca root. This wood-like material grows abundantly in nature and is ethically harvested and used. Once the tapioca root is dried and prepped, it is hand-shaped into a variety of different flower shapes, imitating fresh flowers such as daisies, roses, peonies, and more.

Dried Flowers

Dried flowers are made from fresh flowers that have been carefully preserved, which makes them much cheaper than fresh flowers. The options of flowers that can be dried and maintained are somewhat limited, but they offer you really unique textures and interesting color shades. A few popular types of dried flowers are baby’s breath, pampas grass, lavender, rabbit’s tail grass, strawflower, ruscus, and spear palms.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Alternative Artificial Flowers?

Silk Flowers Pros

Silk flowers are beautiful and will last forever, as long as you take good care of them. These flowers will feel and look soft, much like the delicate petals of fresh flowers. They often have thick wire in their stems, which gives them needed shape and support. However, it can be a little more difficult to cut them when you’re making large installations or arrangements. Make sure you have the necessary wire cutters and floral tools handy to be successful!

Silk Flowers Cons

Since dyed and manufactured fabric can change color over time, you’ll want to make sure that your silk flowers don’t have a prolonged exposure to the sun, water, or other elements that could alter their color or appearance. The highest quality silk flowers will look the most realistic, but they can be a little difficult to obtain if you don’t know where to look. Usually, you’ll have the most luck finding them online although this can be difficult if you prefer to look at your flowers in person before buying them.

Wood Flowers Pros

Wood flowers are incredibly affordable. Whereas a bridal bouquet of fresh flowers will usually cost around $250, you can usually get a wood flower bridal bouquet starting around $30. This will help you to stick to your wedding budget while getting many more beautiful flowers for the wedding of your dreams. Wood flowers are also very easy to craft with. You can buy wood flower craft kits to help you DIY your own flowers, eliminating the additional cost and stress of hiring a wedding florist. For example, you can DIY your own bridesmaid bouquets! You can even reuse your wood flowers after your wedding by creating beautiful pieces of home decor. Do you have really unique wedding colors that are hard to match with fresh flowers? Luckily, you can dye wood flowers to match any color imaginable.

Wood Flowers Cons

If you love the soft texture and fragrant scent of fresh flowers, wood flowers won’t be quite the same. They’re treated with a special wood softener to give them a velvety feel, but if you don’t care for them properly, over time they can become a little bit more rough, brittle and damage-prone. You can also add pretty scents to your wood flowers, but it might not smell the exact same as fresh flowers.

Dried Flowers Pros

Dried flowers have become quite trendy among brides over the past few wedding seasons. These delicate, detailed flowers offer muted tones and intricate textures that are currently in high-demand according to wedding trends. Dried flowers look beautiful in wedding photos and are an affordable option. This is mainly due to the fact that they aren’t as difficult to maintain and don’t need to be watered or kept cool constantly.

Dried Flowers Cons

Dried flowers don’t always have the bright colors that you’re looking for in wedding flowers. You can treat your dried flowers by spraying them with paint for a more vibrant look, but you might not end up with the same result as when you use flowers that can be carefully dyed. Dried flowers can also be quite delicate, so you’ll have to be careful that you don’t crush or break them when you’re working with them. Dried flowers don’t maintain the voluminous size of fresh flowers. Luckily, you can add wood flowers to any dried flower arrangement for a similar style and an increase in volume.

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