A popular choice facing many brides is whether to purchase artificial flowers or fresh flowers.  There are an endless number of articules on the internet looking at this issue.  We have listed a few of these sites here so you can get a variety of opinions.  One thing that does crop up is the suggestion that artificial flowers can cost as much as fresh.  We thought it would be useful to look into this and see if this is the case.

Silk v Fresh.. the opinions.

Your Wedding Company have a very useful quick 10 positives points for both silk and fresh flowers.  You can find this here.

A good balanced look at this issue can be found on “Artificial Flowers“.  While you might expect a one sided approach from a seller of silk flowers this article sums up the options rather well.

Jen Carter of my-wedding-blog.com paints a positive view of artificial flowers.

Silk flowers may look better than fresh flowers do. If something happens to them right before the wedding, there is time for it to be fixed or replaced, whereas there may not be that extra time with fresh flowers. However, although many people think that silk flowers look great, that does not necessarily mean that they think that they look as great as fresh flowers do.

Lisa over at C&L Floral Designs offers 6 Top Reason for choosing silk wedding flowers...

1) Silk wedding flowers last a long time.  Long after your big day has passed your flowers will be there to transport you back in time.

2) You get exactly what you want.  You can have any combination of colour/colours and flowers. So the wedding flowers you always dreamed of will be exactly as you imagined it to be.  Forget the limited pallet and seasonal range of fresh flowers.  With silk wedding flowers you can have whatever your mind can design.

3) You will take delivery of your flowers well ahead of the ceremony so there will be no surprises on the day.  If you have buttonholes for guests or posies for bridesmaids these can be allocated well before the wedding or used to match dresses or other items.

4) Your flowers will compliment your theme.  Real flowers can radically differ in colour and are not predictable.  With silk flowers you get the colour your theme demands.

5) Allergies can be a real problem for some people and nothing spoils the flower of a wedding then a sneezing attack.  Silk flowers are the perfect antidote.

6) Lastly, silk flowers represent fantastic value for money.  You can give a button hole to every guest, posies for the bridesmaids, wands for the younger bridesmaids, magnificent table arrangements and a stunning bouquet for the bride for less than a single fresh flower bouquet. The beauty is that no one will be able to tell.

The final reason being the potential savings.   Which leads us to our next consideration..

Price

Several articles on the web state that silk wedding flowers can be more expensive than fresh.  We thought it would be useful to explore this further.  We contacted C&L Floral Designs (one of our site sponsors) and asked them to compare their prices against guide prices from sites offering fresh flowers. The results are quite conclusive. For example a fresh shower bouquet will cost you £50 where as a artificial bouquet will generally fall within the region of £30 – £40.

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