Where should I order bulk flowers online?

July 26, 2011 8:03 PM

Does anyone have experience with ordering bulk flowers online? I'm looking for a reliable company to buy a bunch of flowers from for an event in mid September.

My original plans to go to the NYC flower market may not work as well as planned and I'd like to look into ordering flowers online instead but I'm a bit apprehensive about figuring out who to order from.

I'd love to hear about good experiences with specific companies.

posted by sciencegeek to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

I ordered bulk flowers for our April 2010 wedding from http://www.freshroses.com/. They were good about communicating with me - Ours were delivered to a hotel and they called me when the flowers were shipped and let me know when I should expect a delivery.

Flower quality was good - we had the bouquets and boutonnieres professionally done while the bulk flowers were for table arrangements. The bulk flowers looked just like the professional ones in quality. My mother in law is a whiz with the arranging, so they really looked great. I would order from them again if I had a need.

(For anyone reading this question later with a wedding in mind, 10 arrangements took us at least full day to put together. The flowers will all need to be trimmed and that takes a while. Don't short yourself on time! Also, a hotel room is a crappy place to arrange flowers. Bring a dropcloth.)
posted by WowLookStars at 9:40 PM on July 26, 2011

Bloomsbythebox.com (on my phone, no link) worked great for my wedding. The flowers came in cold packs and their instructions to order them a couple of days ahead were spot on. I spent around $100 for several large centerpieces. It took me only 3 hours to cut and arrange them, but I ordered only 4 types of flowers, including a filler, so arranging went faster than if I'd used, say, 8 or 10 types. I would definitely use the company again, although there was nothing complicated about my requirements.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 12:59 AM on July 27, 2011

I have now been to two weddings with flowers ordered from costco.com. They were both beautiful and I wouldn't have ever guessed costco except I happened to be the one putting together the centerpieces so I saw the boxes.
posted by magnetsphere at 6:52 AM on July 27, 2011

We used Flowerbud for a dinner reception, and their customer service was great with helping us determine what flowers would work best.
posted by evoque at 6:59 AM on July 27, 2011

I ordered flowers from my grocery store. There were some specialty items that were unavailable, but quality and price were terrific.
posted by theora55 at 8:18 AM on July 27, 2011

I ordered the flowers for my wedding from BJs and had a pretty good experience. They were a day delayed because they came in from out of the country, but the BJs site advises you to plan for that and we had, so it was all good. They got delivered around 10 in the morning. The flower quality was excellent and they lasted through the day of the wedding with no issues.

We ended up accidentally way over-ordering (when the website says the hydrangeas are 13 inches across, that is actually true) which I think turned out to be a good thing, because we didn't have to worry about whether we'd ruined a particular blossom trying to get it into the centerpiece. And the price was so good that it wasn't a problem to over-order. The bids we got from florists initially were about 4 times what we ended up paying at BJs.

I have heard good things about ordering from Costco as well but if I remember correctly, they require more lead-time than BJs does. But I think for mid-September you should be fine for either of them.
posted by marginaliana at 11:28 AM on July 27, 2011

I've also heard really great things about the flowers from Costco - and they have great customer service in general.
posted by echo0720 at 4:58 PM on July 27, 2011

I ordered from Sam's Club and was very happy with the product, price, and shipping.
posted by TrarNoir at 9:22 PM on July 27, 2011

I also used freshroses.com for a wedding and I was very happy with them. Lots of variety, and really fresh flowers--as in, so fresh you need to order them an extra day before your event so that they open all the way.
posted by nowmorethannever at 10:50 PM on July 29, 2011

Response by poster: Update: I ended up buying flowers in the NYC flower district instead of going with online options. It was nice to see everything in person and then choose things that way. The bouquets turned out nicely and I was able to get a wide variety of different flowers.

Thanks for all the suggestions.
posted by sciencegeek at 7:29 AM on October 4, 2011