Flowers look lovely on your wedding day, but they can also cut a deep hole in your pocket. Weddings use a lot of flowers such as bouquets of bride and bridesmaids, corsages, boutonnieres, peddles of flower girls, pew decorations, altar arrangements and décor for reception.

Costs of flowers for a wedding can go up to $10,000 or more. But there a few tricks to cut down on your expenses without sacrificing your lovely flowers for a gorgeous wedding.

Here are a few tips:

• Re-use flowers: The first way to cut down on cost is to re-use flowers from the church, at the reception. Give someone the responsibility to do this transfer before guests start arriving at the reception. The second way is to use bridal and bridesmaids bouquets as table arrangements and centre piece arrangement at the reception.

• Go for seasonal/ cheaper flowers: Using flowers in season can save you a pot of money. Consult your florist on what are the options of flowers in season. It will be much better than using exotic flowers not in season, which have to be shipped from faraway and will add the shipping cost.

Similarly, among the seasonal flowers, go in for the relatively cheaper ones. Remember cheap does not mean unattractive in the case of flowers. Carnations are some of the cheapest flowers available but they look lovely.

Wild flowers are a lovely and cheap alternative. You can handpick these flowers from many public gardens and parks. But you must get permission for picking them beforehand.

Flowers that are difficult to cultivate are more expensive like orchids and Calla lilies. White flowers are also costly as they damage easily.

For cheap blooms, avoid seasons and occasions like Valentine’ s day, Mother’s day, Father’s day, Easter and prom season. Here the demand for flowers is high and options may be limited.

• Go for hidden perks:  There are many tricks to get gorgeous flowers for your wedding without paying a cent. Firstly, if your wedding is to be held on other festival days like Christmas or Easter, the pews and altar will already be decorated and you will not need extra floral arrangements.

This is also true for weddings to be held in parks and gardens where the flowers and greenery will be already present and you need not spend money on decorations. The natural blooms in such parks will provide a spectacular backdrop.

Another trick is to include greenery in your arrangements. For an elegant, simple look, use a lot of greenery in place of flowers. For getting a look just as stunning as flowers, go for different types of leaves.

 You can also cut down on cost by sharing flowers. This can happen if you have your wedding slated on the same day as another wedding. You can save flower arrangements in the church in the morning for an evening ceremony and split the cost.

• Go for artificial flowers: Artificial flowers, especially silk flowers look beautiful and cut down cost by a great deal. Not only are they lovely to look at but are durable and can be arranged as per your liking, weeks before the wedding.  You can reuse silk flowers already used at another wedding by borrowing or buying them. You can also sell them online after use.

• Order online: If you find local florists expensive, you can order flowers online. They will send flowers by post.

These are some great ideas to cut down expenses on your wedding flowers.