It may take saving $25 a month starting in high school, to have enough money to buy dream flowers for a wedding - or it may take a cousin's wife in Texas.

The huge number of color, style and quality options available in floral design makes a big wedding budget beneficial.

Michelle Virtue, manager of Campus Craft and Floral, has been putting away $25 per month for her future wedding flowers. Her seven years of saving may not entirely go to her wedding flowers though.

"It's my flower fund," Virtue said. "It may not seem like a lot each month, but it builds up."

Virtue has worked at the shop since her freshman year at BYU. She's seen it all when it comes to brides planning their weddings, she said.

"Girls are either one extreme or the other," Virtue said. "They either know exactly what they want - they look in magazines, they're up with what's popular - or they come in with a color and ask, 'What can you do?'"

Campus Craft and Floral is very accommodating when it comes to pricing, said Virtue.

"You determine what your budget is and then we work within it," she said. "We can do a bridal bouquet and boutonniere for $100 easily, and then a bride can go up thousands of dollars to make it just the way she wants it."

Virtue said bridal bouquet trends are changing; on the way out are cascading bouquets.

"We do a lot of clutch, Martha Stewart, style bouquets," she said. "They're really full and tight."

Britnee Fullmer, owner of Bloomers Gift and Floral, at 3101 N. Canyon Road, said that personal flower preferences vary greatly.

"Everyone has an opinion about flowers," Fullmer said. "Some things they like, some things they don't like. Personally, I don't like carnations and baby's breath. But we have people every day that come in and ask, 'What color carnations do you have?'"

Fullmer has owned Bloomers Gift and Floral for one year. She said brides will pay higher prices to recreate their ideal flower arrangements.

"Brides say 'I was looking through a magazine and I saw a picture in there,'" Fullmer said. "Magazines show the top quality flowers and they're usually top-price. We can do anything shown in a magazine."

Paying top dollar for flowers is not always a means to an end though. Some brides think beautiful flowers do not have to be expensive.

Kristen Omer, from Sandy, majoring in English, is engaged to be married June 5. Her priorities in selecting her wedding flowers are simplicity and budget.

"My cousin's wife in Texas does arrangements, and she beats the local florist's prices by hundreds," Omer said. "She knows my personality and she knows that I wouldn't want certain kinds of flowers. I'll go around and see what I like and give her a general idea."

Omer said she would like her fiancée, Nathan Pali, from Taylor, Utah, to be more involved with the decision, because she thinks he's indifferent.

"Like I care about flowers," Pali said.

Pali will care a lot in June if Omer hasn't saved $25 a month since her junior prom.
Copyright Brigham Young University 13 Feb 2003