Yes, you can use silk flowers and real flowers for your wedding and some pics

Remember my debate about using real vs. fake flowers?

Well we ended up using real roses for my bouquet (my last choice but it turned out to be lovely and classic) and silk dahlias for the bridesmaids. The boutonnieres were made of roses as well.Closeup of both bouquetsCloseup of the lace on my bouquetWho knew? Roses can be pretty awesome.Bridesmaid bouquet in action along with her ribbon wand!

I did go to Whole Foods and got bright red gerber daisies but my cousin and mom didn't like them. They also didn't like the lilies my aunt and I bought for some tables. Good thing Whole Foods accepts returns on flowers.

My cousin ended up getting red roses at another Whole Foods. I think it was $30 or $40 for two dozen of the large roses and they held up pretty well. The dahlias were $3 each (50% off Michael's) and there were about 5 or 6 in each bouquet.
My cousin, aunt, and future cousin in law made all the bouquets and boutonnieres the night before (cloth from the dresses were made into ribbons covering the bridesmaid's bouquet's stems and some extra alencon lace trim covered my bouquet's stems). My family was ridiculously awesome. Let yourself be helped! So many things went wrong and I was also trying to see my out of towners so things were crazy that week!

So my final opinion: yes silk flowers (good quality ones) look fine and can be used in your bridesmaids or even your own bouquet. They're usually less expensive though not always. Their main advantage is that they can be made in advance and can be used after the wedding too!

Silk vs. real flowers - what do I do?

My mom has recently insisted that my silk flowers are a total no-no and I have to get real flowers. She says they won't photograph well. She also thinks they may be tacky.

Sigh, this would have been useful when my friend helped me buy them months ago.

But I wanted silk flowers because I could make the bouquets in advance and they won't wither in the gross August sun (our wedding pictures will span 10 hours - 9 am - 7 pm including the whole reception and before and after shots).

The colors admittedly are very fall like in keeping with the original wedding. But I think the dahlias are pretty cool still and I loved the amaryllis when I bought them at Michael's. My girls are wearing dark red dresses, some come with a poppy (red orange) sash. So I like red or yellow tones for the flowers.

I'm wondering whether to keep them at all and then if I can mix silk and real flowers.

Dahlias and tiger lilies

Amaryllis, dahlias, and tiger lilies

What do you think? Brutal honesty appreciated.