The Great $50 Wedding Centerpiece Challenge!

OK folks, here's what you've been waiting for! Our conversations with fellow florists and flower lovers bemoaning how wedding flowers depicted in magazines are unrealistically beyond the budget of the average bride, leads us to this, our first contest.

Here are the rules - get your game faces on!

The Great $50 Wedding Centerpiece Challenge

1. Centerpiece value must equal $50 retail, (US dollars) – including container and labor. You cannot claim the container to be a rental.
2. You must show your math. Retail price of all ingredients – flowers, container, greens, supplies like floral foam, ribbon, etc. – must be accounted for. No “free” product – if you “had” it, found it, grew it, or picked it by the side of the road, you must give it a realistic retail price.
3. You must show what percentage of the $50 price is for labor. No exceptions.
4. I reserve the right to toss out anything with questionable math.
5. 1 centerpiece submission per designer.
6. Centerpiece must be appropriate for a wedding.
7. Send only 1 photo of your submission, so pick the best one!
8. Husband says you should submit your photo as a JPEG, TIFF, or GIF, so I don’t have to learn anything new before Christmas.
9. Submit 1 photo,your itemized math, and your contact information to: sproutcontest at gmail dot com. Subject line should read - $50.
10. Submissions must be received by 6:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, December 20, 2009
11. Voting will run from December 21, 2009 – January 21, 2010. Winner will be announced January 22, 2010.
12. Winner will be blog reader’s choice.

There will be a prize, but I have not settled yet on what delightful item it will be!

Feel free to link this contest to your own blogs, web sites, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. I figure the more people who know about this and send submissions, the more exciting it will be!

Now, get designing!!!