The other day someone asked me “why do flowers for weddings cost so much?” I thought the best way to answer that question was to write a piece giving an insight into what’s involved – the behind the scenes –  in producing our wedding flowers .

I can quite understand the first time couples start looking for flowers for their wedding it can be a bit of a surprise to see the costs. However like all products and services you aren’t just paying for just what you see, in our case, stems of flowers. Here’s a brief account of how we work and what we have to consider when pricing for a wedding.

So what is our job as a wedding florist and what do we take into account and consider when pricing? 

We have our general running costs which include: website, rent, utilities, invoicing/accounting, Insurances, subscriptions etc

Continuous learning – courses and workshops to improve our business and floristry skills.

There is our time to answer your emails and discuss your requirements in a consultation.

Our time to prepare a bespoke proposal and share a mood board of seasonal flowers that will fit your style, colour palette and budget.

For this we will need our experience and expertise to work out which flowers will work best in the designs and which flowers hold well out of water if required to do so. We will need to know how many stems are required to work out the costs and what mechanics to use to create these designs and how it will be installed which may require a risk assessment with your venue and health & safety issues to consider. 

For Installations we are also likely to need to pay for freelancers as very often we cannot get into the venue until a few hours before the wedding. So we need to know how many people it will take to install and clear up.

There is also the cost for van hire if necessary and fuel to consider and the dismantling service the next day.

 

So we have all of this to consider and think about before we even get to see any flowers.

Flower costs: flowers are a luxury item that takes time, energy and expertise to grow good quality produce so the wholesale cost for each stem is high. 

We have the expertise to grow a lot of our own flowers so we know what our production costs for the year are which means we avoid the unexpected rises at the wholesale flower auctions which is very unpredictable at the moment as world events have a big impact on the global industry so we are very pleased we made the decision to use locally grown seasonal flowers.

We have also spent the time to build up good relationships with other local growers so we can buy in when we need extra flowers.

With freshly washed buckets at the ready we will use our experience to ensure we pick you the freshest seasonal flowers from the gardens that will be at the perfect stage for your wedding.  We usually allow half a day to pick and source the flowers for the average wedding.

Once we get the flowers back to our studio we then have to check the flowers over, strip the lower leaves, re-cut put into fresh water and leave overnight to take up as much water as possible to ensure they are at their best for your wedding day.

We usually allow 1-2 days to pick, source and prepare all the flowers.

 

Then comes the best part getting creative, we always choose the flowers for the brides bouquet first and put them to one side, then we allocate all the other flowers. This also helps if we have any freelancers working with us as they know which flowers/foliage are needed for each design.

After all the designs are made, this often means working late and starting early as we are creating with fresh produce on very tight deadlines.

We then have to carefully package your flowers for transporting – Flowers can easily get squashed and damaged en route so we have lots of special containers and techniques to get them to you in perfect condition. For larger weddings there will always be two of us to deliver and set up.

The only other job to do when we get back is to clean up the studio and wash the buckets ready for the next wedding!

We really do love weddings here at The Flower Patch and hope that this explains in a bit more detail what is involved. It’s always a pleasure to be part of every couple’s special day and we love the variety that’s involved in each wedding.

If you’d like to find out more and how we can create gorgeous florals for your wedding day get in touch