Your Florist Isn't Selling You Flowers

Molly's Wedding Flowers by Chantilly Floral

  You walk into a grocery store and see a dozen roses for $25.  Then you receive your wedding floral proposal and wonder:  How on earth did we get from $25 roses to this?  It's a reasonable question.  But there's a fundamental problem with the comparison.  Your wedding florist isn't simply selling you flowers.

Flowers are the raw material.

    What you're actually purchasing is everything required to turn those flowers into a finished wedding design, and that's a very different product.  The flowers have to get there first. Before a single centerpiece is created, your florist has already made decisions.  Which flowers will create the look you want?  Are they available in your wedding season?  What varieties, sizes and colors are appropriate?  How much product will be required?  What substitutions might be necessary if something isn't available or arrives in poor condition?  And flowers are perishable.  They have to be ordered, received, inspected, processed, hydrated, conditioned and stored properly before anyone begins designing with them.  That bouquet didn't begin its life an hour before someone handed it to you.  

Then Someone Has to Create the Design

    This is where another misconception happens.  A centerpiece isn't simply the cost of the flowers sitting on the table.  Someone designed it.  Someone calculated how much product it would require.  Someone selected the flowers and foliage.  Someone prepared the vessel.  Someone constructed it.  And if your wedding includes ceremony structures, suspended installations, staircases, mantels, elaborate bars, escort-card displays or other large floral elements, there may also be substantial mechanics and engineering behind what looks effortless when you walk into the room.

Beautiful Doesn't Happen by Accident

    Labor is part of the price  This is something couples often don't see.  Your florist may have a team processing flowers before the wedding.  Another team may be designing.  Then everything has to be carefully packed, loaded, transported, unloaded, installed.  And sometimes installed within a very narrow window because the venue isn't available earlier.  After the wedding?  Someone may have to come back, take everything apart, retrieve vessels and rental items, remove structures, dispose of floral material, load the trucks again, and return everything to the studio.  You saw the centerpiece for five hours.  The florist may have been working on it for days.  And sometimes you are buying more than flowers.   Depending upon the florist and proposal, you may also be purchasing or renting: vases, candles, pedestals, structures, containers, specialty vessels, mechanics, delivery, installation, breakdown, labor, design services.

Jin and Matt's Wedding Flowers by The Huntington Meadow

 This is why two floral proposals with the same bottom-line price may not contain remotely the same things.  And it's why you have to read them.  Does that mean every expensive floral proposal is worth it?  No.  That's important.  I'm not writing this series to convince you that expensive automatically means excellent.  It doesn't.  A $20,000 floral proposal isn't inherently better than a $10,000 proposal.  And a florist charging more isn't automatically more talented.  You need to understand why the proposals are different.  Ask what is included.  Ask about quantities.  Ask about flower varieties.  Ask about rentals.  Ask about delivery, installation and breakdown.  Ask whether there are additional labor charges.  Ask what elements are yours to keep and what belongs to the florist.  And if you're comparing proposals, make sure you're actually comparing the same scope. 

     Your grocery store flowers aren't the enemy either.  And beautiful flowers don't cease being beautiful because they came from a grocery store.  If you're having an intimate dinner and want to put several bunches of flowers into vases yourself, that may be exactly the right decision.  But that isn't the same product as hiring a professional floral designer to create and execute a cohesive design for an entire wedding.  One isn't superior to the other.  They're simply different purchases.  And understanding that difference allows you to decide which one makes sense for you. 

 So What Are You Actually Buying?  

    You're buying flowers.  But you are also buying design, knowledge, sourcing, preparation, labor, transportation, equipment, installation, problem-solving, and someone's artistic ability to take the image you've been carrying around in your head and translate it into an actual room.

    Before deciding that your florist is too expensive, or that another florist is an incredible bargain, look beyond the flowers.  Understand what you're buying.  Because once again:  Price tells you what something costs.  Understanding tells you whether it has value.