Let's take a look at a breakdown of what actually happens through the process of creating wedding flowers.
1. Initial meeting with a bride.
The initial meeting normally takes about 1-2 hours depending on how extensive the wedding is.
2. Providing the bride with an initial quote.
Proposals and quotes take anywhere from 1-3hours. I make recipes for every item in the wedding from the bridal bouquet to the centerpieces. This allows me to know where we can cut costs and still keep the overall look of the wedding without sacrificing the final product.
3. Re-working the quote to make adjustment.
Many brides will want me to make adjustments to fit their budgets better. This takes an additional 1-2 hours including re-typing the quote and making adjustments.
We are now up to a maximum of 7 hours just to get the quote to the price in which the bride wants and actually signs the contract and makes the deposit.
4. Making a sample.
We will make a sample of the brides centerpieces once she has signed the contract and made her deposit. This normally is a meeting of about 1-2 hours for any adjustments and changes.
5. Changes and adjustments to the proposal are made up until 2 weeks prior the wedding.
I may make several updates to the proposal for the bride over a period of time. This can be anywhere from 1 hour to many hours depending on the bride.
6. 2 weeks prior the wedding the bride is ready for her day.
I order the flowers and supplies to create her wedding flowers. This normally takes 1 hour.
7. Receiving the flowers and preparing the supplies for the wedding.
We receive the flowers dry packed. These flowers have to be conditioned with special chemicals to prepare them for optimum freshness and beauty for the brides special day. We also have to prepare all the items you don't even see. This can take up to 6 or more hours with 2-3 people getting everything ready for the actual designing. Believe it or not, many times we receive the wrong flowers and have to make changes or find other wholesalers that can provide us with the flowers the bride wants.
I've already lost track of the hours involved.
8. Designing the wedding.
Depending on the wedding an average of 2-3 designers needed for 8-10 hours and even more for each wedding.
9. It's Wedding day.
Deliver the bouquets to the hotel for the photos before the wedding.
10. Delivering the Ceremony arrangements and decorations.
Set up the church and in many cases wait until the ceremony is over to transport arrangements to the reception.
11. Delivering and setting up the Reception.
I wish it were that easy. We arrive and many times the room isn't ready for us to place the arrangements. We will do anything to help move the process along. From helping to place tables to dropping linens just so we can start to place the arrangements.
12. Moving arrangements from the Ceremony to the Reception before the guests are entering the Reception Room.
13. Now everything is ready and the wedding is on.
14. The reception is over.
15. It's now midnight and we're back to pick up all the rental items as well as many times retrieving items the bride has asked us to collect for her.
16. Return to the shop and unload the vehicle.
17. Monday morning begin cleaning all the rental items and putting them back where they belong.
Now you get an idea of what it takes as a florist to create a wedding. It's much more than throwing a few bouquets together and delivering them to you. I would love to have a bride follow us through the process just once to see what exactly we do to provide her with here perfect wedding. So when you ask why do the flowers cost so much you have an idea of why.
