WHY ARE FLOWERS SO EXPENSIVE? LEARNING ABOUT THE DESIGN PROCESS
Why are wedding flowers so expensive? This is a question that gets asked all the time and honestly, it's a very long question to answer, and I'd love to shed a little light on this. First of all, the fact of the matter is, that cut flowers ARE just expensive, even at a wholesale price. Since the pandemic I have also seen a rise in price at the wholesale level. It's also true that anyone can put flowers in a vase, and because flowers are inherently beautiful, the end result generally ends up looking nice. However, there is a difference between putting flowers in a vase and in designing flowers.
Work begins the moment someone inquires about my services. Spending time learning about a couple’s vision for their wedding day, creating proposals and inspiration boards. Going back-and-forth to get things just right. Writing emails, having an in-person or phone consultation, sometimes visiting the venue and meeting with a planner, takes many hours of time that must be accounted for in pricing a wedding.
Once I book a client, next I plan what flowers to use and how those will blend together to create balanced arrangements, creating a custom color palette. Every wedding is custom to fit the couples vision of their wedding day. Flowers need to be ordered from local growers and floral wholesalers. Sometimes harvesting from my own garden or foraging a special seasonal element. The planning and ordering process takes many hours and often days. Flowers and greenery are highly perishable and 10% loss is standard.
Maintaining an inventory of vases, vessels, and buckets, that all need to be kept clean, in good condition, and stored, is another important element. A few days before the wedding, the flowers arrive and are processed. They have to be unboxed, unwrapped, hydrated, stems stripped of foliage, thorns removed, and put in the buckets of water to keep them fresh and healthy. One of my favorite parts of the process is when I have all the flowers processed and in fresh water. At this step I can really start to see the vision coming together. Then, it's finally time for the fun part! The designing! This can take 2-3 days before the wedding, depending on the size.
On the day of the actual wedding, we carefully pack the vehicle for transport and deliver sometimes 3 different locations, spending the day unloading the flowers, standing on ladders, carrying buckets, lots of back and forth making everything look perfect, The following day(or after a few days of recovery ;-) I clean my studio, wash buckets, clean vases, and get ready to do it all over again. It is such a labor of love and when all these pieces come together it is an exciting and beautiful thing to be part of every time!
Hopefully this provides a little more insight into why flowers cost what they do!