Florist News

Calla lilies always seem to be more expensive in September, is this an actual fact or am I being taken advantage of?

I remember once, when i had my first shop,(this was in 2001) i had a wedding in september, the bride wanted white callas, and i had quoted, and she had paid for it.

When they came in they were £ 3.00 + vat for me to buy, i nearly died.

I'll never forget this again!!

Its a fact Rosa. i learned this the hard way a few years back. One of my wedding ladies had ordered around 50 white cala and the price had been steady for a while so asumed would cost her around 2.50-3.00 tops. When they came in had to charge her like 6.50 each. Following week they were back to normal, so she probably thought i'd ripped her off. It was just the luck of the draw and that they had been ordered as 'must have'. So now i don't pre order unless they accept that the price may be crazy

__________________

Good, glad it's not just me then haha! My heart sinks when brides come in wanting calla lilies, they are horrible in foam holders and I hate the coloured ones for buttonholes! I try to be overcautious when quoting but if it's just calla lilies they are having there's no safety net of being able to juggle the other flowers round and I worry about people thinking I'm ripping them off, they just don't understand how things work when you have to pre-order, and that the more you need the bigger the problem might be.

I quote on the high side when any bride requests calla for any time of year most go with price and when time for final payment comes I can usually give what appears to be a discount Brides are always happy and we have got great feedback ref our ability to allow brides discount so now I price all weddings a little higher than needed and give the extra as discount works every time thankfully only 1 small wedding this weekend as other wedding has been put back but steady from then on

I've got your new name sorted Rach.........................;
...................................;
.............Quote2hi....................

__________________

Rach - when do you know the exact price of your flowers and when do you get the final payment from the bride? We generally don't know what the price of our flowers will come in at until the auction or when our suppliers buys through the growers...

Bit of guesswork Leila, like Rach says, quote on the high side (sometimes you will scare off the budget brides, but they don't normally go for things like cala anyway). Now and again you will come unstuck but you should be able to cover it elsewhere. It's just not safe to leave it till the day before to ask for all your money.

__________________

Our wedding contracts mean the bride has to finalise payment a month before the wedding at the latest and I always quote high - 99% of the time the flowers will come in well under what we've quoted at but as we already have had payment we're not in a position to offer a discount which is why I wondered when Rach gets her payments in.

Not in my world fly!!! IME the budget brides have the most bridesmaids (at least 4 and often as many as 7), the most expensive taste and are oblivious reality