Florist News

do you any of refuse to do a wedding in part?
eg. i don't need any of those........flowers as my mother/best friend/ wierd auntie is doing them.

I know that some florists bluntly refuse to do a wedding where someones elses flowers may also be present to protect their reputation.. but where do you draw the line? A lot of hotels have very cheap and rubbish flowers thrown in with the reception price... do you risk losing a otherwise decent wedding over this policy.
Theres also the church flowers, it seems a growing trend for churches to inlcude arrangements by flower arrangers in the price of the church even if they have a total budget of twenty quid for the whole church, and they look diabolical!

I wouldn't be happy doing wedding flowers for a bride if she said "my friend has just done a flower arranging course at night school and she is going to do the church and reception flowers" but without insulting her friend it could be difficult to explain the difference between floristry and flower arranging and why she could ruin your reputation with her efforts.

and if you did make it a house rule to not accept part weddings would you announce it before a consultation or risk wasting your time going through the whole thing for her so to say so and so is doing that for me?

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Sarah Creating Bespoke Wedding Flowers Cheshire

Thats a really good question. I really don't know the answer though. I guess you'd lose alot of work but as you say, you don't want people to think that you did the rubbish flowers. The only thing that would really help is for all florists to refuse part orders because if you say no they'll only go to the next florist, slag you off and get them to do it.

It's going to be a bit different for everyone. Most churches tend to have 'flower ladies' who do the flowers regularly on a rota. Some of them are actually quite good at what they do, which is to make the church look pretty. Most will not venture into the intricate stuff like pew ends etc and just stick to the pedestals, alter arrangements etc. One of the churches used to just ask for a donation towards the flowers and invariably they would recieve a tenner maybe twenty quid. When i explained to them that if i was doing it, a pedestal would be minimum 100 quid etc and that they should charge a realistic price they did think hard about it and now do just that.

I think it's probably a bit dangerous to have a rigid policy on this. It could be a case of 'cutting off your nose....' You won't always know if someone else is contributing to the flowers in some way and they won't always tell you. If you try and press them for a guarantee that you will be the only one doing anything with flowers, they'll probably give you a funny look. Photographers try and do it this way, but these days, everyone has a digital camera and everyone takes pictures. So unless you're a celebrity and 'hello magazine' is covering the event with a few dozen 'bouncers' there's not much you can do about it.

You'll have occasions when a bloke walks in and says "i need 2 thank you bouquets for the mums at our wedding next week". You know you're not doing the wedding flowers, but when he throws a hundred quid on the counter..are you goimng to say "sorry..we don't do mixed weddings...go back to the other florist" I don't think so..

It's the one's that get your back up or just downright insult you that are the problem. Like.."xxx is doing my bouquet cos that's real important, but could you do the tables and buttonholes cos xxx is quite expensive and i don't mind saving money on those things and you'll probably be cheaper."

If you're desperate for work you may end up eating humble pie and doing it just to pay the rent. If you've got plenty of work on then it's most satisfying to be able to say "Sorry, we're fully booked for the rest of the year, try so and so"

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If a bride has arranged her own flowers elsewhere I try not to think about it! I make sure my work is of the highest standard so you can really tell the difference between a "flower arangers" pedestal arrangement (made out of half a woodland forest and a bunch of grotty supermarket chrysanthemums) and a beautiful table arrangement made by a "floral designer"!. I think most people know enough about flowers these days to be able to tell the difference. I have had a couple of brides ask me if they can supply the flowers (ie their friend is buying them or they have picked them from the garden) and for me to arrange them, they are politely declined their kind offer!

quite right too......

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i wouldn't refuse any order (would have to be a very very good reason) if i did.

They are still a customer at the end of the day, and if i had refused this weekend then i would be over £200 lighter, as ive had 2 brides order thankyou flowers from me and not the actual wedding flowers.

I think obviosly were in this business ultimatley because we love the job but a close second is because we want to make money!!

We don't turn anyone away, we'd end up doing hardly any weddings if we had a policy of only doing all the wedding flowers, especially this year the purse strings seem to have been tightened, we do seem down on reception bookings, people are doing things themselves. We do see some sights when we go to venues to deliver, and it is reassuring that the hotels are well aware that we have had nothing to do with the table arrangements, often we hear the sorry tale of how mum found she had bitten off more than she could chew and someone else was wheeled in to salvage the situation.

it depends on who is doing the rest of the flowers. and what the rest is.

if we would for example be asked to do bouquet and tables and they booked someone else for ceremony flowers. and pedestals by a florist who we dont like the work of. then yes we would say no we cant do your wedding.

if it was only one or two things that a family member was doing . or they were renting artificial plants for deco then no we wouldnt mind.