7

Aug

2013

Ask The Experts – How To Find A Florist

campbells Flowers

There are many things about weddings that I LOVE, and one of them is the flowers. Finding the right florist to fit with the look and feel of your wedding is SO important! The flowers can really make a wedding look amazing, so choosing the right florist is going to be an important factor in your wedding planning.

For this reason I  have invited the Blog’s flower expert Tracey Campbell from Campbell’s Flowers to talk to you about every aspect of choosing the right florist, from the initial search, through to questions you need to ask, plus the all important consultation.

I’ll pass the Blog over to Tracey…….

1 Ask The Experts - How To Find A Florist

My thanks as always to Kelly for the chance to share a bit of flowery knowledge with all her lovely readers, today I bring you some helpful hints and tips on how to find your wedding florist.

Finding a Florist

For many, a recommendation from a friend is a good starting point, however, if that’s not on the cards, then I’d say looking at websites will give you a good idea of the style and type of work a florist designs.

Looking Through Florists Websites

  • The look and feel of the site itself, along with the bridal designs – are they the kind of thing you like?  Could you imagine them at your wedding? If the answer’s yes, then brilliant! If no, then move on!
  • Are there lots of pics of brides? Do the photos look genuine? I’ve known unscrupulous florists admit to me that they’ve downloaded other people’s work onto their website “just to show what they can do”. In fact, I’ve even had a florist put my work on her site, but that’s a different story! Trust your instinct, if the images look generic and not very personal, they probably are – again, keep looking ‘til you find something you feel is right.
  • Can you find some nice little thank you’s from past brides on the site? These, along with any special awards can also be a nice little pointer in helping you decide.

2 Ask The Experts - How To Find A Florist

Other ways of finding a florist could be through

  • Being on a recommended suppliers list at, say, your venue
  • Through blog posts you’ve seen and liked
  • In magazines
  • Through social media

Once you’ve decided to contact a florist, it’s always helpful to email them some details such as

  • Where you’re getting married
  • The date and time (so they can check they’re available)
  • Any other info you think might be helpful such as colour schemes

Then, once you’ve booked a convenient time to meet up, you’ll get the best from the time together if you can talk about, and possibly bring with you, photos or downloads of

  • Any theme, or look and feel you might have for your day
  • A picture of your dress (so the shape of your bouquet compliments this)
  • Pictures of your bridesmaids’ dresses or an idea of the colour you’re going for
  • An idea of the type of flowers you love, with a few pictures or photos you might have seen on-line. You don’t need to know the names of the flowers – your florist should know them and be able to let you know if they’re available when you’re getting married.

3 Ask The Experts - How To Find A Florist

When to contact Your Florist

In terms of when’s the best time to find your florist, I find everyone’s different. Sometimes Brides come to me and they haven’t even got their dress bought, but love my flowers and know they want to book me (which, of course, is lovely), some come with scrapbooks full of lots and lots of ideas which includes styling the day complete with lots and lots of details, others are happy to put the flowers totally in my hands and leave it up to me to suggest everything! That’s what makes consultations fun, they’re never the same.  My advice is don’t worry, your florist will love flowers and because of this will make the consultation a really enjoyable part of your planning.

In terms of allocating time for your consultation, I find mine usually take at least an hour, sometimes quite a bit longer, so try not to book too many things around your appointment.

4 Ask The Experts - How To Find A Florist

The Consultation 

Here are some helpful things to bear in mind when attending a consultation – some are specific to coming here, but most will apply to any florist you visit:

  • Family and friends are always welcome, but do bear in mind that a range of different tastes can make decisions a bit muddly and leave you feeling confused if there are lots and lots of them!
  • It’s helpful if you let your florist know if there will be more than two of you attending a consultation – many will struggle to seat more than that comfortably.
  • We find lots of brides bring along their partners to consultations, which is lovely, just remember you will need to talk about your dress at some point so they might be asked to sit in another space for a short while.  In our case, they often make friends with my husband whose design studio is a handy place to sit, while we talk gowns!
  • Children are always more than welcome and, as a Mum, I completely understand how juggling childcare can be a problem, but do bear in mind that even the best behaved small people find over an hour talking about flowers a bit of a challenge!
  • If you can’t attend your appointment, please do let whoever you booked with know, my mobile phone number is on my website and I always include it in my confirmation email.  Saturday appointments are, for most florists, at a premium and if you can’t make it, even at short notice, there’s usually a waiting list or the possibility that someone else can take your place.

And yes! You get all this for free, as most florists don’t charge for consultations!

5 Ask The Experts - How To Find A Florist

Shortly after your consultation, a florist will then prepare a quotation, usually sending it by email.  Obviously everyone’s budgets are different, so if you do know how much you want to spend, it’s really helpful to talk about this with the florist during the consultation.  We all know how easy it is to get carried away with weddings – and flowers are no exceptions, however, it can be disappointing for everyone and terribly time consuming if it isn’t made clear from the beginning that you’re keeping a tight rein on the pennies! Make sure that everything is fully itemised and you are happy that everything you talked about has been covered.

If all is well, and you want to book, then usually you’ll be asked to pay a deposit to secure the day and be told when the balance is due.  Check out any cancellation policies and any terms and conditions attached to hiring vases or props etc and you should be pretty well set!

6 Ask The Experts - How To Find A Florist

I hope that’s helpful, if you need any further advice on finding your florist, you can pop over to our website where we have lots of helpful wedding hints & tips including information on how to budget for your wedding flowers or pop over to the blog where we’ve also written a feature on this subject too.

Tracey x

 

For more information on Tracey’s work go to

www.campbellsflowers.co.uk
www.campbellsflowers.blogspot.co.uk
FACEBOOK
PINTEREST
@campbellsflwrs
YouTube

 

 

Why not visit our Supplier Directory

Comments

    Dan

    Thanks for this post it’s really helpful.

    I’m having a bit of a flower dilemma at the minute and could do with some advice, if anyone can help. My mum’s friend is a florist and my mum is keen on me using her for my wedding. She is very cheap and being a friend of my mums means she will probably even give us a discount. This is helpful as we are having to cut back on the budget. However after looking on her website I haven’t seen anything I like. I know that she is good at what she does as I have seen it in real life, but what she does, is in my opinion quite old fashioned (very structured/all one flower). I’m looking for a natural hand picked/jam jar feel. My mum says this is what people have asked for and will be able to do what I ask for just as well, but without seeing any photographs I’m not sure whether I should take the plunge and go with her or move on to the next florist? Opinions would be welcome.

    Dan x

    Reply
    boho

    Can you book a consultation with the florist and take some of the ideas you have with you? Maybe get her to mock a couple of ideas up for you so you can see if her style suites or not?

    Reply
    chaabi

    We actually got a great deal through our wedding planner. She had an assistant who wanted to get into floral design, and so she did flowers for us at a discount. Were they blog-worthy in their epic-ness? No, absolutely not. Were they beautiful and made the tables not look empty? YUP! Best decision ever.

    Reply

Please leave your comment

We reserve the right to remove any comment that we feel is distasteful, rude, hurtful or inappropriate, so please be nice. Remember the weddings featured on this blog are real people and their weddings mean a lot to them. Please be mindful of this and other people's feelings. If youhave a problem with any of the content please contact me directly.

Thank you xx

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.