Communication with your florist is an absolute priority, when you're talking about wedding
flowers, and certainly designing an entire look for your big day.
So I always think that planning for wedding flowers the most important word to think about
is collaboration.
That it is an interaction between you and your design style and your budget, and all
of the things that you want and hope and dream about, and the expertise that your florist
can.
So when you get together the idea is that you're going to have a lot of inspiration
and maybe you have a lot of ideas.
Look, maybe you have no ideas and you're happy to just sort of hand it off to this professional,
and have that person do everything.
But you know, my favorite way to work with people is that when they come to have me they
maybe some images they've pulled from the internet or from magazines or just ideas or
visions or things that have inspired them in their own lives.
Something maybe that's personal to them, a hobby or a craft or something.
They come to me and they want to incorporate these elements into their wedding or they
have an idea about style or palette or feel, and then we start to create a vision together
of what their wedding can look like.
The expertise that I bring is going to be to know what's in season and to know what's
fresh, to know what's available to them in that venue, in that location, what style will
look good in that venue, in that location.
Also, to be able to be impromptu and to think on my feet.
So a big element of being a wedding florist and trusting your wedding florist, and communicating
with your wedding florist is that, the day of or the day before or whenever your wedding
florist is getting your flowers for the wedding, there may be things that become unavailable
that you had planned.
There may be other kinds of snafu's, weather fluctuations, something like that.
So to trust that the person that you're working with is going to be able to make a quick decision
on their feet, about substituting some important element or working with whatever comes up.
So that's really, really important.
I think you know, the qualities of a floral designer that you want to have somebody who
certainly has some experience.
Maybe they have worked in the venue where you're having your wedding, so they know the
lay of the land.
Even if they haven't worked in the venue where you're having your wedding, that you see enough
images from them to speak to the style that you're interested in having.
So if you have a very traditional, classic wedding that you're interested in having with
the flowers, then make sure that they have enough pictures, and maybe you've even seen
live.
Maybe you've even been to a wedding that they've done, and they did your friend's wedding or
your sister's wedding and you thought, "God, those are really gorgeous flowers.
This is in a venue and/or in a style that I really love."
So you have some experience with their design that makes sense with the design that you're
planning.
You know, to be talking to them very openly and honestly about your budget.
I always stress this point, and it has to be somebody that you feel very comfortable
talking about money with.
A big quality for any vendor for a wedding, but certainly for a florist, would be somebody
that you can communicate honestly and openly with about anything.
That person, throughout the entire time you're working with them; it could be up to a year
or more that you're communicating and collaborating with your florist; so that person has to be
able to be a good listener.
To be an active listener.
To be somebody who can change course, if things change along the way.
So these are all factors in thinking about talking to your wedding florist, communicating
with that person.
Generally, just like you pick any kind of vendor or professional that you work with,
really developing a sense of trust.
If you feel like they're returning your phone calls, returning your emails, all of the other
things about running a business that make you trust somebody, the same thing applies
to a wedding florist.