Wedding Work. Some thoughts on our floral wedding industry.... A feature article by Gregory Milner
Wedding Floristry
Thoughts!
I recently read Kate Hills site to find interesting comments on bridal work. Incidently, I thought the comments were good but the wedding photographs lacked any impact. Very few photographs of bouquets. If I was looking for a wedding florist would the site entice me? Plainly,no.
It is best to be honest with web designs as I myself can pick problems with my own web pages. It is always best to view from a fussy customers perspective.
One remark regarding pricing suggested that a bride should allow 15% of the wedding budget for wedding flowers. I agree with this but the vast majority of florists UNDERSELL their skills. Good on you Kate for promoting this figure! Hand tied bouquets have been our industries undoing for bridal prices.I am not against them personally but the publics perception is that a cousin, friend or aunt can put some flowers together and bind them with ribbon.We all know this is not the case but we need to promote bouquets they cant make. Many customers cant see the difference between a rose posy for a gift and a wedding posy. The perception is they are one in the same.
Interestingly, in the 1950's.'60's and seventies the floral industry encouraged the finest shank on a bouquet. They would have reeled in horror at the fat, stem bound handles. They are also a pain to hold. I would never recommend using natural stems against a good quality gown.If you bind the stems over with ribbon/tulle you defeat the look of natural stems and create an ugly,thick unobscured handle.
Our industry should compare its pricing to other industries associated with weddings. Look at car hire, cake purchase, tial make up and hair costs to name but a few. Consider the cost of photography - it can run into thousands of dollars. All industries have progressed their prices and floristry has priced backwards. This upsets me for the aspect of the future of our industry. Consider training. Hairdressing is a three year apprenticeship, so is floristry. Do we consider our skill level silmilar? I hope so but then compare hair dressing costs for a wedding.If the bride, maids, mothers all have makeup and hair it leaves floristry pricing comparison in the cold. Wake up florists - we are grossly undercharging for wedding bouquets.Frankly it is far better to lose a wedding than lose money on it.I have quoted this before but in 1946 a wedding bouquet was the equivalent of one months wage. So whats that worth today?
We desparetely need to look at this and also how we market our skill.
If you go into a good cake shop there will be a range of cakes on display and PRICED. Most brides I deal with pay over a thousand dollars for their cake. Consider the number of photographs that include the bouquet compared to the cake. What is more important? The flowers by far.
How many florists feature decent wedding work that is priced? Obviously most will use quality synthetic blooms yet they don't as most show photos. Much harder to sell this way. Put something in their hand, show them how and where to hold and you are off and away.
Hand tieds have been popular for over fifteen years surely it is time for an option in fashion and one where florists can charge what is needed to justify the skill we have. The public now have A VIEW THAT WE TIE FLOWERS TOGETHER surely we should aim to change this perception and show our skill, or is three years of training a waste?
Very interested to hear your comments.
Gregory
From Sacha's FlowerGoss Page.
Couldn't agree more with this article. What's with the inferiority complex of this industry?!
It is good to see leaders in the industry being transparent about pricing. I feel secrecy (or insecurity?) about pricing tends to be a key influence on driving it down as a whole.
Incidentally, I found that most of Kate's wedding gallery was bouquets. Did you click on the thumbnails? I think she should explain that.
I quite like Kate Hills' website myself, but I agree the thumbnails in the gallery are too small. I agree with you Greg I don't know what the obsession is with seeing the stems. I am guilty of underpricing myself but as I'm starting out I aim to gradually increase the fees.
I guess we as florists need to promote the difference between a bunch of flowers and a bouquet.
I believe that in order to solve the issues brought up by this article we have to look at a couple of things:
1) Where is Australian Wedding Fashion and Standard Practice coming from? Where are these trends evolving from.
2) Where are these brides getting their advice from - Magazines, I believe are the main influence to wedding planning.
I will now explain my reasoning behind bringing up the two points.
1) I am a relative new player in the Floral Industry but in the last 12 months I have noticed more and more brides requesting not only natural stem posy, but wishing to have the stems left long - instead of about 15-20cm, it tends to now be about 30cm in length. I personally don't mind this fashion, but it's not really ground breaking and I wouldn't recommend it. So where are these trends coming from? Who is deciding what is fashionable in Bridal accessories, reception location etc. We, as an industry need to market ourselves not to the brides themselves, but to the people who are deciding where Wedding Fashions are going.
More and more brides these days are sticking with a traditional wedding. Why? Is everyone afraid the 1980's is going to happen again? Who is deciding where fashion is going? Also, who is neglecting to inform brides of the importance of flowers? It is our responsibility.
lmaooo....and whats wrong with the 80's huh ?????? ok,ok, living cards are the exception, gawwwd awful things they was . lol.Good valid points to ur blog tho, interesting feedback as well, makes u think.
2) So I'm probably going to write something similar to what my last point evolved into, but bare with me. So Brides get their information somewhere right? A wedding - cake, car, reception, dress, flowers etc doesn't automatically fabricate itself. Brides get their ideas from - in my experience, two/three major sources. Wedding Magazines/E-Zines, Their Mothers and Their Friends. Flowers may not have played a big role in their friends or mothers weddings and we can't influence that market. The Magazine/E-Zine market however we can influence and dictate to. It's our industry, let's not leave it up to others to define how much we should be charging or where the fashion should be leading.
In Cosmopolitan Bride this month I feel I need to point out two things:
a) The ONE FLORIST which advertises definitely under-quotes and gives unrealistic prices to bouquets advertised.
b) There was a bride who simply bought roses from a florist and made her bouquets herself. It looks terrible and I'll save you all from a further personal opinion.
Essentially our industry needs to get it's act together and stop being dictated to and start dictating where we're heading.
Finally I have one last point to make that I feel is extremely important...
Corporate Image. Corporate Image Corporate Image Corporate Image. I'm not going to use Floral Industry specifics however this is how I view it. You're spending $20,000 on a wedding, 15% of which is dedicated to flowers, so that's $3,000. When was the last time you made a $3,000 purchase - or, what is generally regarded as a high-involvement purchase. Say, a lounge suite? What did you notice about the purchase experience. Was the store clean? modern? bright? In a good location? Contemporary? Did the staff have a clean professional uniform? Were the business cards professional? Did the company have an easy to use, clear website? If the company had a vehicle, was it clean? Clearly advertised? Was the lounge suite delivered on time at the time you specified? Did it come with any care-for instructions? ....
And so on. Most likely you're probably answering yes to most of those questions. So why do I feel that this industry is lacking professionalism? Obviously style and taste is a personal thing but as most people who are getting married these days are Generation X and soon Generation Y - These customers expect more than just a good product, the entire experience and reputation of the business is so extremely important. It's important to have a contemporary appearance in the store, for your staff to be uniformed, for your van to be clean, for the flowers to be delivered with care-for instructions, to bother with the small touches - A Glass of Champagne or a Coffee during the consultation - among the other suggestions of a physical example of the bouquet itself.
Just my 5 cents. And a bit more.
I often have Brides that ask for wholesale flowers so that they can put together their bouquets! (I work more in events)
Interesting! Many valid points in all that.
I just checked out Kate Hills website after seeing her featured in the latest 'Real Weddings' magazine and it was pretty spiffy, but I agreed with Greg's comments, there was a lot of text but hardy any flower arrangements- I didn't click on the thumbnails, I didn't know I was suppposed to!! Maybe that is the problem with this particular site!
But after reading all the 'advice' thoroughly I became a bit annoyed.
I don't know if anyone else has a problem with this, and I did think most of her comments on wedding flowers were correct,but I didn't really like the digs at retail florists not having the time or focus to do corporate and wedding floral design and styling.
Our industry is insecure enough without us taking digs at each other- but it does bring up an interesting point- are retail florists doing too much?
Is one of the problems with pricing wedding floristry that we are too pedestrian- maybe the reason these 'exclusive wedding florists' can price so high is because they offer the bride a total package of expertise, knowledge, and the experience of walking into a private viewing room elegantly styled and fully decked out- without the hassle of other staff and customers running around?
Because I guarantee Kate Hill is charging top dollar for her bridal bouquets, yet so many of us retail florists complain about how low our prices are.
Maybe she's right- maybe wedding floristry needs to be seen as a completely seperate service to match customer expectations and drive the price of bridal floristry back up- which ties into Alex's point of Corporate Image- pick an image and stick to it, don't try to do everything for every market.
vicky :A 3rd year student say
Iam a current flowrist student at a tafe in nsw.Pricing bridal work is our daily concerns as fellow students especially ,we come from a non english speaking background,where the common belief is the cheaper ,the better.However in bridal work and or funeral work ,and all workmanship that is needed ,how would a florist survive? i always ask myself this guestion .One student sole a funeral spray for $70,our teacher priced it $400!.Yes ,she told me "well vicky this is our community!".
I am honesly confused ,is it really the community attitude towards the lower the better? or is a survival method used by florists? or do we learn something and practice the opposite? or is it that the flower industry will never recover until the public attitude change ? please comment
Hi Vicky,
I understand what you're saying. When I was doing my apprenticeship I was shown the correct way to price floristry items and then when I bought my own shop I had to sacrifice my education to compete in a cut-throat market place.
It will depend a lot on what area you work in and the type of florist, as well, some florists are known for their wedding/or funeral work and they will be able to charge realistic prices (similar to what you learn in school, if you work in a smaller, country or suburban florist you will have a lot of competition and will no doubt have cheaper prices to be competitive.
In Australia we do love a bargian (think The Castle and the Kerrigans haggeling over the Trading Post!) but there are also people who will question why a quote is so cheap, ie. is the florist using the best quality blooms.
In my experience discerning brides will either go with the middle ground or if they want the best of the best, the most expensive quote. The brides that go with the cheapest quote possible usually aren't worth worrying about!
I agree entirely Greg but unless all the florists in the area agree to value their wedding flowers realistically the one shop that does is seen as expensive!We price our wedding work following your advice but how does the industry AS A WHOLE inform the public that wedding flowers(and indeed other florist flowers) are not expensive given training etc?
There also seems to be a substantial difference between country and city florist pricing which is insane as country florists usually pay MORE for getting the flowers shipped up from the city markets.
I don't really agree with Alex's observation that we're not making the trends in floristry. Where do you think these brides are getting their ideas from? I can tell you with confidence that it's a mix between us florists and sheer convenience. For example, my theory on the recent trend of longer stem lengths is that brides are getting sick of nearly dropping their bouquets during the ceremony, pictures, etc! It's easier to catch a bouquet as it's falling if the stems are longer. We've also introduced the idea of "embellishing" the stem ribboning on these bouquets, and some brides want to show that off. I don't think we should completely discount ourselves as trend-setters. Almost every single bride I see comes in with pictures from bridal magazines or online. Somehow, I don't think non-florists are making those arrangements.
That being said, I think that wedding floristry should be about the CLIENT...NOT the trend! If the bride likes the current trends, then she should receive a product that incorporates those trends. If the bride wants something more traditional, she should have her wish. While it would be awesome if every bride out there would go along with our creative whims, it's not realistic or right. Not to be too harsh or anything, but if you're only doing wedding flowers for the sake of art then you're in the wrong business.
I shall step off my soap box now. ;)