Value Flowers
My working title for this was “Why are flowers so bloody expensive?”. It’s a valid question and one I ask myself often, so if I can ask, you can too!
Part of the answer to this question is that flowers seem expensive because we live in a society where everything is expected to decrease in cost, day after day. It is a constant race to the bottom to out compete / out price / match the price of / reduce the cost of almost every commodity. I still love a bargain! And buying flowers almost never feels like bagging a bargain - even at wholesale cost! But as my brother in law reminds me, cost isn’t the same as the value of something. As consumers we often do not pay for the true value of something, and so are miseducated on how much things should cost. This is certainly the case with flowers. I can often walk into a supermarket look at the flowers at the entrance and wonder how on earth can these be available at a cost that is lower than the wholesaler can sell to me? Flowers in the supermarket are often cheaper to the public than what I can get from the wholesaler for a wedding!
So it’s a case of miseducation. Not many people buy flowers regularly, and when they do, a quick trip to the supermarket gives an (unrealistic and unfair) idea of what to expect. When I come along as a wedding florist and give a client my costings, I expect it can often be quite a shock to see designs listed at their true value. And that’s just it; flowers from an experienced, knowledgeable (and hopefully) talented florist will cost you what they are truly worth. this includes ensuring no-one along the production line is exploited, including the wedding florist.
Firstly, the flowers themselves. With people so much more aware of the provenance of produce, it is understood that flowers, if bought through a wholesaler, will have likely travelled a lot. Before this they will have been grown intensely in an environment specifically design to yield high quality, consistent blooms in the quickest time frame. Wholesale flower growers will balance a number of factors to get the highest return - it is a skilled job, and one that requires many hands and many machines. This is flower production at it’s most cost effective. It produces blooms that are predictable, useful, and mostly beautiful, if a little boring. However, even at this end of the growing market flowers are still expensive, not just financially, but environmentally too, and with a potentially negative impact on workers on the ground in different farms across the world.
Flowers grown closer to home are most florists favourites to work with. They are more delicate and require a greater knowledge of the product themselves. I have to work much closer with the growers down the road to me so I can keep up to date with the current stock available. If there’s a night of rain or a week of drought, an infestation of a pest or a sudden frost, a crop can be lost or held back. With this in mind, when thinking about the cost of flowers I add in time for sourcing varieties and communicating with the growers or the wholesaler. And when I pay them for the cost price of the flowers I expect to hand over the true value of the cost to them for the time growing the seed, developing the soil, cleaning the greenhouses, paying for delivery, the packaging and their workers.
Once the flowers are in my workshop, more cost incurs. Flowers arrive to me in buckets from local growers, or in wraps of plastic or paper from the wholesalers. Each wrap needs to be taken off, the multiple rubber bands removed, the leaves stripped and the stems cut. There are other flower-specific costs such as;
factoring a reasonable number of extra stems to replace those that wilt overnight (despite all your efforts the day before 🤷♀️)
factoring in time to work out replacements for whole varieties that were available last week when you placed your order with the grower but which are now not available or simply not up to the job of looking pristine for someone’s wedding
wrapping and carefully packing flowers and designs ready for transporting safely with no damage to your venue
Set up time - the time it takes to walk from the van to the venue 25 times on the day of the wedding to place each table centre
Another reason why flowers from my workshop are good value but not cheap, is that I will not exploit my freelancers. Each freelancer hired to accompany me on a job will be paid between £125 - £170 for a days work. This isn’t an extortionate day rate by any means, and each freelancer is worth their weight in gold. But I know there are many high profile florists who perpetuate the ill-health of the arts and events industry and devaluing of others by employing (I use the term loosely) florists who will work for no pay. To surround yourself with a team of people working for “exposure” is too close to exploitation for me.
I love my job. I love the clients I work with. The costs involved in providing incredible flowers for a wedding need to make financial sense. The love of the job will get you so far, but ultimately there are bills to pay and children to feed. I am never going to be cheap, but I presume if you’re here you already know that ;)
I would love to talk with you about your wedding flowers…
Providing wedding flowers for those in love across the south east, including East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, Surrey and London.