HOW TO START A WEDDING FLORIST BUSINESS-ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!

Specializing in a career as a wedding florist has never been as enticing and as sexy as today. With the explosion of social media posts with fantastical, ultra-creative wedding floral designs, there is a real attractiveness to starting a wedding florist business. Even some seasoned full-service florists are turning in a new direction and now only specializing in wedding & events floral services.

The underlying issue of starting a wedding & event floral company is many enthusiasts simply do not know where to start. Lacking experience is also a major factor why some wedding florist businesses are unsuccessful. If you are reading this write up then we already know you have a love for floral design and are serious about embarking on a career as a wedding & event florist. Let’s go over all you need to know to make your wedding floral business flourish with profits and success.

If there are more things on your list and you would like to have a chat please feel free to contact flower delivery richmond bc

Let’s get the first tip out of the way, if you are thinking of starting a wedding florist business then you should know how to design flowers. Wedding floral design encompasses many flower design elements and principles. If you design flowers as a hobby I recommend you invest in flower design classes, specialty workshops or mentor for a full service or wedding florist before taking the leap.

You will also need to have a creative niche in flower design a signature style sort of say. Wedding floral design is a combination color, texture, line and mass compositions that need to be enticing to the eye. Practice your craft even award-winning celebrity floral designers are constantly evolving their floral design skills.

Contrary to popular belief you can not start a wedding florist business with no money. You do need to have some capital to start a wedding florist business. Consider if you will have a studio space or create a studio space from home.

Committing to a floral studio when you are just starting out can be scary, as this can be costly. Having a designated floral studio, however, does benefit you in the long run. Floral designing can be messy, flowers take up lots of space, need lots of prep/processing and you will need a space to meet with clients.

If the budget is tight or you simply do not want the responsibility of floral space rental or purchase then you can designate an area in your home for your wedding floral business.

Take into consideration consultations, the goal here is to be successful and you will need to invest in beautifying a space where you can meet with clients. Please don’t bring them into your kitchen or living room this is not professional and will limit you on the wedding floral work you will receive.

Once the fundamentals of your wedding floral business are set you will start to market your wedding business and need a great business name and invest a bit in a logo as well. As your logo will go on all your marketing material and social media sites which creates brand recognition. Logos are very important.

A website is THE MOST important aspect of your floral wedding business. Do not try to create your own website on those free providers unless you are experienced at designing websites and know the basics of SEO.

Invest in flower website provider that understands the industry to maximize your SEO (search engine optimization), and be sure to have enough content and images to raise your brand SEO on search engines.

Lastly, you should have a designated page on your website with a wedding consultation form where potential customers can submit their information for their upcoming wedding or event.

Invest in a wedding software provider. Wedding software will help you organize all your clients, keep tidy records, allow for sending payment links to clients and list your contract terms and conditions.

You will need paper marketing material to hand out to prospects such as wedding venues, hair stylists, DJ services, and so on. This is actually a really fun part of creating your wedding florist business, seeing your brand come to life in business cards, and pamphlets are a truly rewarding experience.

Think about what kind of wedding floral service you will offer customers, do you want to do smaller weddings only? What wedding floral services won’t you do? How far will you travel?

Will you offer arches, flower walls, hanging flower chandeliers, rentals, all these things matter especially if you are a one man or woman show. Doing large weddings requires delivery vehicles, extra help, and if doing rentals you will need to go back to retrieve or breakdown the wedding.

Even a small wedding will need an extra set of hands- take into consideration the help you will need to meet all the demands of the wedding booked.

Insecurities when starting a wedding business can sometimes take the best of us and lead us to undersell our work. It is very important to charge the going rate when starting your wedding floral business. Forget your insecurities and confidence this is all a normal feeling for anyone starting a business know your worth and charge accordingly to the industry standards.

Starting at a low price point is actually harder in the long run for your business. You want to attract wedding clients that understand the value and hard work behind what you do.

Standard florist pricing module –

• Flowers 300% markup on each stem used.
• Supply 200% market up.
• Labor 20-25% added to the overall total.
• Do charge a delivery charge.
• Charge for takedown services.
• Charge for setup services if required.

The guide above is standard however feel free to raise percentages where needed and of course, offering discounts here and there can also be a good thing. The objective is to run a wedding florist business like any other business -do what you love and make a profit.