Questions to ask a wedding florist

Ask a wedding florist about four things: whether their style matches yours, which flowers are in season on your date, exactly what the quote includes, and who sets up and clears away. Flowers are one of the easiest budget lines to overspend on, and one of the easiest to make beautiful for less, once you know the right questions.

Questions about style

• Can we see full weddings you have done, not just close-ups of bouquets?
• How would you describe your style, and what do you most enjoy making?
• Have you worked at our venue? What works well in that space?
• Can you work from our color palette and our pictures?

Bring pictures of what you love and of what you do not. "Romantic", "wild" and "elegant" mean different things to every florist; a picture of a bouquet you dislike often explains more than three you like.

Questions about flowers and price

• Which flowers are in season on our date, and which would you suggest instead of out-of-season favorites?
• Where does most of the cost go in a design like ours?
• Can we see a line-by-line quote: bouquets, buttonholes, ceremony arrangements, table centerpieces?
• Is there a minimum spend for our date?
• What happens if a flower we chose is not available on the day?

Questions about the day itself

• Are delivery, setup and teardown included, and at what times?
• Can ceremony arrangements be moved to the reception, and who moves them?
• Do you supply vases, stands and arches, and do they need returning?
• Do our venue's rules (no open flames, no petals, set-up windows) affect the design?

How to get more for less

• Choose seasonal and local flowers, and let the florist pick the exact varieties
• Spend on what people see up close (the bouquet, the head table) and less on the rest
• Use greenery generously; it fills space for less
• Reuse ceremony flowers at the reception
• Fewer, larger arrangements often look richer than many small ones

Show a florist what you dislike as well as what you love. It saves a whole meeting.