Weddingbee PRO

Last week, Danny Lai shared Part 1 of “What to Ask the Florist?”.  Today, Danny expands on not just what to ask but also what to look for. Hope you enjoy!

Inspiration

When interviewing your floral designer, you should provide keywords describing your floral vision, and leave it up to the floral designer to show you ways to represent it visually. For instance, we used words such as “minimalist, slightly Asian, and not pink” to describe our wedding, and left it up to Nancy, to show us how she would design the layout and arrangements.

Usually, a florist will show photographs of past work, or perhaps simple sketches or drawings. This consultation is sometimes complimentary, and if the floral designer is good, you will discover new and interesting ideas to incorporate into your vision. Remember to try and take notes and make suggestions to these proposals and sketches your floral designer comes up with.

Collaboration

Your wedding is a symphony of artists –photographers, videographers, floral designers, etc. As such, each artist has worked with many other artists.

Find out which wedding planners and photographers the floral designer has enjoyed working with in the past, and see if the names match those of the vendors you have chosen. There’s something to be said for the peace of mind in knowing that your floral designer has enjoyed working with your other vendors.

When all of your vendors get along and play off of each other’s vision and ideas, each vendor (including the floral designer) is much more willing to go the extra bit for your wedding.

Schedule

Has your floral designer been responsive by phone or email? Do they plan to be on vacation the week or two leading up to your wedding? Do they have another wedding scheduled for the weekend of your wedding?

Make sure that your floral designer understands and budgets the leading days necessary to properly support your wedding.

Personality

Finally, make sure that you enjoy talking to your floral designer, you find his/her ideas fresh and similar to yours, and that you trust his/her ability to design and execute.

All the logistics questions aside, what makes the working relationship work throughout the planning process is the fact that you enjoy each other’s company and you value each other’s input.

Good luck!