Large wedding arrangements and pricing

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lilydesign

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Oct 8, 2006
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Would you all be willing to help me out with this? I'm fairly new to the industry (3 yrs) and operate a freelance design business out of my home. I know that it is so subjective, but I've been having trouble lately with quoting very large altar arrangements for weddings. They take up so many flowers as most of you know, and a lot of times the bride doesn't realize just how large the arrangement needs to be in order to be proportionate to the church.
For a wedding this weekend, I've quoted two $300 altar arrangements, which for me is huge. Would you mind sharing pictures of your large arrangements and how much you charged for them?
 
these were $400 each with over 4 dozen roses in each plus hydrangas and hypericum, ruscis, etc...however our average wedding altar pieces are more like $100-150 each

Why is it no matter how big and nice a flower arrangment looks in my store, once you bring to a huge church or centerpiece to big ballroom it always ends up looking like nothing??!!:hammer:
 

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pedastal centerpiece too

Here is a wedding cp, we try to get anywhere from $150 and up for these kind of jobs that involve renting glass pedastal set ups, etc....I do not get a lot of these kind of jobs, would like to but its hard to compete with wedding decorators when you are a small mom & pop shop :(
 

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master J said:
these were $400 each with over 4 dozen roses in each plus hydrangas and hypericum, ruscis, etc...however our average wedding altar pieces are more like $100-150 each

Why is it no matter how big and nice a flower arrangment looks in my store, once you bring to a huge church or centerpiece to big ballroom it always ends up looking like nothing??!!:hammer:
Click to expand...

Nice work! Now did your price include them keeping the urn? And what kind of urn is that..painted? Natural brass or what? I agree that things seem to look smaller in ballrooms, but it took me a long time to think "bigger" when it came to designs or what I was selling....also to not place what I was willing to pay into my clients head...so now we use the term "think big". Most of our weddings this year, we have concentrated on selling what we do not have to come back for...I am too lazy or maybe to old to go out at 2am and pick up 60-150 glass stands...or candelabra's. It no longer attracts me...of course I now have two warehouse full of inventory that is not earning it's keep....
Sher
 
I too am having some difficulty pricing out my jobs. Is eveery frlower marked up differently or is there an easier formula to this. I have this bride who wants 24" high glass trumphet vases with an arrangement sitting on top with hydrangeas, roses, amaranthus, dendrobium orchids, snaps or delphinium, hypericum with a mix of foliages.

I REALLY NEED SOMEONES HELP WITH THIS. Oh not to mention the bride wants these for $75.00. I think she is out of her mind. I was thinking more along the lines of $125.00 atleast. what do you guys think?

I am going to propose something that is within her budget and then quote her with what she wants. Does that sound fair? Any help is ALWAYS appreciated.

Thanks again! Is there a book on this or a class or something to help me?

Kristin
 
I don't think $75-80 is enough , if you have to come back and pick up pedastals...JMO, you have to figure your time for coming back to get them, I agree with Sher too, I love my weekends and don't want to have to pick up at 2am sat night or even sun am, I work too hard mon-sat to start putting in sat night and sunday hours....I wouldn't mind doing a few of these jobs here and there but not every weekend, unless you get the price$$$
 
KTudor625 said:
Is there a book on this or a class or something to help me?

Kristin
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Most of the John Henry books discuss pricing and markup. Generally the more labor intensive work gets a higher labor % (most 35% or more)

We mark our product same as normal markup for design work anywhere from 2.5 to 4.X then add labor. (hard goods and perishable)

Our State Florist association has ongoing education classes, does your state have an association? If not perhaps a neighboring state has one and you could check out if they offer classes.
 
as far as mark ups....what if you get an unbelievable deal on roses on flowerbuyer, do you pass on the discount to customer or do you figure the roses at regular price and mark up?
sometimes we are able to get roses for 30 cents instead of 80 cents each and can sometimes have mark ups as high as 6x or more :)

other weeks we will pass the discount onto customers to move the roses out faster.....but on average we are usually about 3.5 x mark up.
 
What's she SMOK'IN?

KTudor625 said:
I too am having some difficulty pricing out my jobs. Is eveery flower marked up differently or is there an easier formula to this. I have this bride who wants 24" high glass trumphet vases with an arrangement sitting on top with hydrangeas, roses, amaranthus, dendrobium orchids, snaps or delphinium, hypericum with a mix of foliages.

I REALLY NEED SOMEONES HELP WITH THIS. Oh not to mention the bride wants these for $75.00. I think she is out of her mind. I was thinking more along the lines of $125.00 at least. what do you guys think?

I am going to propose something that is within her budget and then quote her with what she wants. Does that sound fair? Any help is ALWAYS appreciated.

Thanks again! Is there a book on this or a class or something to help me?

Kristin
Click to expand...

Hey Kristin? Whatever this future Bride is SMOK'IN must be some really great stuff!

I'd like to pick up a new Mercedes for under $20K, but that's not going to happen either.

Try $300 to $350 per pop for her wish list.

Looks to me as if you have $75 just in COGS (cost of goods)

Who's supplying the 24" high trumpet vase? If it's you, is it a rental or part of the sale?

A very dear old real florist friend passed this pricing formula on to me over 20 years ago.

50% of your price is devoted to the flowers (at retail) which are going to be used in the design. 25% of your price is devoted to labor. 25% of your price is devoted to the set up to include the container, greens, oasis, and accessories. One exception is when the container is PRICEY which requires you to add the difference to that final 25%.
 
master J said:
Here is a wedding cp, we try to get anywhere from $150 and up for these kind of jobs that involve renting glass pedastal set ups, etc....I do not get a lot of these kind of jobs, would like to but its hard to compete with wedding decorators when you are a small mom & pop shop :(
Click to expand...

and this was in answer to lilydesign who says she "operate a freelance design business out of my home."

I know it sounds mean but hey..how can you complain about competing with wedding decorators and then give them all your knowledge for $0.00??
what is it they say about us real florists?? we are our own worst enemy!
 
carol said:
and this was in answer to lilydesign who says she "operate a freelance design business out of my home."

I know it sounds mean but hey..how can you complain about competing with wedding decorators and then give them all your knowledge for $0.00??
what is it they say about us real florists?? we are our own worst enemy!
Click to expand...
Hi Carol, I am not complaining, just stating the facts, not a complaint at all :)
I don't understand your post about knowledge for $0, what do you mean? sorry:hammer:
 
Oops! Mee Bad Too!

carol said:
and this was in answer to lilydesign who says she "operate a freelance design business out of my home."

I know it sounds mean but hey..how can you complain about competing with wedding decorators and then give them all your knowledge for $0.00??
what is it they say about us real florists?? we are our own worst enemy!
Click to expand...

Didn't see the part about BASEMENT BETTY! No wonder wee have problems trying to get the right price for WHAT WEE DOO because folks like this DOO NOT HAVE A CLUE!
 
lilydesign said:
Would you all be willing to help me out with this? I'm fairly new to the industry (3 yrs) and operate a freelance design business out of my home. I know that it is so subjective, but I've been having trouble lately with quoting very large altar arrangements for weddings. They take up so many flowers as most of you know, and a lot of times the bride doesn't realize just how large the arrangement needs to be in order to be proportionate to the church.
For a wedding this weekend, I've quoted two $300 altar arrangements, which for me is huge. Would you mind sharing pictures of your large arrangements and how much you charged for them?
Click to expand...

Imagine if you had to pay for rent, electric, gas and all that goes along with owning a business that is apart from your store. Your arrangements are probably going to be able to be made much less than any of ours. If we give you picture and prices, it just makes it easier for you to undercut a brick and morter florists work. You are in a different line of work with your only overhead being supplies and flowers and vehicle charges.
 
My first thought when reading this thread...

first thing this morning just after it was posted and there were no replys yet my first thought was to slam it regarding the free lance worker.....BUT having second thoughts I just didn't reply at all.
Now that it's been answered to (and differing opinions will now show up due to the free lance words) I'll answer thus:

Consider becoming a member of the Texas Florist Association, network, attend seminars and design shows. Even take certification courses. Take business workshops to figure out your overhead and pricing techniques.
What one place in this country figures for costs, markups, and overhead may vary from yours. You should know what your flowers cost, containers, labor rates. Your pricing should follow suit.

Nuff said.
 
I didn't realize that freelancers were not a welcome part of this community, but can understand the sentiment if people like us are a harm to your businesses in some way.
 
In my floral design course they reccommend pricing 3.5 x the amount for the cut flowers and hardgoods 2x add labor of 20%-30 % .I find it difficult to get the 3.5 in our area so I use 2.5 on fresh flowers design work 30% of the total .
 
It is not that you are not welcome, it is that the way you need to price things and the way we need to price things is totally different. You do not have nearly the same overhead as a retail florist. Same as most studios do not have the same overhead. You can much easily undercut our prices, I used to do weddings on the side of my job and I could offer great prices to brides because I did not pay extra rent, business insurance, stock for the store, just the flowers and supplies I needed and marked up on those items. I would usually figure out what I needed overall price that out at cost and then mark all that up and split it up between all the items to somewhere close to the overall marked up price. Pricing that type of job is much different when you have a shop and all the expenses that go along with it.
 
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