Flower Pricing: The Dirty Little Secrets

Staying within your budget is a huge concern for most brides, and can be one of the greatest stressors during the wedding planning process. However, understanding what you're paying for and how it is priced can be invaluable in terms of properly managing your budget. The expenses associated with your flowers can be particularly confusing -- especially when you see a lot of budget-priced flowers at your local grocery or warehouse store!

Much more work goes into the production of wedding flowers than simply picking some stems out at a grocery store. A good floral designer is picky about the types and quality of flowers they will use for your wedding. The selection of the right materials starts at their local wholesaler -- and usually in the middle of the night while you are safely tucked in your warm little beds... Here in the Bay Area, designers trek in from all over Northern California to converge on the San Francisco Flower Market, which opens at 2:00 am! With our bleary eyes, sleep-deprived bodies, and desperately clutching our precious gallon-sized coffees, we search the offerings of over 100 vendors for the perfect blooms, the right colors, a specific texture -- that special little treasure...

Once back in the shop or studio, hours are spent cleaning and processing our purchases in meticulously cleaned buckets and vases. Proper processing is a time-consuming but necessary element to ensure that your flowers look beautiful and fresh on wedding day. Factor in the countless hours already spent doing consultations, phone meetings, scads of emails, searching for that perfect ribbon, wiring crystals, and so on during the planning process, and you can see how much time is invested by your designer -- all this before a single arrangement is even made!

And remember that someone actually grew your flowers -- they don't magically appear on their own. Growers work year-round planting, fertilizing, watering, weeding, harvesting, packing, and transporting their flowers to the wholesaler -- all of which costs money -- lots and lots of money...

During my consultations with prospective brides, I usually share with them how we go about pricing the various floral items. This gives my brides a better understanding of where their money is going, which helps them to make informed decisions and comprehend the associated costs. Most designers follow some version of the formula I've outlined below.

First, flowers are marked up from the wholesale price to achieve a retail price per stem -- this is done by multiplying the wholesale stem cost by a pre-set amount. The multiplier rate is determined by the individual designer, and generally can range from 2x to 5x the wholesale cost. (Keep in mind that fresh product is perishable, which means that your designer will usually buy more than they anticipate needing, to allow for the failure of some flowers. Depending on the type of flower, the perish rate can often be as high as 30%! Further, not every stem in a grower's bunch is "wedding worthy" due to damage, bruising or defects on the face and petals of the bloom, so this factors in to the perish rate as well. Surprisingly, there's not much demand for bruised or moldy flowers in bridal bouquets...)

Next, the cost of hard goods used is marked up from wholesale to retail, and is then added to the retail value of the flowers. Hard goods are non-perishable items, such as ribbons, crystals, floral foam, and containers, and in general, the retail markup is 2x the wholesale cost.

Lastly, a labor charge is added to the total combined retail value of the flowers and hard goods. The labor charge is usually a percentage of the total combined retail value, and depending on the level of difficulty and work involved, this percentage ranges from 25% to 45%. This is an important number to keep in mind: The less labor involved in creating a particular piece, the lower the labor charge. Where a simple bouquet may have a labor charge of 25%, a lush and flower-laden arch treatment can definitely push up into the 35%-45% range.

The generic formula looks like this:

$____ (wholesale cost/flowers) x _____ (markup multiplier) = $________
plus
$____ (wholesale cost/hard goods) x 2 (markup multiplier) = $_______
equals
$______ (total retail value)
multiplied by
____% (labor charge percentage)
equals
$________ (labor charge)
plus
$________ (total retail value)
equals
$__________ (total price of bouquet)

For example, based on a hand-tied bouquet, and using a wholesale to retail markup of 2.5x for the flowers, 2x markup for hard goods, and 25% labor charge:

$40.00 (wholesale flowers) x 2.5 = $100.00
plus
$10.00 (wholesale hard goods) x 2 = $20.00
equals
$120.00 (total retail value of materials ($100.00 + $20.00))
multiplied by
.25 (25% labor charge)
equals
$30.00 (labor charge)
plus
$120.00 (total retail value of materials)
equals
$150.00 (total price of bouquet)

(Although this is the type of formula used by most designers, some omit the labor charge and simply use a higher multiplier rate from wholesale to retail instead.) Now that you know the deep, dark secrets of flower pricing, here are some other suggestions to help keep your floral costs in check:

• Select floral items that are less labor-intensive.
• Carry exactly what you want in your bridal bouquet, and ask your designer to help you identify other pieces that can be reduced to compensate (i.e., the bridesmaid bouquets).
• Choose flowers that are in season -- avoid expensive, out-of-season flowers, which are often imported.
• Use locally-grown flowers whenever possible to help reduce transport costs and guarantee fresher blooms.
• A single type of an inexpensive flower used en masse can be lush and gorgeous on its own. Likewise, a single stem of a dramatic flower can be stunning as well -- for instance, lining the center of a long table with a row of single flowers in pretty vases lets each flower speak for itself!
• Remember that size matters when considering what flowers to use -- for instance, although a stem of Oriental Lilies may cost two or three times as much as a single Rose, each Lily stem offers multiple blooms. In addition, each open Lily bloom can cover the same space as three or four Roses in an arrangement, which can help with cost management as well. Sometimes the more expensive flower is actually the most cost-effective choice.
• Ask your designer to use rental containers instead of paying for purchased items. If you want your guests to take the flowers home at the end of the reception, ask your designer to to provide some pretty tissue or ribbons for packaging the loose flowers. If I'm returning at the end of an event to pick up rental items, I will usually time it so I can be there to pull the flowers and wrap them into little bouquets for the guests.
• Some designers will give you better pricing when you authorize a "market buy" instead of specifying every flower to be used. A market buy allows the designer to buy the best of the best flowers at market the week of your wedding within your budget and within your color palette. And market buys often result in the most creative floral designs, as your designer is permitted to be truly inspired and unrestricted!