Top 14 Questions to Ask Your Wedding Florist

Before you even consider floral arrangements, you should have your venue set and your wedding dress. Don’t order your flowers until you have your dress. Of course, you may have an idea of what types of flowers and colors you’re interested in, but it’s much easier to get those set in stone when you know where you’ll be having the shindig and how to match your bouquet to your dress.

Look around different vendors in your area and narrow down your options. Take recommendations, read reviews, and look online at arrangements they have done before. This will give you an idea of their quality of work and what you’re looking for specifically. You want to make sure you’re meeting with florists who specialize in the styles you’re aiming for.

Thinking about these things in advance will help you prepare for a meeting with your potential florist. Besides that, you’ll also want to go into your meeting with your list of questions, your budget, and what floral arrangements you’ll be needing. These can include, but are not limited to:

• Bride bouquet
• Bridesmaid bouquets
• Groom and Groomsmen boutonnieres
• Parents and Grandparents corsages and boutonnieres
• Bouquet toss bouquet
• Table centerpieces
• Pew arrangements
• Other arrangements for ceremony and reception
• Flowers for wedding cake

When you are ready to get started, here are the top 14 questions to ask your potential florist:

1. How long have you been in business? How many weddings have you done?

This helps you establish their report. If you really want to make sure they are professionals, you can ask for references.

2. Do you have our date available? Do have other weddings or events on the weekend of our wedding?

An important factor, of course. You want to make sure that (a) they will be able to do your wedding and (b) if you’ll need to schedule around any other events. You want things to go as smoothly as possible.

3. Can we see a portfolio of your work?

They may have some live examples, as well. It might be even better to see some pictures from other weddings with the flowers with the wedding party or in the venue.

4. What style and flowers do you recommend to maximize our budget?

Given your season, color scheme, and vision. You want to stick to your budget, but you also want the most bang for your buck, without sacrificing quality.

5. Will you or another designer be doing my arrangements?

And will you be there during set up? If it’s not going to be the person you meet with, ask if you can meet the designer that will be handling it.

6. How far in advance will you make the arrangements? How will you store the flowers?

This important because you want to make sure your flowers are as fresh as possible on the day of the wedding. It’s probably bad luck to have wilting flowers.

7. How will you transport the flowers?

They need to arrive at your venue on time and unharmed.

8. Are there any additional fees we should know about?

Such as delivery, setup, breakdown, or overtime charges. If they do have additional charges, that is something you’ll have to consider when building your arrangements within your budget.

9. What other decorative items can you provide?

And how much extra do you charge for their use? Many places will offer other items like votives, mirrors, arches, aisle runners, etc. If you’re interested in any other design elements, you may as well ask if your florist provides them.

10. When do you need the deposit and how much will it be?

With how many deposits you’ll be making in the next several months, it’s important to have an idea when and how much they’ll need and when.

11. Have you done arrangements for our venue before?

There’s a good chance your florist has worked with just about every venue in your area, but this is a good thing to know, as your floral arrangements need to match your venue as much as they need to match your dress.

12. Are you able to work with our cake decorator, should we decide to add flowers to our cake?

There are certain safety regulations when it comes to adding flowers to a cake. Your florist needs to be well aware of those rules, if you’re coordinating with them and your cake designer to add live flowers. You may want to ask if there is additional setup fee for this, as well.

13. Can we get an itemized list of all the elements we discussed and their cost?

This will give you a chance to go over it again later, to compare to other florists you interview or to use as a checklist during setup.

14. What is your refund policy?

Just in case, heaven forbid, you need to cancel the order.

After you leave each meeting, you’ll want to ask yourself if the florist met your needs and answered all your questions. Things can get a little crazy at a wedding, so you want to make sure they’ll be accommodating and get everything done. Plus, you’ll want to ask yourself if you can picture the elements you discussed and the arrangements they showed you at your wedding. Ultimately, you need to pick a vendor that you feel comfortable with and who will meet your needs.

Once you pick your florist, give them a picture of your dress and let them know explicitly your colors, style, and venue so they can start making preparations. After that, sit back and relax, you have another major thing ticked off your to-do list.

There are so many small details that go into creating your dream wedding, but that doesn’t mean you should have to stress. Generation Tux lets you sample your clothing before the big day, in the comfort of your living room. See what we have to offer to make your union extraordinary.