Hello Millie, so lovely to have you here! Please introduce yourself to those who may not know you.

Hello! So lovely to be here, thank you so much for having me, I’m Camilla, or Millie! I’m a Weddings & Events florist in Hampshire – working across the south coast & Surrey mainly but work across the UK.

Perfect! Let’s get stuck in. Talk me through your process. I’m a couple planning our wedding, what does your process like?

Sure! So I have no generic price list, as each quote is completely tailored to the couple. Since everything is completely unique I do have a process for getting in touch with me. Theres an online questionnaire for couples to fill in when they enquire, this gives me as much info about you as possible. We then will book a 30 min consultation to run through everything, bounce ideas around, answer any queries the couple may have. Following this the couple will receive an Initial Design Proposal – some visuals and descriptions – and an initial quote. If they are happy with everything they can then book me for their day.

How far in advance do people need to book a Wedding Florist?

Within 18 months ideally. I don’t like booking too far ahead, so within 18 months is the perfect amount of time. I do still get last minute bookings which I can still help with, so long as its not less than 4 months before the big day.

How many weddings do you take on per year?

Depends on the size/scale but between 10 – 20. This means I can really give each wedding the right amount of time and energy.

Great! So now we understand a little bit more about the booking process, I would love to find out if you offer your couples help with the styling and colour schemes?

Yes! I love this part and I try to encourage different colour palettes for a better variety of flowers from my experience, and I often discuss candle colours, linen, stationary and bridesmaid dress colours with my couples so that the colour scheme is blended perfectly throughout their wedding.

If your couples come to a Wedding Florist with a Pinterest board of flowers that won’t actually be in season for their wedding, how do you go about this?

Just advise them – these images don’t come with a timeframe so it would always be hard for couples to know! I’d look at the palette and vibe that they’re after and offer my suggestions from there. It’s so important to note that photos online are often edited with a filter, and so it may not reflect the true colour of the flower. I will always do my best to offer an alternative when this happens.

Let’s discuss sourcing. Where do you source your flowers from? And what’s the timescale around ordering in for the big day?

I would say that if you’re celebrating your wedding or event between the months of November-March then your flowers are likely to come from either Holland or Equador/Kenya.

These are either delivered by courier straight to my door or I will collect them from London. The market in London opens for trade at 4am so I will usually leave my house at 2am to pick up the flowers.

The rest of the year flowers can be sourced from the UK. We’re very lucky in Hampshire as we have lots of amazing local farms, we do try to grow our own here too!

Okay, let’s talk money… I feel like the UK especially don’t often talk about money, but I think its time we opened up a bit more so that our couples know what to expect.

What’s something you’d like your potential customers to know about pricing for a Wedding Florist?

There are so many things in the background that happens to prepare flowers for a wedding/event. It’s a pretty big operation, from the labour, to hiring freelancers depending on how big the wedding/event is. Lots of travel, plus the hiring of extra vans for the flowers as we can only use the floor of the vans, we cannot stack!

Weddings are a very high stress, high pressure environment so this is all reflected into my pricing.

Do you have a minimum spend?

Yes, my minimum spend is £3,000. It is this price point that most of my enquiries received over the last year would need to have had for their budget for the elements they wanted for their day

On average, what are your customers spending?

Around £3k - £8k but it really varies – lots of elements around those costs, i.e. how abundant some couples would like their arrangements, lots of flowers etc – their location, additional travel time, sometimes accommodation.

Lastly, Just for fun, if you had to swap careers with someone else in the wedding industry what would it be?

I would choose to be a wedding planner! I used to be an event planner myself. I think it would be really interesting to see what they do behind the scenes, and it must be so much fun at the wedding! I always leave before it starts.

Millie, this has been really eye opening for me, I really hope this helps our couples and thank you for sharing these details with us!

I hope you found this useful. If you're interested in discussing your wedding with me, please get in touch!