“Because planning the biggest day of a client’s life is only the beginning of your adventure.”

Let’s face it: For many florists, weddings are your bread and butter. Without them, you might wither and dry up like a peony out of water. However, for some, wedding business is getting tougher to come by and make profitable, and brides are getting more demanding of your time. Not only do you have to fight the competition to land a wedding, you have to plan them, make them beautiful and stick to your clients’ budgets despite your own urge to make them better. We love our craft, after all! That’s why our editorial team set out to ask a variety of successful wedding florists about their tips and tricks for booking weddings and making them profitable.

• How do you market to brides these days?
  Bridal fairs? Instagram?
• When consulting with a bride, should you charge for your ideas?
  Should you create samples?
• And once you have them signed on, how do you keep every
  wedding profitable and every bride happy?
• Where do you stand on locally sourced and in-season flowers?
  Is it really worth finding a peony in February?
  How do you educate your brides?

There are just so many questions, and there really are no industry standards to go by that are applicable to all. In fact, a New York City florist may approach his or her brides in a very different way than a florist in the Midwest. Despite the best advice in the industry, many florists have created their own models for success.

That’s why in this issue, Alicia Schwede asked seven florists from various parts of the country about their policies and procedures that make them successful (starting on Page 41) while Debra Prinzing shares how to create “real wedding classrooms” and “Slow Flower” weddings. (Pages 50-59).

There’s lots more to explore in this wedding issue, from our “Question of the Month” (Page 12) and Alex Frost’s column on Page 14 to design ideas with how-tos on Pages 28-40. So enjoy this issue, and I hope the design and business ideas contained within will help you to grow your wedding business and make it more profitable.

Travis Rigby, publisher
travis@floristsreview.com

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