Wedding Floral Expense Calculator

Expect $50.00 for a one hour wedding consultation; professional fee. This is why we offer free email quotes, to quickly give you a thumbnail price for your whole event, as far as the flowers, so you can plan your budget appropriately. Then when you are ready to purchase your wedding flowers, we will have a sit down meeting with you at no cost.

First is your bridal bouquet. It often determines the color theme for your wedding. This and your boutonnières and corsages is called your "wear and carry flowers", including the bridal bouquet itself. Don't forget to consider hairstyles including flowers, and discuss this with your professional hair stylist.

Consider what flowers will be required for the altar area. This includes any work on aisles and seating, runners, rose petals, unity candle or central arrangement, candelabra, decorative greens, arrangements for entrance to the church or ceremony area, et al. Discuss this with your Church.

Consider what flowers you will require at the reception. This includes cake decorations, table centerpieces, banquet table, buffet tables, et al. Thinking about candles or not, and balloons or not; these are issues to take up with the event coordinator at the reception hall.

Your total cost of flowers and supplies will vary widely on the different types of flowers chosen, the number of arrangements made, and the time of year you are having your wedding (around Christmas, Mother's Day, and Valentine's, flowers will cost up to 3 times more, for example). Typically, flowers are marked up 25-40% for weddings. A typical cost of goods for a wedding including all the above mentioned in the paragraphs above would be $1400 and marked up to $2000. This amount includes some durable goods typically used. If your wedding uses orchids or callas or hydrangeas or tropical and exotic flowers or other expensive flowers, increase this amount by 20% (we now total $2400 on flowers). Add 15% more for a shipping charge to get your flowers in fresh right before your wedding. This amount is from shipping companies such as Fedex and not unusual.

Your labor charges should be around $50 an hour for designers and $20 and hour for apprentices. The typical wedding we described above takes 4 hours senior design and 6 hours design assist. Here is $370 labor charge.  Strangely, your labor charges are usually 15-20% of the flower charges, even though computed differently. Many florists, when giving a quotation, often just use 20% of flowers rather than compute how many hours they think it will take. Award winning designers will only consider working for 40% of materials. If you think an advanced designer is worth the money, go for it. Ask them for their credentials and check them out with Society of American Florists (www.saf.org). We will stick with $370 for our wedding calculator purposes.

The final section is adding all the miscellaneous charges. $40 delivery charge is not unreasonable for a van to deliver all your flowers, double if your reception and ceremony are at different locations. $300 is a typical freight charge, usually Federal Express, to get your flowers fresh days before your wedding. Don't kid yourself. No florist has your flowers in stock already when your wedding day approaches. Tax on your flowers will run $168 in Ohio. Set up charges for personnel to install your flowers at the Church and reception hall will be $40 for each location. Total charges: $548

Expect to pay the full amount of your wedding upfront when booking your date with your florist. Very few florists can survive now with policies such as deposits or half down. And most florists will only book one client on any given day; so search for your florist 6-12 months, or as soon as you can afford to; especially if you are getting married from May to July. Florists typically book all Saturdays and Sundays in these three months a year ahead. Our typical wedding example, which included wear and carry flowers for two whole families and friends in the bridal party, ceremony floral arrangements, and reception floral arrangements; totals a reasonable $3368. The florist is making $1120 on the project. If you want less wedding flower expense, consider one of our pre-book packages. After pre-booking a package; be reasonable about what your floral wishes are, and add one item at a time as you approach your budget line.

Don't be offended if a florist cannot do your wedding. There are many reasons why a shop would turn down your event. But be wary of a florist competing on price. We all pay the same amount for the same flowers. Designs by Doe has budget wedding packages starting at $300 to $550. These typically are packages with no complex designs, wear and carry only, no orchids or callas, etc., mostly roses, and are picked up at the florist shop. Likewise, we are prepared to give you a good deal on larger projects.