Last week I wrote the first part of this post. I explained the process of growing and how much time and effort goes into bringing a blossom to your bouquet.  When you are staring at your final flower proposal from your florist, it is important to keep all of these processes in mind. I often hear that people think wedding flowers are expensive. I guess as a mother of 7 kids, I would have to agree that the  final bottom line number seems costly. What you need to understand is that in actuality flowers are incredibly under priced.  You need to consider all of the time, labor and cost it takes to grow the flowers.  Next you will work with your florist for hours trying to get educated on what will be best for your wedding. You will need to be taught what will look the best and preform the best on your wedding day. In a way your florist will have to extract from your mind exactly what you are looking for. Most brides do not know the names of flowers or speak the language of flowers. In fact, you will often think your florist is speaking another language, and quite often we are, as botanical names are in Latin and the common names, which you may be familiar with, are different. So, first your florist will be your teacher. Then, more often than not, we will be asked to help you tie all of your themes, looks, and colors together; this is really a separate career that so many wedding florists take on without an addition in cost to you. I have helped brides countless times to pick out linens, favors or develop concepts.  Quite often I even act as a mini wedding coordinator. I offer my knowledge willingly, asking: do you have a photographer? a cake baker? do you need help with hair and make up? All of this fabulous information is often given at no charge and is given to you under the same invoice as the cost of your flowers.  

 

Once we have determined the types of flowers you will need, a proposal is written–that proposal takes hours to write. The florist needs to write recipes and verify the pricing of each design. Unlike other wedding vendors, like the photographer, cake baker, wedding co0rdinator, or even the caterer,  florist invoices are never the same. We do not have packages; each invoice must be created uniquely for each bride. There is no cut and paste option with our invoices. This means each invoice is original and requires a good bit of time and care to create.

After the proposal is accepted and approved by the bride, the floral designer spends hours verifying the recipes and calculating the stem count. The order is then sent to the wholesaler. The wholesaler is another level of work and labor that goes into your wedding flowers. The wholesaler then takes the order and literally through the internet and phone goes to flower auctions across the world in search of your flowers. Once the buyer or the florist's sales rep. buys the blossoms at auction, they are sent to the airports and brought back to the wholesaler. When the flowers arrive at the wholesale house, they are sorted, processed and then sorted into individual wedding orders. Think about how much this is costing to have all of these people growing, searching and then delivering the flowers to your floral designer.  Think actually what a miracle the whole process really is; to think that a flower can get on a plane in Holland, come to your community, get checked in at the wholesaler, be sorted and packed up again, be sent to your floral designer and then be perfect on your wedding day. Miraculous!!

 

When the flowers arrive, we have to spend hours getting all of the flowers out of the boxes and getting them in water. This is very hard work, and it takes hours to get the flowers conditioned. Conditioned is the term we use for giving the flowers a fresh cut of water and giving them a floral preservative. 

 

Next major issue is breaking down all of the boxes and getting them recycled. That alone requires hours of work.

Once all of the flowers have had a good drink or draw of water, we can start the process of designing. We begin by getting all of our containers ready, and then we sort the stems. We take each recipe and put aside the agreed upon amount of stems. This is another security measure that helps us to verify that our calculations were correct. If we are missing any blossoms, the wholesalers will bring us additions later that day or the following morning. It takes several designers working to bring a nice sized wedding to life. We normally work all day Wednesday , Thursday, and Friday designing, and we spend all day Saturday going over the designs in the morning and then delivering all day Saturday. It is common for us to get our 40 hours plus in, in just 3 or 4 days. Some days we will stand from early morning until way into the night to get the designs finished. 

When I consider this process from beginning to end, I realize that flower designs are probably one of the least expensive products around. What other good requires this amount of time and care and is sold at the price at which it is sold. Most floral designers are true artists practicing a trade that is not generally valued. This is an imported good, involving so many laborers. Suddenly the flowers at your wedding really seem like an incredible deal.

Holly

 

 

A few weeks ago, I teamed up with several incredible vendors. I have fallen in love with photo shoots. The goal was to create designs worthy of being published.  We created four different themes the day of the shoot. The first was featured on Elizabeth Anne Designs; it was a Christmas wedding inspiration. We submitted the other three looks to Style Me Pretty. I have been holding my breath hoping, and waiting, that our photo shoot would be picked up by Style Me Pretty, and yesterday was our big day. All three themes were featured throughout the day. I am so proud of this event for many reasons: first, so many wonderful vendors were willing to participate, which was a huge show of support, and I am incredibly grateful; second, this was my first chance to bring some of my visions to life. When I create for my brides, I am bringing their look to life. This was my chance to not only do the flowers, but to style an event. I loved working on this shoot, but I must tell you we worked like fiends to bring you these very incredible images.

The following links show you the posts that were presented throughout the day on Style Me Pretty:

The first wedding we called our “Cello bride,” and the link to the Style Me Pretty post is here.

The second look we called our “Woodland Wedding” look, and it is featured here.

The third look was our “Pheasant Wedding,” and it is featured here.

Here are a few other images from the cello bride, and in the next few days I will publish others from the shoot. I also now owe you the other parts of my Cost of Flowers post. I certainly seem to have a lot to share right now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Genevieve, Victoria, Hitched, Christina, Kendall, Design Cuisine, and Stone Manor. Also a huge thanks to Designer Debbie who helped me the day of the shoot. She is awesome.

Holly

Hair and Makeup by Victoria Stiles; Photography by Genevieve Leiper Photography; Flowers – Holly Heider Chapple Flowers LTD. LBB 2009; Gown- Hitched Bridal Salon;  Styling – Holly Chapple at Holly Heider Chapple Flowers ltd. ; Paper – Christina M. Barbour, Paperzest LBB 2008; Linens, China, glass –Design Cuisine ; Cake – Kendall from Kendall’s Cakes LBB 2008 Vendor; Venue- The Stone Manor Country Club

I love what I do; you could even say I am addicted to growing, designing and delivering wedding flowers. I am from a long line of farmers. The picture above is my father and my son Elijah. It seems my whole life I have been surrounded by farming and growing. My father has operated a garden and produce center since before I was born.  

When we were kids, we would grow thousands of chrysanthemums. This process began with filling pots of soil and or preparing the garden.  We were then asked to insert small plants called plugs into the soil. A plug is simply a baby plant. The base of the plant was probably the size of a quarter, and it had a few sprouts of greenery.  We would water, tend, and care, for these baby plants until they became of substantial size.  After the plug starts to get established (meaning the roots are developing and becoming a part of the soil), you start the process of promoting growth.  

This part used to drive me and my sisters crazy; we would have to go out with scissors and cut the top off of every plant. Every single branch or stem needed a nice little hair cut. This hair cut would encourage the stem to divide and grow yet another stem.  I can't even begin to tell you how monotonous and annoying this was. As far as you could see there were more plants that needed a hair cut. It only got worse after this stage. When the plant  became the size and shape of a healthy plant, you would start the process of delaying the blooms. You could no longer use scissors because the point now was to protect the stem but to encourage the blossom.  This fun little step required us to pinch each bud off of the stem, so instead of a helter skelter wack with the scissors our little fingers had to pluck each bud. If we did not do this, our chrysanthemums would have bloomed in July rather than September. 

When we talk about how much flowers cost, I can't help but to think about this very tedious process. It is a long and lengthy road that is traveled to grow just one healthy blossom. Somewhere right now, someone is putting a baby plant into the soil, just for you. The plant will have to be nurtured, loved, and cared for, until it is perfect enough to go down the aisle with you.  This is just the very beginning of why wedding flowers costwhat they cost.  More coming later…

Holly

I have absolutely fallen in love with flowers in the bride's hair.  It can be a little more complicated than it looks, so here is some advice.  It is important to choose a flower that is one sided, so that if will lay flat up against your head. A rose, for instance, is rounded at the base and will stick very far out, destroying the look. Every once in a while I have seen a big open rose used in photographs but I have to wonder how long it stayed in because the weight of a rose will also make it fall out. 

I have found orchids to be the easiest blossom to work with because they come in many different colors and sizes. The orchids also are very light weight and do not mind the heat.  I often cluster several small orchids together to make a big look, and that also works better than using a big orchid. The above picture is a cluster of white dendrobium orchid blossoms.

 

The purple blossom is the vanda orchid; here I used just one single blossom with some filler flowers.  The orange blossoms below are orange mokara orchids.  We also used a little bit of pheasant feather in this piece.

 

In the below picture I simply used peacock feathers with a little bit of greenery. Feathers are a lot of fun to use.

 

This hair piece was made with green mini cymbidium orchids and a few orange mokara orchids. The large cymbidium can be used as well, but I prefer the mini cymb.

 

One of my absolute favorites last year was the use of this mini dahlia. This small dahlia is very tight in formation and held up perfectly throughout the day.

 

How it works: I wire individual blossoms on tiny thin wires, one blossom or bud at a time. The wires are taped just like a corsage or boutonniere. Suggest to your florist that they use a thinner gauge wire, as I believe it is more comfortable to wear.  I leave the wires several inches long and then the hair dresser can decide how long they need the wires to be. Essentially the wire is woven through the bun, hair, or clip, just like a bobby pin. 

When we use the smaller orchids I usually provide 5-9 buds and let the bride and stylist decide how many they would like to use. We often suggest picking up these pieces the day before so that you can take them with you to the salon.

 If you do not want to use real blossoms, I am in love with the hair pieces at  Twigs & Honey, and they are a perfect option. 

Photo Credit:  First image Regeti's Photography. All other images were taken by Genevieve Leiper Photography.

Holly 

I thought it would be fun to share these images from one of my trips to the wholesaler. For the next few months my work will be more about paper work and computer work than actually designing. This is the hardest time of year for me; I actually go through a mini flower withdraw.  I might just have to take a peek at these pictures every once and a while to keep me going.  We do have several events this winter, and we have weekly deliveries to maintain so that I can get little fixes. I just will not be rolling in roses again until wedding season hits.

 

Each one of these packages contains 25 roses. The roses are stored out of water in the cold (in the cooler)  to stop development. When the roses are purchased they are shipped to the flower shops, or to designers like me. Each rose is freshly cut and then placed in buckets of screaming hot water. The hot water helps to open the stems and allows the rose to get a really good draw of water. We also use a flower preservative in the water to help keep the water clean and to offer nutrients.

 

This picture shows just how large the flower cooler is at the wholesaler. Better get your coat if you are going for a visit.

 

Have you ever seen this many tulips? This is a fabulous time of year to get tulips. Holland has awesome varieties ready throughout the winter.

 

These gerber daisies just make me want to smile because today these are the only flowers I will get to have. I need to start weeding though a ton of emails, voice mails and contracts. The first days back to work after the holiday break are very difficult. If I was designing today I would be running back into the shop; instead it is a total computer day. One bright spot will be uploading last years weddings on to the website. I will see lots of flowers there. And you should come see them too.

Holly

 

 I just wanted to flash my new pretty little badge today.  I am really flying high, as I move  into this New Year. I earned this badge just as 2009 ended, and I will be a "Little Black Book" vendor with Style Me Pretty. I am so excited about the many new relationships 2009 offered and nurturing them in 2010 is going to be a blast. I am so charged for this year, I can't believe I am saying this, but I am ready to reach even higher. Sometimes I even exhaust myself. I love having limitless goals. Wait until you see what we do this year!

Holly