The Cost of Flowers

Today, I'm going to talk about the cost of flowers. I feel like this is a great conversation, especially for people out of the floral industry. If you are an engaged couple, if you are needing to send flowers to somebody that you love, if you're needing to purchase flowers for an event that you're in charge of, There's just so many different factors that go into pricing flowers that it could almost feel overwhelming or frustrating if you are comparing quotes from florist to florist. I am not saying that that's a bad thing. I think that's a total normal thing to do. If you're like getting quotes for, I don't know, let's say you want to redo your kitchen, you're going to update it all. You could get multiple quotes from different people with that. Let's say you're going to invest in a new appliance for that kitchen. You might look at different resources for that appliance, like, oh, we could get this, and it comes with X, Y, and Z, and it's X amount of dollars, or we can get this, and it's a step-up model, and it has X, Y, and Z, but also A, B, C, and it's this price. You know, there's a lot of comparison, especially in today's world where like everything is so accessible to do research on. I just feel like it's easy to find out answers and find out things. Maybe not for this topic. That's why I wanted to do an article on it because It just kind of gets complicated and tricky and layered.

So first off, every florist is going to charge differently. I know. There's a lot of factors there that come into play. The years of experience, the flowers they design with, so the different flower varieties that florist likes to design with. It could be like their overhead as well. That could be factored in if they have a lot of employees, if they have a beautiful design space, if they have a lot of overhead. They've got to keep their business alive. We're all just trying to keep our businesses alive and make some money, right? So those are all factored in as well. You just really can't compare florist to florist because they each have different requirements, right? Like each florist has a different standard of where their arrangements start at because of their experience and what they like to design with and you know those overhead costs and xyz. Each florist is also going to have a different design style and work with different flower varieties and you just can't compare because you're getting different things It's like comparing the different appliances, right? You can get the one with XYZ for this price or this with XYZ plus ABC for this price. Like, yeah, they're both fridges, but like, do they really compare? like one has more things one has like it's a higher quality thing or it has more bells and whistles like the first one is just simpler like you just can't really compare and my biggest advice is to just like find a florist that you love you love their work you love them you love their like booking process. You love the ease of working with them. You got to just find a good fit, right?

Same with a contractor to come in and remodel that kitchen I was talking about. You should jive with them. You should like the kind of styles they're doing. Let's say you love an ultra modern style. Well, you don't want a contractor that has experience with farmhouses. You've got to find the right fit for what you're looking for. And if that means you need to invest more, that's the experience you're looking for, honestly. It shouldn't be a bad thing. So let's back up a little bit of just, you know, the costs associated with the flowers themselves. So your florist is probably not growing their own flowers. If they are, I applaud you. There are some flower designing people who also grow their flowers, but I'm not that person. And I think a lot of people aren't just because of the time that it takes. Guys, it takes So much time and so many resources and so much love to grow flowers. Just think about it. These flowers aren't created in some like warehouse or made for 10 cents in China like they are something that is nourished from a seed and grows and people have to keep pests away and diseases and bugs and the right water temperature and like the right soil the right sunlight the right everything to like nurture this thing until it grows into a flower There are also like some copyrights on some flowers as well. So there's a whole like industry of flower breeding coming up with new varieties and what's trending and this has a really strong stem and this will last five days longer in a vase of water and this is the new color and this is like a new variety that we created in the lab and you know like there's money in that. Money has to go towards them too. Money also has to go towards like the sourcing of the flowers. So if your florist is getting flowers from a wholesaler or directly from a flower farm or from a broker or, you know, there's like a ton of different ways to source the flowers themselves.

Florists are not the first one to get your flowers. The breeders, then the growers, then the brokers and the warehouse, wholesalers, and then us. Like we are not, we are way down the line to be honest. And so every time that flower is passed on to each group of group of people, the cost increases, right? Cause everyone wants to make profit on that product. So that in itself is an expense, right? And then, uh, we all have to account for loss. So that farm has to account for like mice coming in and eating some of the seeds. They have to account for some grasshoppers to get some of the flower heads and eating them. They have to account for a flood. They have to account for wind. They have to account for like so many things that could happen that destroys some of their crop and eats into their profits. So they have to account for that stuff. There are people working on that farm. They have bills to pay. They have mouths to feed. They have overhead. And then same with if you're sourcing through a wholesaler. What if three or four boxes comes in moldy because there was too much moisture when it was packed and they got to take the hit? What if, like, on the flight over, they're sourcing from overseas, flowers get smashed and bruised and then, like, I can't use them? That's garbage product. Like, they've got to figure it out. They've got to source flowers for me because I need flowers for a wedding this weekend. They've got to source an overnight for me from another farm. You know, what if I get product that, like, looks healthy and then two days later it dies because there was, like, something wrong with the flower itself? So I have to outsource that flower again to replace it. You know, there's just like freak accidents that happen. This is a live product. This is something that is super fragile and everyone is just trying to keep it alive.

Everyone is just trying to make this thing so beautiful and to end up at your wedding or your mother's funeral or your prom corsage. We're all just doing our best here. So that is definitely something that we all have to account for as well. It's just part of it. Then the travel, the travel and the resources to get the flowers where they need to go. Even for me, for events or delivering a flower arrangement because it's someone's birthday. That's an expense and a time. I have to pay someone to go deliver that. I have to have two vans full of flowers and candles and all the things to go to a wedding that's 45 minutes away from the studio. I have to have a separate team at the end of the night go clean up all the flowers and blow out all the candles and pack them all up and take them back to the studio. I have to wash all the buckets that your flowers were sitting in before we designed them in those vases. Then I have to clean all those vases. And I have to clean all your candle rentals. You know, it just kind of like takes a village, honestly, especially for event flowers. And there's just a lot of factors, right? And overhead and freelancers and cleaning and travel. And let's talk about design time. I mean, we're getting your flowers and we're trying to keep them as healthy as possible. We're taking care of them as best we can with different solutions and wiring techniques and gluing and taping. And, you know, we're taking care of these precious little flower babies and then we're taking time to design them. So there's also time spent there. There's a lot of time spent there. There's also a resource of like keeping your flowers in a cooler. you know, we're dealing with a perishable product and we have to just time things perfectly and we have to hold those flowers in a cooler. between when we get the flowers and when your wedding is. So there's that expense as well.

And then there's the whole variance of the different flower varieties. Different flowers are gonna require different things to grow. Some flowers are gonna be really easy to grow and really easy to breed and really easy to nurture and grow quickly and be really hardy to ship. And so those things are gonna be cheaper. I mean, think of carnations, think of mums, think of daisy palms. There's a reason you find these flower varieties at the grocery store. Because they last forever, and they ship well, and they don't cost much to make. Because it just is. I mean, think of like, I don't know, let's use groceries for an example. your lower quality off-brand something is gonna be way cheaper and way more affordable than like that Kobe beef or something. You know, something that's really expensive, that's luxurious, that those cows had to be massaged and fed beer and come from Japan and you know what I mean? Like versus your run-of-the-mill just like regular ground beef. So same with flowers that happens in flowers too. Um, so like sweet pea comes to mind. Sweet pea is gorgeous. It's so beautiful. It is so freaking fragile. Sweet peas are so fragile and they don't have that long of a base life compared to other varieties. And they're really expensive. They're super expensive because there's not a lot of people growing them. and they're probably going to die on their way over to someplace. Not every single bloom, but there's going to be a lot of loss along the way. They're probably kind of finicky to grow, but they're such a beautiful flower, you know? It's like that's where those treasures come from. That's where those treasures come from. As a designer and what I try to give my clients, these rare kind of flowers that you get to have and enjoy and hold and smell and just, I don't know, be around. It's such a treat. I mean, we're flower lovers, right? We love the unique stuff. We don't want the grocery store run-of-the-mill stuff. We've seen it a thousand times. So to me, it's totally worth sourcing these delicate items, these expensive items for my clients. And I super appreciate when clients understand that and that they want to invest in these varieties because they're just honestly magical.

So yeah, just some things to think about, just kind of like a list to go through. When you think of flowers and the cost associated with them, there's just a lot of factors going on. I probably didn't even cover all of them. If I missed something, please DM me on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. My handle is lily.and.iris. There's, yeah, just a lot of factors, like I said, lots to think about. So next time you're shopping for flowers, just go for the florist that you love. They're perfectly priced. For what you get and the value and the benefits, like I promise you, can't just go florist to florist and compare, because each florist is going to give you a different value in return. Each florist is going to have different skill set. and a different design and a different like flower variety that they like designing with and etc. etc. So yeah, just book who you love and they will love you. It'll be a beautiful relationship, I promise. If you have any questions about this topic or want to talk about it more, please reach out. Shoot me a DM on Instagram or shoot me an email. I love hearing from you guys and I will talk to you next time. Bye.