Live flowers are a beautiful touch to your wedding day. When planning the details of your wedding, you’ll see how establishing a relationship with a florist is crucial. Communicating with a florist you trust will make the whole process easier. From curating your bouquets, boutonnieres, or centerpieces all the way down to the flower girl’s petals-a florist can help with all of this.
Hi, I’m Stephanie Lang, owner and lead florist of Lang Floral Designs, a premier floral studio specializing in wedding flowers and design in Chattanooga. I’ve been in the wedding industry for about a decade now, so I also enjoy sharing wedding planning tips and ideas with brides everywhere through my blog.
Even after working over 100 weddings, I still absolutely love what I do. There is nothing like a wedding, and I consider it a privilege to be chosen as a couple’s florist. When I end up being a fly on the wall to some of those special wedding day moments, like a first look, or the bride walking down the aisle, I often sit back and think to myself “How did I get so lucky that this is my Saturday view.” I mean, sure, weddings are hard work. They can be stressful, hot, and exhausting. But at the end of the day, it’s so worth it to get to do what I love for couples starting their lives out together.
You can find out more about us at www.langfloraldesigns.com. And definitely follow us on Instagram and Facebook @langfloraldesigns for updates and photos of what we’re currently working on!
What services do you offer?
In addition to all things floral, we also offer some other design services and rentals, which include invitation design, custom signage design, decor rental and styling, day-of-coordinating, and full event design. We love it when we get the opportunity to have our hands in all the visual elements of a wedding. This ensures that the whole look is cohesive and pulled together by a professional. A lot of brides have a wedding Pinterest board with styles they just love, but if they haven’t planned a wedding before or worked on big events like this, they may feel unequipped to actually make it all come to life for their own big day.
If you find a vendor you love working with at the meeting/quoting/email phase, it’s always a good idea to ask them if they offer any additional services you could utilize. In doing so, you’ll be hiring one vendor to do what typically 2-3 would do. This makes things easier for you as well as the vendor, which in turn, will probably save you money!
If your vendors offer extra services, you’ll almost always benefit from utilizing these if you have reason to believe you’ll like their work.
How do I select the right florist for my wedding?
You will of course want to check out their work on social media and their website to find a florist whose style you like. After that, ask around… Ask your recently married friends who their favorite vendors were, and were NOT. They will have real-life experience to tell the good and bad about each.
The next best option would be to check online reviews. Make sure some of the reviews talk about responsiveness, emails, professionalism, or a stress-free process. All of these things could make or break a bride-vendor relationship. If it takes a wedding vendor 4 weeks to respond to every email you send them, you’re going to be stressed out.
Unfortunately, I see extremes here all the time. I’ve had photographers take 6+ weeks and multiples phone calls and emails to respond to me. And I’ve also had photographers email me back within the hour. If you can get a sense for that responsiveness through their reviews or a friend’s referral, that’s a huge plus!
What makes a great wedding vendor?
We’ve talked a little about this already, but here would be my top 4 wedding-vendor priorities:
- Great Work
- Great Reviews
- Responsiveness
- A Personality you like working with
Here’s what I’ve found about potential wedding clients. If our personalities mesh well together, I often book them for their wedding. If they don’t, they usually don’t book me. For a bride, there’s just something about feeling like you’ve got a team on your side for your wedding day. And rightfully so. It’s a huge day.
I really feel like that’s why I don’t book many bridezillas. I’m super thankful that after 100+ weddings, I could probably only count on one hand the number of times I’ve dealt with an awful bride or family member. I think this is because I’m a pretty positive and easy-going person. I’m sure that comes across in an initial meeting. I’m not super high strung, my contract and process are very buttoned up and straightforward, and I’ve done this for a while. That doesn’t allow for much drama.
So, when you’re booking your wedding florist and any of your other vendors, I would definitely consider hiring the vendor who you have the best feeling about. You may not be able to put your finger on exactly why. But it may be a personality or confidence thing that’s drawing you to them. Trust your gut on that.
How do I choose what flowers I want for my wedding? Can I just send you a picture of what I want my flowers to look like?
The short answer is, YES! Before I meet with a bride, I ask them for a link to their Pinterest board or inspiration photos they like. I always like to see these first before setting up a meeting to make sure I would be a good fit, style-wise. My overall style is fairly modern. Sometimes that style can lean more toward boho. Sometimes more garden-y and organic. That’s actually how I prefer it.
Some florists have a more specific “signature style”. But I love a little variety and enjoy flowing with the current trends. After a decade in business, I enjoy knowing I will be doing something fresh and new just 1-2 wedding seasons from now.
With that said… Some clients feel a little pressure to have an explanation of exactly what they want. However, it always works best for me to be a little more flexible. I like taking a look at their Pinterest board together, hearing about what their favorite floral photos are and why, and collaborating on ideas of how we can make it all come together while still being respectful of their budget.
My advice: let your florist be the expert. If there’s one specific flower you love, tell them! But if it’s the overall style and color pallet you like, let them know that as well. Florists have to work within so many parameters; what flowers are in season, weather and heat, what blooms will hold up for what specific application, color and size variations, etc. They can help guide you through what option will be best to bring your dream floral look to life!
Are some flowers more expensive than others?
Yes. Some flowers are more expensive than others. Some may be out of season during your wedding date, or not recommended for the use you had in mind. Try not to worry about those logistics too much though. I would highly recommend that you give your florist a budget or range to try to stay around. And your florist can make suggestions if something is going to be way outside of your budget.
What makes your job easiest as a florist? What makes it harder?
The biggest thing that makes my job easy is if the bride has done her research on her wedding budget. When the bride has realistic expectations about her flowers and budget, things go super smooth. Let me explain more. Every single wedding budget is going to vary, and have different percentages (for example, 10% for flowers, 15% for food/drink, and 20% for the venue, etc). There’s no hard and fast rule that says you should spend exactly 10% of your wedding budget on flowers.
However, it’s always nice if everything in a wedding kind of makes sense budget-wise. You wouldn’t expect to attend a wedding at an extremely upscale venue, but see fake flowers and really cheap food. It’s just kind of awkward. We love to see a wedding come together cohesively as a whole experience.
I actually created an entire wedding budget spreadsheet to help my brides with this challenge. I recently added it onto my blog to download for free, so anyone can access it! It includes suggested percentages, which are just common amounts that we see in the industry. This is a good starting point to help a bride see what most people spend on all the categories like food, photography, and flowers.
I talk a LOT more about how to create a really reasonable and wise wedding budget HERE, but in short, if you plan out your wedding budget ahead of time with your fiancée and/or family, you’re much more likely to feel in control during the planning process.
Another thing that makes my job easy is when I have a client come to me with a similar style as myself. This is why I always suggest that you look up your florist’s work before contacting them. If you love what you see on their Instagram feed, you’ll most likely love your flowers as well. That’s not to say you need to have them recreate a previous bouquet exactly. It’s simply helpful if you like the style they do.
Like I said before, my style is fairly modern. But every once in a while I have a bride reach out to me who likes a very traditional and even old-fashioned style of floral arranging. I’m always a little confused at why they would choose me. This is exactly why I like to see their inspiration before we set up a meeting. In those cases, I usually let the bride know that I don’t think we’re a good fit for the style they like. Then I make suggestions on some other floral shops around who are more accustomed to doing that style.
Your Best Day Ever!
Ultimately, I truly want the couple and their families to love their wedding and have a stress-free experience with Lang Floral Designs. I hope my suggestions have shown you that you can choose a great wedding florist and other vendors for the best day ever!
Check out more wedding day planning tips here!
