Why I don’t work with live flowers - or plan to
As a faux floral business owner, questions that I get on occasion are:
“Do you ever think about getting into working with live flowers?”, or “Do you like faux flowers better than live?”
The answers are… I love live flowers. But no, I have no plans to get into working with them. Sounds confusing, right? Wouldn’t I want to? Haven’t I thought about offering both?
To put it simply, while I love live flowers, they’re actually a totally different thing.
On the surface, it doesn’t seem like it. The end result is that you get flowers for your wedding. In reality though, the differences are quite vast.
Live materials require specific storage, cooling, and handling. Special equipment is needed to keep the materials fresh. Therefore the costs of running a live floristry business are entirely different. Investment in proper equipment is crucial. Likewise, investing in a large quantity of faux florals is a necessity in my business, so that I am able to rent flowers of all sorts and colors. I also need quite a bit of permanent storage space.
Preparation timelines are also a big difference. With faux florals, arrangements can be put together any time. I usually start putting designs together 2 months before a wedding. Live flowers can be ordered ahead of time, but pick up, unpacking, processing, storing, and then arranging must be done within a shorter timeline before the wedding. This changes how a business operates - considerations like how much staff is needed and when.
Transportation and wedding assembly is also entirely different because, of course, you need a water source with live flowers! That comes with its own challenges and specific equipment needs. Alternately, with faux flowers, I have stacks of boxes in various shapes and sizes that I need to have on hand for hauling arrangements to weddings. So again, it’s just different.
I really love being able to offer an alternative. I believe couples should have options. Live flowers are often one of the larger wedding costs, and there’s nothing wrong with that. They are stunning. But renting artificial florals is an economical way to achieve the look you want without spending several thousand dollars. Since I rent out the majority of my flowers (and thus am able to reuse materials time and time again), I’m able to pass a savings on to my couples. I also love the challenge. I challenge myself to create designs that look and feel similar to the real thing, and take pride in using high quality materials. I don’t believe in cutting corners. Putting care, detail, and time into the construction of every piece is very important to me. I want my business and quality to be thought of hand in hand.
I also love the permanence of artificial flowers - I can offer arrangements couples can keep forever, if they choose. And I also love the reusability element for my rentals. Yes, I do add new materials into the rotation fairly often - but I am able to reuse all of the flowers I already have over and over. The initial investment is quite large, but having the inventory on hand that I do now means I can put together wedding florals for my clients even on short notice.
So yes, I love live flowers (who doesn’t?!). I gush over photos. I study the designs, placement, textures, color combinations. And then I love trying to replicate them to see how close I can get. There are plenty of wonderful vendors out there in Pittsburgh who do live floral arrangements far better than I could! I love what I do, and enjoy having my own little space in wedding world. There’s plenty of room for all sorts of vendors, and for the couples out there, that means you have more options to choose from.
