How to Choose a Wedding Florist💐

• How do you choose a florist for your wedding? There are so many to choose from!! It's helpful to know what types of florists are out there and what kind that you'll need for your wedding.

There are different kinds of florists in your area. With all types of specialties, styles, and budget accommodations. Sometimes they are a mix or only one kind of these categories:

Event Florists

Event florists are those that only work on special events. They sometimes don't do retail holiday work and often times don't have a retail shop because they operate from home or a warehouse.  People go to them because they have a bigger team, a specialty for larger events and difficult arrangements. They also usually have a signature style that they stick to.

Retail Florists   

Retail florists are those people that own their own shops and market to the general public for all occasions. They are most busy during holidays, school + corporate events, and wedding season.

Freelance Florists

Freelance florists are sometimes full or part-timers, do more occasional/seasonal work, maybe own a floral cart, do pop ups or small events, and help out with events for their florist friends.

Hobby Florists   

Hobby florists arrange flowers for fun, as a side hustle or for passion, and may not have access to a big cooler or reliable team, to preserve and work your wedding flowers. So grand events may be too out of their scale.

NOEMI REYES PHOTOGRAPHY

What are the things to look for?

Their signature style: I can always tell their style by the bouquets. Some of the florists like a ton of movement, textures, and variety. Others like a classic, clean, and pretty look every single time. Try to decipher what you like.

Do they leave too much space between flower heads?

In photos, do the flowers look well preserved, fresh, and in a beautifully arranged look?

Do they have an easy to use website?

Can you find happy reviews from wedding couples?

Do they have a social media presence? If so, you'll find the most up to date photos.

Once you're in the consultation...

Show them your ideas! Ask how to repurpose your florals! Ask what happens to the flowers or the rentals at the end of the night?

Take notes:

Are they consulting you? Offering ideas, options, and ways to make things fit your budget?

Do they mirror what you're saying in the consultation?

At the end of it all, do you feel happy and understood?

Its so important to be on the same page with your florist.

Finally, I wanted to discuss the average price of florals right now. I work with talented people and they all have event floral minimums for traveling with wedding flowers. Sometimes it's $2,500, other times they range from $6,000-$8,000 minimums. Yes, it gets expensive. You have to remember that they are keeping dead things alive and beautiful and that takes several weeks of preparation.

At any cost, flowers add something to a wedding that cannot be replicated. We can only marvel and admire the hard work of these phenomenal florists!

I am so grateful for everything they do!!

Getting Married in San Antonio, Texas Hill Country or destination? Looking for a planner/coordinator? Or does your venue require a wedding coordinator?

Let's chat, I'd love to help!

Shoot me an email to the email address below or click here to take my planning questionnaire.

Stephanie@SweetGardeniaWeddings.com

Or Text me! (210) 954-5780

7 TIPS : How to Make a Small Wedding Feel Like a "Real Wedding"!

If you're scaling back your wedding to 20-60 people, you may feel like that's too intimate. It may feel a bit easier to plan but I recommend still hiring a planner. We have all the ideas and the forethought to make it feel like you are at your wedding. So let's begin! Here are 7 Tips to Make Your Wedding Feel Like a Real Wedding.

Photo by Ryan Hamilton Photography

1. Choose a venue who can accommodate the size of your wedding with a dance floor. - It can't be too crowded or too large or else it will feel "off" somehow. You'll need something to accommodate such an intimate seating arrangement. Your wedding planner and coordinator should be able to help you with this step!

2. Go big with the decor and flowers - you're going to want to see the place and think "wedding". There's no better way to do that than to bring in all the pretty. Flowers at weddings just go hand in hand, and if you're wanting to deviate from just another party, go big with the florals.

3. Make it personal - Since your wedding is smaller, you can make things personalized with escort cards, table names, pretty tablescapes, and edibles on the tables. Think about the scent of the room, coming off the tables, and take home favors.

4. Something to do at every hour - Right after the ceremony, open the bar, pass out hor dourves have the music playing, for sure. After dinner, run the formal dances and open the dance floor instantly. Don't get stale energy, let's keep things moving.

5. Have a professional DJ or MC- A less than ideal MC who lives for random awkward pauses, ear piercing sound checks, yell at the guests to move their bodies, and play music loud will not go over too well with a smaller, intimate crowd. Something more intentional and who can read the crowd is better. Don't have dancing going on? Plan for a professional musician to speak to the crowd and play throughout dinner and cocktails.

6. Have a super-awesome officiant - With a smaller wedding, you're going to want that ceremony to be worth the trek. If your officiant knows what they are doing, it's going to be a very special ceremony. That's the reason why we're all here, isn't that right? Let's have someone professional to create that ambiance from the start.

7. Have an event enhancer - Photo booths, uplights, spotlights, and a professional vendors such as a musicians, cigar wrap vendors, or perhaps rent an audio guestbook since the book won't be filled in all the way, any way :)

That's it! I have plenty of wedding planner secrets of my sleeve but I can't give them all away... right?

My number 1 reason for thinking every intimate wedding needs a planner is because it is WAY harder to make a wedding out of a smaller crowd than it is for a larger one. Why? Because larger groups always make the place feel full, like a party. Smaller weddings tend to break off into smaller groups, or feel somewhat sweet yet informal. You have to do extra things in order to make it feel like a wedding, an that's why I think planners are helpful. We can read the room and plan for all the things!

Getting Married in San Antonio, ATX, Houston, Hill Country or Destination Wedding?

Looking for a planner or coordinator? Does your venue require a licensed wedding coordinator?

Let's chat, I'd love to help!

Shoot me an email to the email address below or click here to take my planning questionnaire.

Stephanie@SweetGardeniaWeddings.com

www.mysanantoniowedding.org

Wedding Stories - Planner Solve Problems ✓ - San Antonio Wedding Planner Blog

Years ago, I was at a venue tour with a couple who were getting married during San Antonio's wet months. It was a gorgeous venue, and the weather that day could not have been more perfect. I was happy for my couple, as the venue was exactly what spoke to them: laid back. As just their coordinator and not their planner, I was ready to work with whatever they chose.

We spoke about how it would be a gorgeous view to get married outside. I asked the venue coordinator what their rain contingency plan consisted of. The venue coordinator smiled and nodded but had no clue. She confessed she was new and had no idea what they did if it rained. She believed that they could easily perform the ceremony inside, but that the chairs would need to be moved back inside by the guests. In the rain. This is because the venue does not have enough chairs or the manpower to make it happen. The maximum is 300 people at this venue, and they have chairs for everyone. What they don't have is 600 chairs so that 300 go to the ceremony area and 300 go to the reception hall they have to be moved it the guest count is over 150.

My bride gasped. "I had not even thought about that." We then figured what it would look like. Where she would walk down, where the violinist/DJ/band would play, where the stage will be. We figured we would set up an aisle for their parents and then on we'd put the chairs back afterwards.

Wedding planners think of the possibilities. We see a bare venue, we start racking up the ideas. We also start thinking about all of the things that can go wrong. What I have to be is ,on my toes, because that morning a huge hailstorm flew in and the venue experienced massive leaks. The floors were flooded in the reception barn. I had no rain plan for the reception, either and that was something I could not imagine.

That morning the sky was dreadful. Forcast looked horrible, and I tracked the storm. If I left an hour earlier I'd be there when it hit and I planned for the worst. I drove an hour from my home in a hailstorm and walked in at 10am. Walked in and the venue was being beaten down by the hailstorm, water pouring from the ceiling onto the decorated tables. I quickly moved about, moved tables and chairs to avoid the leaks as best as I could. Both my belongings, my outfit to change in and my shoes fell in the mud. I stood strong and made it happen.

I mopped up that venue for 2 hours out of love. My assistant arrived and we fixed the tables, dried the chairs, and had everything ready to go at the same time the rain decided to subside. The venue manager wasn't due to be on site until later in the afternoon, so my assistant and I were exhausted but we got the job done.

Photo by Paty Araujo Photography (not the wedding)

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Here's Another One!

I was once a guest at a very upscale wedding where the bride and groom chose a buffet style dinner. It was very delicious and hot because it was being served while on heat and off to the side where people could line up. The DJ announced they he would be releasing table numbers so that the line did not get too long and bothersome. It was quite a task, as the DJ was announcing numbers, the chatter of the crowd made hearing him impossible.

There was no coordinator walking around dismissing tables like I would be doing. At one point, there was no one in line, to which everyone quickly saw and wanted to solve that problem. A second later, the line was way too long. Guests just started to make their way over, in complete disregard to the DJ. The DJ lost track of what tables had been released and the dinner lasted longer than it should have. People kept going up for seconds and pretty soon, the food ran out before dinner service was over. It was hard to watch.

If they had a coordinator present, a lot of these problems would run smoother..

Photo by Wayfarer Photography

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Finding you a new venue when your venue closes down 2 months before your wedding is never a good feeling.

I am admin of a local Facebook group and when a bride posted that her venue closed down and she was in distress, my first question was: "What venue is it?"

I need to know about the most up to date information in the local industry. If a venue is closing down, I would need to know so that I don't recommend them anymore, and to make sure I can help my clients if they also had a signed contract with the venue. Once this bride said what the venue was, I was in shock. I had a wedding at that exact wedding venue in a few months and my heart sank. This meant that my bride and groom who were scheduled to get married there in a few months had no venue.

I quickly called the venue to verify the closing and it was true. I then called my bride's phone to let her know and she was just as shocked to know. The venue hadn't called to notify her yet, we all found out due to the Facebook post, it was a very sticky situation. We saved her wedding by getting out there and finding a new venue, but it wasn't an easy road there..

Photo by Joy Photo & Video

XoXo!

Getting Married in San Antonio and need a planner or coordinator? Let's chat, I'd love to help!

Shoot me an email to the email address below or click here to take my planning questionnaire.

Stephanie@SweetGardeniaWeddings.com