Creating the Perfect Wedding Consultation
- Jackie Whittaker
- Jul 1
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 4
Planning a wedding is an exciting time for every couple, but with so much to think about, there's a huge reliance on wedding professionals to smooth the way.
A wedding flower consultation is your first opportunity to meet the happy couple, to make a great impression and hopefully go on to create a wedding flower proposal that they'll love.
By offering the highest level of customer service you can move from initial consultation right through to the big day. Whether you already have an established wedding business or not, follow this guide to ensure that you develop a successful and profitable wedding business.
Related: Wedding Floristry Marketing Tips
Cascade or shower bouquets are a popular choice
Booking your Consultations
Be organised and keep track of your wedding consultations by maintaining a dedicated wedding diary or use your online calendar to manage your appointments.
When a bride books her consultation ask her to bring as much information as she has about the day including:
Social media images
Wedding dress design sketch or picture
Bridesmaids dress design sketch or picture
Fabric swatches
Colours and Pantone ideas
Ceremony and reception venue details
A Pinterest or other mood board
An idea of budget.
In order to provide your bride with a thorough consultation and an accurate quote, you’ll need to spend a considerable amount of time getting to know your brides’ likes and dislikes. Always make your brides aware of this and schedule 1-2 hours for their full consultation.
Loose, round and Pageant bouquet styles
First Impressions Count
Brides will always be on the lookout for a neat and organised shop and a professional greeting. It is almost certain brides will have passed by your shop and researched your website and social media before they call for a consultation so ensure that the first impression you make is a positive one.
If you have enough space in your shop create a dedicated area for private consultations and space for your brides to sit, relax and take the time to enjoy their meeting with you. Make sure you have your Wedding portfolio on display, either in print or online, plus all your wedding sundries in view or easily accessible and offer your bride tea or coffee whilst they browse your portfolios.
A range of wedding flower books and magazines are particularly useful if your brides arrive without many ideas. This demonstrates that creative trends and changing fashions are important to you.
Use your laptop or tablet to show some of your work online. Save all your images in a folder and create some digital mood boards. Ensure pictures are always high quality and show your wedding work at its very best.
If you have space, showcase thank you cards and letters from past brides and any accolades you have been awarded. Ensure these are highly visible in your shop so brides can see what an expert you are!
If you do not have room for a consultation area, ensure there is somewhere to sit with your bride. If space is at a premium in your shop perhaps take your brides to a nearby coffee shop for your consultation or suggest meeting them at their venue for that extra special service.
Grooms now have the choice of lapel flowers and pocket boutonnieres as well as the more traditional buttonholes.
The Consultation
This is your opportunity to interpret a bride’s own thoughts and ideas into their wedding flowers. Because no two weddings are ever the same, there are many styles of bouquets, corsages, ceremony decor and endless reception centrepiece ideas. You should spend time explaining these styles to your brides and show them as many examples of ideas that will fit their budget.
Use a consultation pad or laptop to record information. Perhaps sketch out designs for the bride. Enclose a copy of any sketches with your proposal and quotation so you both have the same reference for the ideas you discussed.
Here’s a list of some of the questions you should ask your bride:
General Questions
What is the time and date of the wedding?
Do you know the location of the wedding ceremony and the reception?
How many guests are attending your wedding?
Your Wedding Style
Is there a theme to the wedding?
Were there any colours you have in mind for the wedding flowers?
Have you brought any ideas and images with you?
How would you describe your wedding style? i.e. Romantic, Classic, Rustic, Vintage, Modern etc
What colour and style is your wedding dress?
What colour and style are your bridesmaids’ dresses?
What are your groom and groomsmen wearing?
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Your Flower Requirements
Use this floral checklist to suggest what is possible to suit the venue and budget.
Floral Checklist
Bride
Bouquet
Hair flowers
Bouquet to throw
Bridesmaids
Bouquet
Wrist corsage
Hair flowers
Flower Girls
Posies
Hair Flowers
Buttonholes
Groom
Best man
Ushers
Father
Grandfathers
Pageboy/Ringbearer
Mothers and Grandmothers
Corsage, wrist corsage or handbag spray
Thank you bouquet
Venue
For a printable list of all the questions you should be asking your bride at the initial consultation, make sure you download our FREE handy Wedding Consultation Form.
Be the Expert You are the flower expert so make sure that you demonstrate your floral knowledge during your consultation. Why not dust off your language of flowers book and dazzle brides with the symbolism of flowers, or take a look at our language of flowers list.
Explore with your bride what bouquet style will fit best with their wedding gown. Hand-tied bouquets complement ballerina and empire line dresses, while a cascading waterfall bouquet may better suit an A-line, column or mermaid style of gown to mirror the fall of the dress. Your bride may have a very definite vision of her bridal bouquet but you should offer your expertise if guidance is required.
Pomander and Carmen Rose are more unusual bouquet styles
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Seasonality
It may not be possible to have peonies in September, but a blowsy garden rose may be the perfect alternative. Give your brides as much information as you can about seasonality. Su Whale’s book, Cut Flowers, offers fabulous tips for Weddings on every page as well as essential information regarding availability, measurements, colour ranges plus advice on conditioning, storage and display for commercial use.
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Sell Yourself
If you offer other wedding services like vase and candelabra hire, wedding favours or plant and tree hire make sure you tell your brides about it and become their one stop shop for adorning their wedding reception.
Be Prepared
Below we have listed some of the questions you can expect to be asked by the bride:
Do you have a portfolio I can see?
Do you have any other weddings booked on the same day as mine and if so will you have time to do my flowers?
What is fashionable with wedding flowers, varieties and colours at the moment?
From the ideas I have shared with you what types of flowers would you recommend for me?
Can you show me any of the flowers you have recommended?
Have you done flowers at my wedding venue before and do you have pictures in situ?
Can I see some of the pictures of the work you have previously done like this?
Will you be able to visit my venue with me to see the space and make recommendations?
Can I have the groom’s buttonholes delivered to a separate address?
If I bring my mum’s handbag in will you attach the flowers for me?
Can you provide candles for the ceremony and reception?
Do you offer any other services such as linen hire, favours, trees etc?
Could you make up sample headdresses for me to take to my hairdresser to practice with?
Will you deliver my flowers and set them up on the morning of the wedding?
Do you require a deposit?
What is your policy regarding refunds and cancellations?
Creating a Wedding Flower Proposal Following your initial consultation you should take the time to create a wedding flower proposal for your bride based on what you have discussed. This is your opportunity to show your professionalism and expertise once again by presenting a bride’s consultation in a beautiful way. Providing professionally designed, digital documents with any designs and notes from your consultation could ensure you stand out from your competitors.
A savvy bride may have a consultation with two or even three florists, so going that extra mile, offering remarkable customer service and proving that you have interpreted her wedding day vision could be the difference between securing a booking or not.
Include your terms and conditions and confirm the price and payment terms. Always provide a breakdown of costs so if any choices need to be made on quantities the bride has all the information she needs to hand.
Stay in touch
Once you’ve secured the booking and taken a deposit, ensure you stay in regular contact with your brides. Organise to meet again nearer the wedding date, or if this is not necessary make a courtesy call or send an email four weeks before the wedding to confirm all the details and reassure her that she is at the forefront of your planning. You may even be able to secure additional orders for last-minute thank you flowers or favours that the bride simply has not had time to source.
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Or check out our Wedding Floristry Hub for information on everything wedding flowers - from Inspiration through to advice on how to run and maximise your wedding flowers business.
