Wedding Wisdom 101
By the Hensley's team, with thanks to the Slow Flowers community
10 Tips for Entering the Wedding Floral Landscape
Industry data from wedding market surveysshow that a typical U.S. wedding costs many thousands of dollars. How can your farm and flowers earn a share of that spending?
1 • Design a Wedding Program That Works for You & Your Farm
Weddings are widely considered the single biggest occasion on which most people spend money on flowers. To see whether and how weddings fit into growers' product and service mix, the Hensley's team gathered experiences from a range of flower farmers. The message was that there is no one right way; what matters most is that you… build a wedding program that suits you and your farm.
These are the main ways Slow Flowers growers earn wedding income:
- Selling flowers in bulk to couples who do their own arrangements (DIY)
- Adding paid design services for DIY couples
- Providing full-service wedding floral design
- Renting the farm as a wedding and event venue
- Selling wholesale to florists who do weddings and events
This overview can't cover every one of these income streams in depth, but the lessons below are a solid place to begin, and we plan to expand on several topics in future articles.
2 • Gate Pass Entry: If You Grow It, They Will Come
A Wisconsin grower's à la carte seasonal menu gives couples flexibility in flower choices.
Learn from the many flower entrepreneurs who have found ways to make weddings work on their farms. If no couple has asked to buy your flowers yet, one probably will.
A farmers' market booth is an easy, low-pressure way to begin. A grower at a south-central Wisconsin flower farm noted in a Slow Flowers podcast interview that a substantial share of her wedding bookings start with conversations at her booth at her local farmers' market .
These are customers who have followed the farm for years. Couples tell her they have visited the booth every week and always hoped to have her flowers at their wedding. She loves those stories because the couples already like her style, so little selling is needed.
Her couples pick from several seasonal color palettes, such as soft peach and cream, white and green, or bold, bohemian brights.
A strong online presence, with a website and active social media, matters just as much for reaching couples, she says, and so does knowing your ideal client.
She tells couples up front that they need to be flexible about flower varieties, and the farm's website says so clearly. Some couples find this unconventional. Because the farm depends on the season, a late-summer wedding will feature whatever is blooming then, such as dahlias. Specific colors or styles, from classic to wild, are easy to accommodate. Learning to present her services this way took time.
Along with full-service design, the farm offers an à la carte seasonal menu. It is simple, with limited choices, and the website shows each item with a hand-drawn illustration and price, from boutonnieres and small arrangements to bridal bouquets. Couples pick one of a handful of color palettes she has created (image below).
The menu is meant for couples who want beautiful flowers on a modest budget, so that local flowers are within reach for everyone, and it has become very popular.
3 • Offer a Tiered Menu of Services
A Vermont farmer-florist at her flower farm offers a three-tier wedding menu built around clients' different needs. Third-party photo
Experienced growers say a bulk or bucket program is a simple, low-risk way for beginners to test the wedding market. Couples enjoy buying directly from a farm, farms appreciate the volume, and growers can learn at their own pace.
At a flower farm in southern Vermont, the farmer-florist plans her plantings with wedding clients in mind. She offers three levels of wedding and event flowers: full service, à la carte and DIY.
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Full service
Full service is what most people picture when they think of a wedding florist. At the top price tier, it means working with the couple through the whole planning process, and her team delivers, installs and removes every floral element, including large pieces like arbors, arches, garlands and urns.
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À la carte flowers
After becoming a mother, she shifted more of her focus to à la carte orders. Couples choose personal flowers (carried or worn items such as bouquets, boutonnieres and flower crowns) from a fixed menu. She works within their color palette but does not guarantee specific varieties or make fragile designs that travel poorly, like cascading bouquets. This lets her serve smaller, lower-budget weddings with local flowers, and the streamlined process keeps the work profitable at a mid-range price.
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DIY
DIY couples usually want to make all or part of their wedding flowers themselves, which suits backyard weddings and tight budgets. They can buy buckets of mixed seasonal flowers, or pay a bit more to choose colors, and most spend a modest amount, keeping local flowers affordable.
Many couples have the farm make their personal flowers while they arrange centerpieces from bulk buckets.
Farmer-florists can offer any combination of these tiers to match their farm's schedule, skills and market, she says.
Being deliberate about what you offer lets local flowers stay both profitable and affordable for almost any wedding or event, which is worth celebrating.
4 • Getting to Know You: Consultations with Farm Tour
A Philadelphia-area grower created a hybrid DIY-plus package that lets couples add personal flowers and ceremony installations. Third-party photo
A grower at a Philadelphia-area flower farm offers several ways for couples to buy directly from the farm, starting with a DIY bucket of several dozen stems mixing focal flowers, accent flowers and foliage.
For couples who want more design help, she created a hybrid package with optional personal flowers and ceremony installations, priced according to the size of the wedding party and the ceremony and reception needs.
At first she simply asked DIY couples for a color palette and the number of buckets, keeping things affordable for them and easy for her. But couples had many questions and sometimes wanted premium flowers, and short consults didn't reveal their decorating plans, so she didn't know which flowers and foliage to send. Telling them to work it out themselves didn't sit right with her .
The hybrid package, introduced a few seasons ago, works well. She raised bucket prices, added optional personal flowers and later ceremony installations. The first consult goes deep into the couple's plans and palette; she recommends how many flowers to buy and quotes any personal pieces. She still doesn't promise particular flowers but asks which ones they love.
After booking, couples get two more consults, including a farm tour shortly before the wedding. They talk through decorating plans and tips for a smooth day, learn about the farm's growing practices and walk the fields to see the flowers and foliage likely to be in their order, and often go home with a small bouquet of their favorites.
The package is increasingly popular and fits the trend toward experiences. The higher bucket price covers her time, she knows the flowers she sends will suit the ceremony, and she isn't competing with the florists who buy wholesale from her, since they don't offer this service.
5 • Educate Your Market
At a Pacific Northwest growers' cooperative market, a bucket program for DIY shoppers serves the public and professional florists alike. Shoppers can request a palette about a week ahead, and staff pull together a mix of flowers and foliage. Third-party photo
At a Pacific Northwest growers' cooperative market, a co-op connecting farmers and florists, the DIY wedding channel was carefully designed to support the professional florists who are the co-op's main customers.
The market had offered short public shopping hours one morning a week, but demand kept rising as more couples wanted to buy their own wedding flowers.
Staff and board tested a bucket program for DIY shoppers, which then became a permanent offering. It makes shopping easier for the public: DIY buyers request a palette about a week in advance, staff pick out flowers and foliage, and there is a minimum order of a couple of buckets.
The market's Flowers by the Month Calendar helps DIY couples see when hundreds of local flowers, foliage types and branches bloom and peak, month by month. Third-party photo
Selling to the public teaches shoppers the value of local, seasonal wedding flowers, explains a board memberof the co-op who also co-owns a Skagit Valley flower farm in Washington. Educating consumers about the wide range of seasonal flowers and foliage grown locally benefits everyone in the floral supply chain, from pollinators to florists to seed suppliers.
A federal market-development grant helped fund a consumer education program at the co-op.
With growers, staff and member florists, the co-op created a monthly public talk and demonstration series that highlights seasonal signature crops, inspires DIY customers and shows off work by top florists who shop there.
Attendees receive a flower calendar showing when hundreds of flowers, foliages and branches bloom and peak through the year. At a regional bridal show, the co-op handed out many calendars while promoting the bucket program and talk series.
These tools continue to help connect the public with local flowers and teach their beauty, freshness and value.
6 • Manage Budgets & Expectations
A North Carolina farmer-florist at a western North Carolina flower farm explains wedding flower costs to couples and then lets them decide. Third-party photo
A farmer-florist at a western North Carolina flower farm near Asheville offers a farmer's choice option for wedding clients. It is a less customized seasonal package with no minimum (unlike full-service weddings, which do have one). Couples choose between two palettes for items such as the bridal bouquet, boutonnieres and centerpieces; large installations like arbors or table garlands are not included. Delivery is available, or couples can pick up at the farm during set hours.
Her approach is to educate couples about wedding flower costs and let them make the choices. When a couple's inspiration boards exceed their budget, she prices out the full wish list, acknowledges that it runs over, and suggests ways to scale back, prioritize or adjust so the plan fits the budget while keeping the look they want.
For a large wedding party, she might suggest small posies in place of full bridesmaid bouquets. When a couple dreams of an elaborate floral arbor that would blow most budgets, she offers choices:
- the full arbor at its higher price; or
- a smaller arbor with two lush, asymmetrical swags at a fraction of the cost.
She also wrote a blog post on making the most of a wedding flower budget, explaining why wedding flowers cost what they do, and shares it after consultations.
7 • Know Your Sweet Spot
Knowing your sweet spot matters for wedding designers, especially early on. A Kentucky grower explains that they accept smaller and larger weddings but know their market and stay focused on it, at their flower farm. Third-party photo
A farming couple at a western Kentucky flower farm sells DIY flower buckets and also provides full-service design. Their best source of new clients is a local wedding venue owner who has mentored and promoted them for years and refers many of their weddings.
The venue owner also helped them define their ideal customer. In their rural, working-class farming community, they don't target big-budget weddings; they make a good living on modest floral budgets. They enjoy working together and don't want to expand or hire, and knowing that helps them sharpen their message, tailor their products, set fair prices and stay focused.
The farm offers couples an online wedding flower cost calculator: enter the number of each item, from boutonnieres to the toss bouquet, to see what a budget will cover.
Over time she has learned to price wedding work properly. An experienced designer taught her that charging enough means not resenting the jobs she dreads, like climbing a ladder to install an arch despite a fear of heights. She often asks herself what minimum price would keep her from resenting her time, and that question changed how they view their work. They also compare prices with other designers and traditional florists in the area to stay in line, landing in the middle, neither cheapest nor most expensive, which is where she likes to be.
8 • Offer Flowers Plus Venue
Turning your farm into a wedding venue is a big step for most flower farmers. At a Pennsylvania flower and lavender farm in the Pittsburgh area, the idea came when the owners bought a family dairy farm and asked themselves what to do with so much land .
They took an agricultural business course through their state extension service and then launched a lavender, cut-flower and berry farm that doubles as a seasonal event venue for large weddings and corporate events, with its own full-service floral studio using the farm's flowers.
Their extension classes taught them that farming is very hard work and that agritourism was worth serious consideration.
The owners credit much of their success to hiring a professional event coordinator who handles everything from inquiries to day-of logistics. Bookings grew from a couple of weddings in the first year to a steady full season, held consistent by booking only one event per weekend.
Ceremonies take place in front of the lavender fields, receptions and cocktails on the lawn and in the stable, and a large barn converts to a ballroom for dinner and dancing, which also serves as an indoor ceremony space in bad weather.
Couples who book the venue are encouraged, but not required, to use the farm's design studio. Many want to walk the flower fields to see what is growing, and couples who understand local flowers almost always choose the farm's own blooms.
9 • Stay True to Your Values & Mission
Perhaps the wisest advice we heard from growers who earn part of their income from weddings comes from a co-founderof a southern Maine farm . The farm offers full-service floral design year-round, a DIY bulk program and a hybrid of the two, and its barn is rented for weddings. It has also adopted a zero-waste policy for weddings, explained on its website:
The policy rules out plastic straws, bottled water, plastic cups and even compostable dishware, which does not break down in the farm's compost. After many years in the wedding business, the farm no longer wants to haul loads of wedding trash to the dump and instead helps couples plan low-waste events so everyone can feel part of the solution.
Her view is that genuinely farm-driven floral design takes effort and intention. Offer clients a floral plan considered in light of climate change and its social impact on your ecosystem, community and workforce. Start by never promising particular blooms, since that limits your choices and sends you searching for flowers that weather or crop failure may make unavailable locally. Instead, promise to match the palette and design concept with what local fields and woods provide, and steer the conversation toward beauty as part of the natural world.
She believes real collaboration between florists and farmers comes from building relationships with other growers and designers and understanding each other's businesses. The industry should move forward, and it should be the norm to know that your design business and flower farm are making the world more beautiful while reducing their climate impact as much as possible.
Whether you've done no weddings yet or a great many, that is advice worth following.
10 • Tell Me a Little More About Yourself (Keep Learning!)
If you are committed to building wedding income, expect a lively, demanding market with endless creative possibilities at any scale and in any region. There is no single correct way in, but taking it step by step will lead you to an approach that fits your process, your farm and your values. Even if weddings are completely new to you, moving forward gradually lets you find your footing, build momentum and claim your niche in this rewarding work.
More Resources
- 5 Factors That Affect the Vase Life of Cut Flowers • Article
- Cut-Flower Harvesting and Post-Harvest Care• Article
- Favorite Fillers and Foliage from Flower Farmers• Article
- Sustainable Floral Design: Better Mechanics and Techniques for Foam-Free Floristry • Article
- Succession-Planting Interval Chart for Flowers• Article
- Browse Flowers by Color
