The Story of HOW I became a 'Specialist Wedding Florist'

With everything that goes with running a busy ‘Interflora’ shop, it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to bring up a young family – ‘at the same time’!  But when the children started school . . . well THAT  was another story 😉

As much as I adored being a mother I was missing floristry terribly and needed to bring some sort of a ‘balance’ back into my life.

THE PLAN

So the plan was that I would look after the children during the week and be a ‘Specialist Wedding Florist’ at the weekends. 

This was a new idea at the time.

Most ‘Brides’ requested a Bridal Consultation in the evenings, hubby was on a four day week with Fridays off . . .  and I was ‘loving’ the ESCAPE, so all in all everything worked really well.

‘The Location’

. . . was our Dining Room!

Hubby built me a ‘Pidgeon holed’ workbench along one side of the room.  Two chest of drawers on the other side of the room served to keep all my PAPERWORK and ‘odds & sods’ tidy – at the same time as providing a ‘Display Area’ for artificial bouquets. ‘Back in those days’ artificial flowers were as popular as FRESH FLOWERS . . . and they were already starting to get pretty good!

The nice PINE TABLE in the middle of the room worked well for consultations -

                 handmade tiaras’ were boxed and stacked on shelves around the room and a full length MIRROR . . . 

                                       . . . ‘set the stage’ for a real WEDDING EXPERIENCE.

The PRODUCT

This was ‘a time in history’ BEFORE hand-tied bouquets became so popular and when foam ‘lollipops’ were a NO NO!

EVERY BOUQUET was fully wired (‘fresh’ or otherwise), the wires were trimmed out as you went and bound together to form a

                                            slim, ribboned handle that was ‘shaped’ and comfortable to hold.

You would check for ‘Visual Balance’ and ACTUAL BALANCE, that you would ‘test for’ by resting the finished bouquet on one finger at the top of the handle.

‘MARKETING’. . .

. . . was easy, I put an AD in the classifieds and I was away!  We were living in SUFFOLK at the time and newspaper advertising was effective and affordable.

. . . ‘Bridal Fairs’ were another way of getting more business (before they became so expensive) - using the BRIDAL SHOWS to Network with other ‘Wedding Suppliers’ in the industry to form good working partnerships.

Transportation!

I quickly had to workout how to move ‘Volumes of Larger Displays’ around in an effective manner.  Hubby has always been very handy and was very supportive, he came up with more than one innovative idea to TRANSPORT my FLORAL CREATIONS ‘safely and securely’ – and kitted out my vans accordingly. . .

SALES!

. . . just as well - because once I started explaining to the customer that they could get TWICE as much ‘bang for their buck’ by re-locating flowers from the CEREMONY to the RECEPTION my sales rapidly increased – as did my travelling around at the weekend!

This was a new idea at that time.

Getting sales means keeping ‘ahead of the game’ . . . consistently!

The ‘Secret of Success’ is SERVICE, service and more service