The Wedding Process
Since Valentines Day was yesterday and engagements are high coming off of the Christmas holiday, I thought I would give you a behind the scenes look at what goes into planning a wedding here at Back Mountain Flower Farm. It truly is a ride like no other and thankfully (in my opinion) we have had some of the absolute best brides to work with.
When a bride messages me requesting interest in using our services for their florals I typically first have them fill out a brief questionnaire with basic information. This helps me to determine if we can head straight into a sit down consultation or if a brief phone consultation is best to make sure that we are a right fit for each other.
If their date is available in my calendar we then set up a time for a more in depth consultation where we talk about their wants, overall vibe and anything additional that is on their mind regarding their day. Our first meeting typically lasts 45 minutes to an hour. After we meet I then sit down and work out all of the details for their proposal. This year I have also started creating a very simple mood board for each individual bride (all images are stock photos & not the property of Back Mountain Flower Farm) along with their own individualized growing plan. I am finding that this is helping me tremendously with planning, seed ordering, sowing and planting on my end. This is a tip I can't recommend enough for anyone that is entering the world of weddings and something I should have done from the beginning.
After a bride has accepted our contract and placed her deposit, that is when I sit down and really start planning and plugging in what blooms are needed for her date. If additional seed is needed then I order it and place all of the seeding and planting out dates in an excel spreadsheet. It sounds super simple but it takes me hours to put it together the way I see it in my head (and then we have to hope for Mother Nature to play nice!).
Once we have our initial consultation most brides do not hear from me until about three months out from their date. At that time we set up a final consultation and go over all of the nitty gritty details. I am usually consistently looking two months ahead making sure that I have all supplies ordered for each wedding and if for some reason I missed a planting or we had a crop failure I start contacting other local growers to see what they might have available.
I typically harvest for our weekend weddings on Tuesday and Wednesday the week before. Part of the day Thursday and all day Friday go into prepping if it is a full service wedding. Sometimes I have a helper or two on Friday and Saturday depending on the size of the wedding and the length of our to do list for the day. I am truly blessed on the big wedding weekends because I have a cousin and a sister that are absolutely amazing. I can tell them what needs done, turn them loose and not worry about what the outcome of the product will be. (image above: www.spancakes.com )
There are a lot of other variables that go into wedding planning and the execution. It never goes completely smoothly and you have to be open and flexible to rolling with what comes your way. Last season it was a lot of crop failures, sometimes it the weather on the day of the wedding, sometimes it pours the entire week before and you are trying to dry and hydrate and design and sometimes it's trying to figure out how in the world to fit it all in your delivery vehicle!
I can say that I have learned a lot in the last few seasons. I am by no means an expert and still have a lot to learn but if you are open to seasonal flowers that are not your standard Carnations, Roses and Baby's Breath then we are here to serve you!
