Why I love funerals more than weddings

[concord]

Last week I spent 1 1/2 hours with a bride discussing her $500 wedding and we will undoubtedly have to talk a few more times before her June wedding. Wednesday a family came in to order flowers for a memorial service tomorrow. We sat for 45 miutes and they gave me a check for 2500.00.
The End

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

Last week I spent 1 1/2 hours with a bride discussing her $500 wedding and we will undoubtedly have to talk a few more times before her June wedding. Wednesday a family came in to order flowers for a memorial service tomorrow. We sat for 45 miutes and they gave me a check for 2500.00.
The End

"The End" was the problem...it's so final

 

[anytimeflowers]

Oh.....don't get me started.

Nope, too late!

Why I like funerals better than weddings......

You know I don't really do weddings, and I had a bride in September remind me DAILY for several months why I don't!

1. The star of the show does not care if the shade EXACTLY matches.
2. They seldom want to "borrow" vases to save money.
3. They don't change their minds a hundred million times before the event.
4. There is little or no dickering on price for each and every piece.

That isn't really the end of the story but after six weeks I'm still not over that frickin' wedding. The final piece was when I got to the ceremony and the bride had forgotten to tell me she had added TWO MORE flower girls!

5. There is NEVER and extra deceased to scramble for extra flowers.

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

Oh.....don't get me started.

Nope, too late!

Why I like funerals better than weddings......

You know I don't really do weddings, and I had a bride in September remind me DAILY for several months why I don't!

1. The star of the show does not care if the shade EXACTLY matches.
2. They seldom want to "borrow" vases to save money.
3. They don't change their minds a hundred million times before the event.
4. There is little or no dickering on price for each and every piece.

That isn't really the end of the story but after six weeks I'm still not over that frickin' wedding. The final piece was when I got to the ceremony and the bride had forgotten to tell me she had added TWO MORE flower girls!

5. There is NEVER and extra deceased to scramble for extra flowers.

Not so fast Linda.....JUST Today!
Lady walks in and wants EIGHTEEN (18) of those beautiful yellow long stem roses for a committal at the graveyard....
"hello I'd like to buy 18 of those yellow roses for a graveyard committal..how much are they??"...." we charge $54.95 per dozen for our premium long roses, but, since you want 18, and we don't have to do them up as a hand tied presentation with fancy greens,and beautiful accent flowers, I will give you 18 for the price of a dozen and in a pail if you wish, to keep them fresh!!"....
"OK, I'll take the 18 in a pail, and could you please cut them all down evenly to about 6-8 inches stem length,and I'll be back in about 20 minutes!"...."sure' I'll have them ready for you"..............DONE
"I'm back to pick up my 18 roses"....."yes ma'am, here they are, that will be $54.95 plus tax, how would you like to pay for them??"
"WHAT...you're going to charge me FULL PRICE for those roses even though they are short??!!"...I'm not going to pay that!! (just as another customer walks in,and is clearly puzzled & perplexed)
"YOU may as well charge me less now,because they are SHORT"......"ahhhhhhhhhhh", next customer says "how many are there?"......I say "EIGHTEEN".....he says "HOW MUCH??"......I say $"54.95".....he says "I'LL take those!"....I turn to HIM, take his credit card, ring them through, HE LEAVES and this crazy @@@@@ is going ballistic now!
"DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE"?........."I have 7 left"...she stormed out, thought she would bust the door.
Had nothing to do with weddings...just a stupid ignorant @@@@@.....had NOTHING to do with frickin' dickering...just ignorant!

 

[ChristiBrown]

I once had a lady for a funeral that had me redo her mother's $200 vase arrangement 3 times!! I had about had it with her, but thank goodness it was during the summer (so I definately had the time) and it was a very large vase so all the stems were long and could go back into the cooler. Mostly I don't have any trouble with brides, I actually like their consultations. Most of my work comes by referral and the other vendors know that I am cheaper if and only if the bride is less picky about what they get, it seems like those are the brides they refer to me are the ones who really don't care as long as it is pretty.

 

[dlnfloral]

I must be sick in the head.... I LOVE THEM BOTH!! Both are money makers and easy to do. Funerals are much better of course but if you plan right and don't over do it on some of the wedding detail crap they are awesome orders. A couple months ago I had 16 family funeral orders averaging $850 each..... AWESOME!! I was in heaven...no pun...love them!

 

[KABERS]

I agree funerals are preferred and my lifeblood BUT i'm going to pursue weddings more seriously. I've been buying from Florist Buying Club and it's so affordable that I don't feel guilty buying wine by the case to recover. I have a Bride right now that came in for ideas over a year ago. She was sure I told her she could get 1000 items for $250.00 - why is it so expensive now? I've remade her silk bouquet 3 times (teal and browns) She emailed me again wanting to know if I could take out the brown roses because her mommy thinks they look like dead red roses. I swear the bride is at least 35 and has 4 children already.

 

[pfmflowermarket]

While I agree that I much prefer funerals to weddings, as some have said funerals have their share of "fun". What really gets me is that alot of the sympathy pieces we get are walk-ins from family members or friends the evening before the calling hours and the person passed away 3 days ago. Then they get picky about what flowers they want. If they had come in or called sooner right after it happened I would have been able to get that specific flower they wanted, but not the evening before.

On another note, are any of you seeing customers coming in with pictures on their smart phone with a florists price near it? Apparently customers are taking pictures while at a florist shop of their sympathy book with their price on it and then taking it to another flower shop to order it. Very weird? Just had this last night. It was a Teleflora design that the florist had priced at $65, but they seemed so happy with our service and suggestions they ordered a $100 version of that teleflora arrangement, so apparently they weren't price shopping. BUT in conversation with the family they said that they had already ordered larger pieces at another florist they just needed this piece from the grandchildren. Why come to us for this piece if they were confident enough to order larger pieces from another shop? People are so strange and I don't think I'll ever understand them.