I am wanting a complete change of occupation!

I love flowers and gardening , meeting new people etc and have been thinking of the idea of setting up a business selling cottage garden / wild flowers for weddings. I'd obviously have to take a floristry course first to know all the ins and outs of arranging bouquets and the like! :)

What i was really after was opinions from you lovely lot on here - if planning a wedding would this idea appeal to you , what sort of flowers would you like to see etc?

Any ideas very welcome :)

The only thing I will say is that whenever you run any business, you have to supply what the customer wants which may not necessarily be your own personal taste.  I love the idea of cottage garden or wild flowers for a wedding but you might limit your customer base if you did not supply other flowers too.  Good luck with it!  :)

I also love the idea of cottage garden flowers, but these are very seasonal and you would be restricting your business to a short period of the year.  I got married in December and had white anemones in my bouquet, and hellebore, roses and lots of foliage in the other arrangements - it all had to come from Holland, and some of the flowers didn't arrive on the plane, so it was all a bit makeshift in the end - I think the florist was more stressed out than I was!  And that's something else to bear in mind - weddings are very stressful affairs, and as a supplier the florist has much less control over her stock than other suppliers do - flowers may not open in time, you may have a bad season, etc, and you may be faced with breaking this news to the bride the day before her wedding!  There also seem to be certain flowers that brides go for - roses, obviously, and also calla lillies and gerbera seem to feature strongly on discussion forums I looked at before my wedding.  If I had gone for a summer wedding, I'd have been sorely tempted by the roses / bouquets that David Austin sell - they are beautiful, very English cottage garden, but very pricey and, because they have a minimum order, not suitable for smaller weddings.  There's possibly a gap in the market for a more reasonably-priced alternative (and perhaps more variety than DA offer?).

when my SIL got married (they were both in their 40's) she had gerbers it looked fantastic so simple and colourfull - go for it.

I agree with the other replies about seasonality of cottage garden flowers, although it is a lovely idea (and I adore the David Austin bouquets too :) )  Another thing to bear in mind is that it can be very cold being a florist!  You have to keep the flowers cool so they don't open to fast, your hands are often getting wet in cold water, not an occupation for those who love being warm and comfy.

Thank you for your replies so far , they have been very encouraging and helpful too!

I've worked in a boarding kennels for 13 years so being out in the wet and cold doesn't bother me at all , in fact i quite enjoy it :)

Is there any specific flowers , maybe unusual too , that you would particularly look for?

My favourites are peonies and sweet peas.  I'm now wishing I'd had a summer wedding!

Its funny thinking when I had my eldest son my OH went out on a walk and when I got home the house was full of pussy willows and spring flowers and sticky buds ect.. March baby... he bought spring into the house, huge boquets of spring plants and bulbs.

I think Wiggly wigglers website is a good one they do flowers in season and just tie them with raffia and I have taken to sending them as they are so "real" and "fresh" looking.

Babies welcomed with seasonal flowers and prehaps a photo of the flowers for the keepsake box? I still have pictures of mine.

have you got any business experience? have you got contacts to start you off?
Setting up a business in something you're interested (ie flowers) sounds great but when you run your own business you often get bogged down with paperwork - finances/accounts/orders/rent/contracts etc etc etc and it is quite difficult especially in this current financial climate to get a business up and running in the first place.
Not trying to be negative but giving you things to think about before you leap in :-)

I welcome any advice / things to think about :)

Im doing initial research about all you've mentioned fred's mum as i understand that it will be a big change and i don't want to go into it without thoroughly planning it out first. I'm hoping to start it next year as i want to make sure ive got everything sorted first - exciting but scary too!!

perhaps you could look into any courses that may help you? very exciting :-)

Wild flowers are a lovely idea but a lot of them wilt very quickly when picked.I always think bouquets should smell lovely as well,which is not always the case with cottage garden flowers.Perhaps you could start  small, working part time from home to test the market and not incur big overheads

That sounds a nice idea to test the market but i want it to look professional from the beginning. I want brides to wander through the flowers , smell them and choose the ones they like. I want them to feel that they could trust me 100% to make their wedding flower arrangements look fantastic , and i don't think that flowers in someones back garden would do that. But then again , i may be wrong!!

Brides usually choose their flowers well in advance of the Big Day, so you'd need to be able to provide flowers out of season, whcih could be pretty difficult for the cottagey-type or wild flowers.

but i want it to look professional from the beginning.
I understand that but when I started grooming I wanted to know that I could earn a living doing it the way that I wanted to do it - not the way that the other 9 groomers within 10 miles of me were doing it!  So I started in my 3rd bedroom and used my own (protected) bath.  Within 3 months I had to put a parlour in the garden because I had so much work!  But if it hadn't worked out that way, then I wouldn't have been much out of pocket. :)
Better to grow as the money comes in.;)

I hadn't thought of it like that , I suppose I have an image in my head of how I want it but I could always let the business grow to that image :)

So many businesses start from someone's personal idea/preference and fail because not enough other people agree with their thinking.

My idea was very different from the norm as yours is.  Hope that yours flourishes like mine did but truly worth starting small with few overheads until you know. :)

thank you :)

It really does help to have someones experience of starting a business.

But if you were planning a wedding and were looking for wedding flowers would you be happy using something like this?

Jeangenie - i had thought about that but was thinking along the lines that a high percentage of brides plan a wedding at least a year ahead , so could view the flowers they would like at that time of year and then come and choose the actual ones just before the big day. Failing that , a good portfolio of photos ;)

But if you were planning a wedding and were looking for wedding flowers would you be happy using something like this?
You could do Wedding Exhibitions, have photos of what flowers are in season at each time of the year and some examples of your work, you could show your experience and expertise when talking to potential customers, perhaps even demonstrate your skill.  Then when they needed to choose/book, if you could have a room set aside at home with photos, displays etc. I'm sure that they would be impressed at you trying to keep your overheads down.  Most brides are on a budget these days. :)
I suspect that your wildflower idea might be a novel option but you may have to provide the conventional as well to sustain a profitable business. :)

As someone who has had a business supplying wedding flowers, my first suggestion is that you look into going on a course to see if this is something you can do/ enjoy. I went to my local college but if I had the money I would have loved to have done a Jane Packer or Mcqueens course in London.

I never had a request for wildflowers, most brides look in bridal magazines and then show you what they want. I found the most stressful part was ensuring that the flowers were as fresh as possible and my only worry would be that wildflowers wouldn't last very long, especially in a bouquet.

It is a lovely job, but very stressful, as I think wedding flowers are the second most important part of the wedding day after the dress. You need to give 110% to each job and due to family commitments is why I gave up.

Good luck with your venture.

My daughter has done a couple of Jane Packer days in London, just for her own interest and she can now make a bunch of Tesco flowers look amazing! :)  Brilliant teaching.

> I want brides to wander through the flowers , smell them and choose the ones they like.

just re-read this bit again - are you meaning to grow the flowers too?  If so a lovely idea but fraught wiht even more problems, due to the vagaries of weather, attacks by insects etc.  It would be virtually impossible to guarantee any particular collection of flowers for a specific date when ordered months (or a year) in advance.  Lookf how late spring flowers are this year.

Yes , am wanting to grow the flowers / foliage too. I would make it clear that they would be seasonal and if if anything disasterous happened would have several back up plans.

Luckily flowers seem to like growing for me , and i love growing them and trying different varieties which is why i thought of this initial idea.

> That sounds a nice idea to test the market but i want it to look professional from the beginning. I want brides to wander through the flowers , smell them and choose the ones they like

When I got married, I went to my local florists (a long established shop). They don't have much of a selection in the shop itself, it's more 'daily' flowers, I chose my wedding flowers from a wedding flowers catalogue :)

If you'd had the option of visiting somewhere like i'm planning , would this have appealed to you?

Sorry haven't read all the posts but did you see a similar idea on dream farm the programme? All native flowers they were beatiful. Google it and I'm sure you will find the name of the ladies site.

Hi just googled it and found it , hadn't even heard of the dream farm programme so may watch a bit on i player if i can.

That looks like the sort of thing im thinking about , but hopefully a bit more organised and with a bigger array of flowers :)

See if you can find the programme to watch it as they had a spread in a top bridal mag it looked stunning. Any flowers that were not in season they used a similar in season flower.

I used to do this! I was working with two other ladies who were trained florists, I used to do the business side of things for them, ordering flowers and taking bookings.

I found it very enjoyable and it is interesting trying to work with the families who have ideas regarding exactly what they want. One wedding we did the brides family insisted on cottage garden and countryside flowers (like cowparsley) and the grooms family wanted classical flowers roses etc... We ended up supplying a mixture of the two and after the wedding the grooms father said he was really dreading what we would come up with but having seen it he would recommend us to everyone. The point being everyone has their own ideas and you do have to interpret those ideas and make their dream come true.

Good luck I am sure you will really enjoy it.