The Floral Hustle

  📍 Hello Flower friend. This is Jen and you are listening to the Floral Hustle podcast. I am so excited you are here because I am talking about one of my favorite topics to talk about with flower friends, and that is installations. Installations are blowing up on Instagram, on TikTok, on Pinterest, and in every florist Dream wedding, vision, they wanna be doing all these.

It installations and I wanna talk about three things about installations that can help make them a little bit easier for , a florist. Cuz I've seen a lot of florist struggle. They're, worried, they're not pricing it correctly, it's taking too long for them to price it. They're, they don't know how to do the mechanics for it or they're worried about the structure they're putting their installation on.

Or that really the installation is just going to take forever on design day and they don't know how they're gonna get it all done. So I've ran into those with coaching clients of my, my own. And then I've also ran onto that so many Facebook groups are, people are posting inspiration pictures and they're like, how do I do this?

How do I price this? Like, where do I even start? So I first place to start, in my opinion, is figuring out your found. You need a strong foundation for any floral installation because you need that installation sometimes to be moved depending on what it is, and you need it to be able to be beautiful all day during this event.

So I first look at, am I going to have to make my installation foam free based on weight restrictions or structure restrictions, or can I do it foam free? So I look at that first. , because I think knowing whether you can use flower foam or knowing if you need to go the direction of foam free is kind of the starting point for me.

With flower foam, you can make that ahead of time, which is a big bonus. You can make a lot of foam free things ahead of time as well. But if you're using chicken wire, that could make it more difficult because. Whole installation pre-done doesn't travel very well. So I look at the weight of the structure.

I look at, , the weight that I approximately think that it can hold, how I'm going to attach to the structure, because even that is important. Some structures. Aren't very easy to attach floral foam bricks to. , sometimes there's even shortages. I don't know if you've experienced it, but we literally this past year had it that some weeks you could only buy two floral foam cages at the wholesaler because there's national shortages.

So I think that there, there can be different reasoning and logic. Behind that, but you need to start with that foundation of wondering which direction should you go. Then once you've decided that, , I look at, okay. I want from a timeline perspective, how can I make this, that I have as much of this done as possible for I come into the wedding that day.

I always like to approach, get in your wedding, get outta your wedding so you can enjoy your weekend and so can your staff. So I strategize. Heavily on how to have that insulation done ahead of time. , but first we have to get to pricing it. And one of the biggest things that I see people struggle with is pricing.

They post in the Facebook groups, I have no idea where to even start pricing this, figuring this out. And so I look at my mechanics. So what am I going to be doing? Am I going to be doing flower foam or if I'm going to be doing foam free? And what that foam free is, and I know lots of people have opinions on foam free versus, uh, floral foam right now, and I totally get it and I support whatever choice you you make.

I think that there's a time and the place for both of them. , but I do know that there's also equal alternatives such as fiber, floral, or a lot of the, asum pouch. There's just lots of options. That aren't flower foam that you can use as, , a similar medium to accomplish various things. So not gonna have a big debate there, cuz that could probably be a whole episode.

So going into pricing your installation, I have, , a very easy formula that I use to price out mainly like archways or flat installations or installations that I could figure out. Square footage. And literally that whole formula is figuring out how much does a square foot cost. So I look. , an archway picture that somebody provides me.

And a lot of times the first time I thing I'm going to do is I'm either going to print that photo or I am going to, , go in and screenshot it on my phone. And if I'm doing floral cages, I'm figuring out how many floral cages will I need based on, , how airy or how big, , the installation needs to be.

So if I need, , a. Foot insulation on, on this beam, and then I'm gonna go five feet across. I'm actually drawing that on my structure picture. And if you're handy with Canva, you could actually mock this up. If you have a photo of the structure and you have, similar flower photos that you can cut and paste to give the look and vibe of the installation that you're going towards, then I look at flower count.

So I look. The heaviest and the lightest area, and I usually average it to figure out how many flowers in one square foot of that installation am I going to need. So let's just say in one square foot, there are nine roses, three hyd ranges. Let's just say a third of a bunch of greenery were having, , a p and e or some type of premium bloom.

And so I'm figuring that into my equation. Then I'm going to figure out how much that square foot of insulation cost with all the different, components of it, your markup, your labor, and your supplies, plus that markup. So let's just say for easy math, We have $25 of flowers in it. You have a three times markup or a four times markup.

Let's just say that square foot before your other markups is just in flowers is $100. Cuz you're doing a three or four times markup. So we started at $25 in flowers. We have a hundred dollars in product when we're starting. Then we're gonna add our labor fee 20 to 25%. And then it gets tricky because the, an exact cage doesn't normally fit one square foot.

So I usually take my cage cost and divide that by, if it's filling. About two and a half to three feet. I take my cage costs and of course do my markup and let's just say we end up in the end with our labor and whatever. We'll just use round numbers to make it easy of $150 a square foot or 125, whatever math, makes more sense with what you've priced out.

Then I'm going. Map out and I'm going to include in my proposal. I think it's so important to include this detail on your proposal because I have in the past, especially cuz I specialize in cultural weddings, I've had people change the structure size because the stage needed to change because the height wasn't tall enough.

we couldn't fit everybody under, the MUN up or the hippa or whatever structure it was after we mapped everything out a little bit. Most of the time I see stage changes because the staging company is running into an issue , bringing that much into the venue or the layout didn't work with where walls are positioned or whatever it may be.

So I map out on my proposals that exact measurements that I'm providing because I've had people go and make it a foot taller on two sides where I was putting flowers on and. You need to explain to them that we're adding more flowers because I was at six feet currently, and if you want to keep the same proportion, I am going to have to add a foot of flowers on each side so you're covering your butt, in my opinion, by just including that little detail, because it's so important that you're covering yourself to make sure that.

Expectations are being met with the client, but also that you're getting your fair share and not getting shorted by two feet of flowers, which could be $300, which $300 is impactful money if you're doing a smaller wedding, especially. But it's just fair and good business to make sure that you just have those things in writing in your proposal, because then you're just always.

So I will then take what that square foot is that I've averaged out from the heaviest and the lightest spot, because you, a lot of times people are, are making that kind of airy effect, there's a heavier concentration of blooms and then it trails off. I include that trailing because if you don't, then people are gonna be.

It's not very full down here. Well, I've average, I, I've actually averaged it all out, to make sure that we're covering similar to the look of your inspiration photo. And so then that kind of makes more sense cause I'm averaging everything out internally. They don't need to know that, but you're trying to make it easy math.

So let's say you have five feet across on the top, one and a half feet wide. That you're doing on, let's just say the front of a hookah or a mund up or an arch, then you're coming five feet down, one and a half feet wide. And I actually will even put how wide it is because I don't wanna show up and somebody says, I thought it was gonna be thicker.

You don't wanna be in that situation on a wedding day. So I clarify even how wide the flowers are going to be. I figure out my square foot footage that way, and then I times it by what my average square foot costs easy installation pricing done like I had. Let's just. 10 or 15 square feet and I'm timing it by my $150 a square foot, and then you're not, you know, messing around.

I've actually even seen Flores go in. I went in and counted and there was 350 roses in it. I'm like, that took. A long time, and so save yourself some headache. This is a super easy way to figure out an installation, especially the vertical facing ones so that you're just, you're looking straight at it.

I quote a lot of cultural weddings and I quote a lot of mind up, A lot of hahs, a lot of elaborate stage, and all I do is I just look at the square footage and I put all those details in there. I average it out and I put that pricing. But I think one of my biggest strong points and have actually received feedback from a lot of, the Floris that have freelance for me and a lot of people that I have coached, is that I come into wedding day with, I would say 80 to 90% of my installations completely.

Done. there's a lot of structures with, cultural weddings that you actually, you I've of course, used foam free and used not, but from a time perspective, and I'm reusing my cages after the events so that's less impactful to the environment. If you didn't know that. Although Oasis cages, you can actually save those.

It's amazing. So I've went in and I've pre-made all those cages and I'm gonna actually be sharing some videos on my Instagram page and my YouTube channel about that because it is a game changer to not have to have. Five people come with you on your Saturday, on their Saturday to help set a hundred percent of this up.

I literally have attached garlands to, two by fours of plywood that I've painted green. And I've carried a whole eight foot installation on a board into a wedding before I usually will map out all of my cages, , and have those all prepped for my wedding week. I actually, on Mondays, will go and prepare all those things and put them in a bucket and have them soaking and vase and foam food, food.

And so literally the, it, everything's already the week before the wedding. It is it. So great to be able to go in and you have to fluff. There is definitely some fluffing that you need to do to make it look a little bit airier, plug a little smile X in, or whatever it may be. But having your installations done as much as possible is going to save your brain, your stress, , and the expenditure of labor because you are getting all of that done ahead of time and also not having to stress.

You don't have enough flowers, because guess what? You have 80%, 90% of it made you bring your bucket of blooms for fillers and you are ready to go with having, a stress-free day. Like I am all about making a stress-free day if possible. And there's always gonna be moments where something is different or changes.

I've literally walked into a wedding and the structure. That they were putting together was a new concept. They practiced it once and the structure would, did not look good or it didn't hold. We had to like, there was, there's so many things that have happened cuz I've done 1500 weddings, so I've just, I've seen so many things, but you have to be, when you walk in and there is an issue I've had so.

People that have explained like, I, I can't believe how well you took this, that, that we have to change all these things. It's not helpful to freak out. And one of my biggest resources in my business is my flower friends, my vendor friends, which I consider some of my closest friends and. Freaking out and stressing everybody out when it's alway already.

Weddings are kind of a stressful situation, just isn't helpful and I truly feel it just doesn't even need to happen. You can be grounded. You can come into that, um, scenario going, okay, we're gonna roll with this. This is, I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. So you just sit and pause, okay, how can I make this work with what I have?

And. Then develop a plan, get buy in, and if it's something that I think that the de, the decorator or the planner or whoever is proposing. I will speak up and say, I really worry that that's going to capture the essence of the couple's vision, , because this is their inspiration photo and it really, I think it's going to change the look so you can give feedback that you're worried without having to completely just say, that's a horrible idea.

Because we don't need to say things are horrible on anybody's wedding day because that's, again, just adding stress. So, Those are some different ways that I go about installations to make them a very stress-free process for me, even when I'm doing a foam free, installation, like I've literally wrapped eight foot poles in chicken wire and I've had to wrap.

Three seven of the poles total. So I, I've had to do a lot of foam free chicken wire mechanics as well. also using, you know, different water vessels to create floor installations and things like that. And I, this past weekend walked into one of those situations where we were making a swoosh in a gold, frame that was used for a ceremony backdrop.

That whole structure, I knew the measurements of it. So we had the chicken wire burrito already made already to go, and we walked into that insulation with it pre greened. And a lot of times, if I do, especially pre greening of chicken wire structures, a. I know a lot of people are like, you need to soak the moss.

That makes it so heavy. I literally use a mister on my hose, and then when I go into my installation that day, I have a garden sprayer from a Menards or Home Depot. That literally, I'm just putting water in. If you are a flower food person, you definitely can do that. I have not seen an impactful difference on an installation slash wedding day that it's made a difference to use a more expensive product.

Water just spraying the whole thing down. When you're done with your foam free installation, I actually, even when I do a regular foam installation, I spray everything down because I want it as hydrated as possible for that event. And if it's, especially using hyd ranges, they're thirsty, they drink from their pedals, and it's just a little bit extra moisture to that really makes a difference.

So I hope you enjoyed my three different strategies, behind installations. And please go check us out on Facebook cuz if you have questions about that, join the group, the Floral Hustle Facebook group. It, you can ask me a question about an installation. And I'm like, so happy to help you because I think it's, it's a real opportunity in your business because those.

Types of things to me are really great ways to make money because they are big and impactful. They're not a small centerpiece. It's just a, a big money maker in my opinion, and it has been very impactful in my business. So enjoy your weak flower friend, and 📍 thanks so much for listening.