Sunday night after a Saturday of consultations
On Saturday, you meet three couples. Each wants something different: a bridal bouquet in soft peach with garden roses, five bridesmaids' posies, buttonholes and corsages, pedestal arrangements for the ceremony, table centres for twelve tables, a flower arch.
On Sunday night, you sit down with a spreadsheet to price them. Each item needs its flowers costed, sundries added, labour estimated, and delivery and set-up worked out. The first couple is quick. The second wants three options at different budgets. The third wants the arch priced both hired and bought.
By the time the quotes go out on Wednesday, one couple has already booked another florist who replied on Monday.
Why wedding quotes eat evenings
Every wedding is custom, but the items repeat. A bridal bouquet, a buttonhole and a table centre are always roughly similar in structure. Without a library of standard items with their recipes, each quote starts from scratch.
Stem prices change through the year, and seasonal flowers differ. Spreadsheets that were accurate in spring are out of date by autumn, so every quote needs price checking.
Couples want options and changes. Each revision, 'what if we drop two bridesmaids and add candles', means reworking the spreadsheet and resending a new version, with the risk that the old and new get confused.
What slow quoting costs
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Quotes built from scratch | Evenings and weekends lost to spreadsheets |
| Slow response to couples | Bookings lost to faster florists |
| Out-of-date stem prices | Weddings priced below cost |
| Revisions by hand | Confusion between quote versions |
| Inconsistent labour pricing | Some items quoted too cheaply |
Weddings are often the most profitable work a florist does, and quoting speed is part of winning them.
There is a pricing risk hidden in the spreadsheet too. A quote written in January for a September wedding uses January prices for flowers that will be bought in late summer, and the peony the couple fell in love with may be out of season by then. Unless the quote says clearly which prices it assumes and for how long, the gap lands on you.
Consultation notes are the other weak link. The details that matter for pricing, such as the number of guests, the venue's access rules, whether the ceremony flowers move to the reception and whether the couple wants to keep the vases, are spoken in the consultation and written in a notebook. When the quote is written days later, some of them are forgotten, and the price reflects a simpler wedding than the one the couple described.
The wedding quote tool we build
- A library of your standard wedding items (bridal bouquet, bridesmaid posy, buttonhole, corsage, pedestal, table centre, arch and so on), each with a default recipe of stems, sundries and labour time.
- During the consultation, you add items to the couple's quote on a tablet, adjusting flowers and colours, and the price updates as you go.
- Stem costs come from a price list you update, by season if you want, so quotes use current prices.
- Your pricing rules, such as markup on flowers, labour rate, delivery by distance and set-up time, are applied automatically.
- Options at different budgets can be built in one quote, and the couple sees them side by side.
- The quote is sent as a clear document or link with photos from your portfolio and mood board, with version numbers so revisions are easy to follow.
Many florists use wedding software already. If yours covers quoting and the issue is setting up items and recipes, we help with that rather than building something new.
Quotes out by Monday
The couple leaves the consultation with a quote in their inbox that evening, or the next morning after a check. Revisions take minutes. Prices reflect current stem costs.
- Standard items with recipes, reused across weddings
- Quotes built during the consultation
- Current stem prices and consistent labour costs
- Versioned revisions with no confusion
Do wedding quotes take up your evenings?
- Wedding quotes are built in spreadsheets after consultations.
- Couples wait days for a quote.
- Stem prices in your quotes are often out of date.
- Revisions mean reworking a spreadsheet each time.
- You have lost bookings to faster florists.