So you’re getting married this year!

Congratulations this is the year or maybe even the month you have been waiting for. As the ‘days to go’ countdown gradually becomes less and your big day approaches, you may be filled with a daunting sensation, mixed with panic and stomach-churning excitement?! Whether you have been engaged for years or only a couple of months, the final few stages of planning a wedding and dealing with the trials and tribulations that come with it can be a little overwhelming. Some of you will have had your dream wedding planned to the minutest detail from being little, whilst others will have a whole mixture of ideas and some of you still won’t know exactly what it is you are looking for but know exactly what you don’t want. However, one thing you will all have in common is this:

This one day is when everything is about you and your special one.

There we said it! It is the one day when you don’t have make everyone else happy, to please the one awkward family member or dear friend that doesn’t understand that you aren’t having children at the wedding! If we can give you one piece of advice it would be this: plan the wedding you both want, it is a day purely about you as a couple, you will be lost in the beautiful romance that you have created together and that reflects who you both are. All the stresses and panics you had trying to please everyone else will all just seem like a distant memory, and totally irrelevant. So don’t do it to yourselves, enjoy the planning process embrace all the decisions and feel the satisfaction when you can tick off your to-do list with a glass of bubbles in your hand!

This is where we come in! We believe in making wedding flower planing as stress-free and enjoyable as possible. We are always there to advise, share our knowledge and design skills and be on hand for those inevitable last minute wobbles!

Every wedding is totally different and this is something we thrive on. We love hearing your proposal tales and about your very own love story, through to your ideas and plans for making your big day really reflect who you are as couple. We capture this vision and take you both on a floral journey, quiet literally turning your floral fantasies into a reality.

We have put together a little timeline which shows the experience each of our Sarah Harper Flowers couples go on with us:

1. Get in touch!

You can contact us by phone, email or our form on the website. You will then be required to fill in one of our enquiry forms, this helps us to get a better feel of what service you will be requiring from us, but if you don’t have all the answers at this stage there is no panic.

We love it if you have come to us from a personal recommendation or have already seen our work first hand, you will be aware of the style and detail we put into our work – all our florals really are made with love! To keep up to date with our current work do check out our social media platforms.

2. Personal Face to Face Consultation

Choosing the right florist for your wedding is a big thing and we like to make the initial consultation personal and face to face. It gives us both a way of meeting each other in an informal setting to see if we are a good match for each other. We think it also helps if you can put a face to a name. We generally hold our meetings in Oxford but other arrangements can be made. We do understand that sometimes it isn’t possible to meet face to face (we have clients in Australia and America!) so an alternative Skype call can be arranged as required.

During the consultation we want to hear as much about you both as a couple and your wedding plans as possible. We go through all the details starting with logistics as well as offering our advise on style and design. We welcome as many questions as you have, so it is always a good idea to bring a note book to jot anything down. We will also share with you other suppliers in the industry who we highly recommend – a lot of our couples find this information invaluable.

3. Proposal & Quote

Once we have had your consultation we go away and compose your proposal. The proposal will often have a few options for each area, for example we will give you a variety of table centre piece ideas with varying budgets. All of our proposals are itemised so you can see exactly how much each area is going to cost. Along with the proposal we will send you over a file (usually by WeTransfer) which contains images of previous work that we feel is relevant to the style and feel you are trying to achieve. Please note all our work is bespoke to our individual clients so we won’t simply recreate what we have done previously. From the date you receive the quote we will hold your chosen wedding date for 7 days before releasing it for other potential clients. We feel this gives you time to make sure you are choosing the right florist for you.

4. Deposit 

Once you have confirmed that you would like to go ahead and use us as your wedding florist we will require a small non-refundable deposit. This ensures that we keep your date free.

5. Site Visit 

We offer all our clients a site visit whether this is to a venue we are familiar with or a totally new venue. Our clients find this valuable as they feel it really helps them visualise how everything will look. It allows us to take important measurements and look at logistics to make sure set up and delivery run smoothly on the big day.

6. Final Consultation 

This will be our last meeting before we see you on the morning of your wedding. We go through everything and making final decisions and going through all the timings. This usually happens 1 or 2 months prior to your wedding day.

7. Your BIG DAY 

The excitement of the build up is finally here! We will be there on the morning to drop off your bridal/groom party flowers, set up your ceremony and decorate your venue, as per our previously arranged timetable.

8. Keep in Touch 

Over the time it takes to help with planning your wedding flowers we get close to our clients and we love to hear from you after. We love seeing photographs from your special day and seeing how everything we spoke about just came together perfectly!

We hope you have found this blog useful and an insight into how we work with our clients here at SHF. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

xx

Photography Credits

Image 2,3 & 7 Ferri Photography

Image 8 Naomi Kenton Photography

love, sarah x