How to Choose Your Wedding Florist: What to Ask, What to Look For

Most couples start their florist search the same way: scrolling Instagram, saving images to a Pinterest board, and reaching out to whoever’s work stops them mid-scroll. That’s a reasonable place to start. It is not, on its own, a reasonable place to finish.

A portfolio tells you what a florist can produce when conditions are ideal. It tells you almost nothing about whether they’ll be the right person to trust with your actual wedding day, your actual budget, and your actual venue. Here is what I’d be asking if I were the one doing the choosing.

Look Past the Portfolio

Anyone can curate a feed of their best work. What you want to know is whether that quality is consistent, or whether you’re looking at the best five weddings out of fifty.

Ask to see a recent, real wedding from start to finish, not just the hero shots. A florist confident in their consistency will happily walk you through it. Look for variety too: different venues, different colour palettes, different scales. A portfolio full of near-identical arrangements might mean a florist has one strong idea rather than a genuine design process.

Ask How They Work, Not Just What They Make

The best florists can describe their process as clearly as they can show their results. Ask how a consultation works, how a quote comes together, and how many revisions are included before anything is locked in. Ask who will actually be on-site on your wedding day. Some studios book the work and send a team you’ll never meet; others, including ours, have the lead designer present for every install.

Neither approach is automatically wrong, but you should know which one you’re getting before you sign anything.

Understand What’s Actually Included

This is where most disappointment comes from, and it’s almost always avoidable. A quote can look generous until you discover that vessels, stands, an arch structure, or delivery and pack-down are all separate line items.

Ask directly: is this quote inclusive of GST? Does it include hire items, or are those quoted separately? Is setup and pull-down included, or charged by the hour? A florist who answers these questions plainly, without hedging, is one who runs their business properly. Vagueness at this stage tends to predict vagueness later.

Ask About Sourcing

Where your flowers come from affects both quality and cost. A florist who works with local growers and trusted wholesalers, and who designs around what’s seasonally available, will generally deliver better quality for the same spend than one who tries to force out-of-season or imported stems into every brief.

It’s worth asking what’s in season around your wedding date, and whether your florist is willing to let that guide the palette. The ones who say yes are usually the ones who care more about the result than the request.

Gauge How They Handle Your Brief

A good florist listens before they pitch. If your first conversation is mostly them talking about their own aesthetic rather than asking about yours, that’s worth noting. Florals at their best are a collaboration: your vision, shaped by their expertise.

Pay attention to whether they ask about your venue, your colour preferences, the feeling you want the day to have, and any non-negotiables. A considered designer will ask more questions than they answer in a first consultation.

Check the Logistics Fit

Not every florist travels well, and not every florist wants to. If your venue is remote, or your day involves a ceremony in one location and a reception in another, ask how they’ve handled that before. Coolroom hire, vehicle logistics, and timing between locations all need a confident answer, not an improvised one.

Trust the Contract, Not Just the Conversation

Once you’ve found someone you like, get everything in writing: what’s included, what’s excluded, the payment schedule, the cancellation terms, and what happens if a specific flower variety isn’t available closer to the date. A florist who is happy to put detail into a contract is one who has done this enough times to know exactly what needs protecting, on both sides.

The Short Version

Look past the prettiest photo. Ask about process, inclusions, sourcing, and logistics before you ask about price. The right florist will welcome every one of these questions, because they’ve answered them many times before and know that clarity now means a far better experience later.

If you’re in the process of shortlisting florists and want an honest conversation about whether we’re the right fit for your day, we’d love to hear from you.