Ceremony
Arbour or backdrop florals, aisle arrangements and the signing table. The highest return in the wedding, because this is the backdrop to the vows and to most of the formal photography.
Florals
Wedding Florals and Styling
Flowers and styling should be one decision, not two suppliers working from separate mood boards. Shabz is a stylist rather than a florist, and coordinates florals through florists chosen for the direction your wedding actually needs.
Florals are coordinated within styling, from $5,000 for weddings and from $1,200 for events.
Stylist, Not Florist, and Why That Helps
Being clear about this, because the industry blurs it.
Shabz does not grow, condition or arrange flowers. He is a stylist. Florals are designed and produced by florists, briefed by Shabz and integrated into the room so the flowers and everything around them read as one decision.
This is a genuine advantage rather than a limitation. Every florist has a house style, and it is usually visible from across a room. Some are loose and garden led, some are architectural and structured, some work in dense classical arrangements. A florist will produce their style beautifully, which is exactly what you want if their style is your style.
Coordinating across several florists means the choice is made the other way around. The direction for your wedding is set first, and then the work goes to the florist whose strengths match it. A structured, modern wedding and a loose, seasonal garden wedding should not go to the same florist just because one supplier happens to be on a preferred list.
It also stops the most common failure, where florals and styling are booked separately and arrive as two different weddings in one room. The palette is off by a shade, the arrangement scale does not suit the tables, or the ceremony florals do not relate to the reception. When one person briefs both, that does not happen.
What Gets Considered
The decisions that make florals work in a room.
- Season
- The single biggest driver of both cost and quality. Flowers in season in New South Wales are cheaper, better conditioned and last longer through a long reception. Insisting on a variety out of season means paying a premium for a flower that will look worse by nine o clock.
- Scale against the room
- Arrangements are specified against ceiling height, table size and the distance guests sit at. The same centrepiece that is generous on a round table of eight can look mean on a long table of twenty.
- Sight lines
- Centrepieces either sit low enough to talk across or lift clear above the sight line. Anything between those two heights divides a table for the whole reception.
- Longevity through the day
- Flowers that go in at eight in the morning need to still look right at ten at night, often under warm lighting in a room full of people. Some varieties simply do not, and it is better to know that at the brief.
- Integration with everything else
- Florals sit against linen, glassware, candles, lighting and the venue itself. Choosing them in isolation is how a palette ends up almost but not quite right.
Where Florals Go
And which of these earn their cost.
Bridal Table
In the sight line of the room all night and in more photographs than any other surface. Usually where floral investment is concentrated after the ceremony.
Guest Tables
Where the volume is, so where cost scales fastest with guest count. Consistency and controlled height matter more here than complexity, which is also the cheaper way to do it well.
Feature Installations
Suspended arrangements, greenery backdrops, entry and cake florals. Striking and the most expensive per stem, so worth choosing one rather than several.
Common Questions
No. Shabz is an event and wedding stylist. Florals are coordinated through florists selected for your direction and briefed by Shabz, then integrated with the rest of the styling. He does not arrange flowers himself and does not claim to.
Yes, and it is common where a couple already has someone they love or a family connection. Shabz will brief them on the direction, the scale and the palette so the florals sit inside the wider styling rather than beside it.
Faux and preserved elements can be sourced through the supplier network where they genuinely suit, for example in installations that need to survive a long hot day or a difficult install. Shabz does not hold stock of them. How hire works.
It varies far too much to give a percentage honestly, since it depends on guest count, how many feature installations there are and whether the varieties chosen are in season. What Shabz will do is show florals as their own line in the quote, so you can see the number and adjust it rather than have it buried in a total.
That is worth deciding in advance rather than at midnight. Arrangements can be given to guests, sent home with family or, where they are hired structures, returned with the rest of the hire. It goes into the run sheet either way.
Let's Create Something Beautiful
Tell Shabz about your event and a considered response follows within 24 to 48 hours.
Prefer to talk it through?
02 9191 7381