Melanie Benson Floral Design

It seems funny to think that a venue can affect your flower budget, but its true. Time and distance have the most effect. For example a wedding we did recently we had to unload the van a good 200 yards from the set up site. We probably made 50 trips back and forth from the van to the dinning room taking 2 people 2 hours just to get all the flowers inside. Hotels have staff and a loading dock and a cart, but you end up winding around the back alleys and the dockmaster gets impatient when you stay to long at the dock. So after we finish unloading we have to move the van to a garage and pay a for the hours the van will spend there. Do you see what I mean?

Time, all venues have a rental period and brides forget that it takes time to set up a wedding. Of course the set up time varies but the average is about 2 hours with 2 people. So lets say the bride has rented the venue from 3pm to 11pm with the ceremony at 5pm. Guests will start arriving at 4 so that gives us only an hour to set up. The bride will have to either rent more time for us or we will need more staff. If we hire more staff for the set up we will need to give them at least 4 hours of work to make it worth their  while.

We have a venue we love but everything  has to be taken through the kitchen. Or the venue where everything has to be hauled down a dirt lane to the water. We love these palces but it does take time.