ATTN: Florists & Planners - Do you offer "staying through the ceremony" to transfer items to the reception?

This is such a great question ​@Elizabeth Gaines! It’s such a unique challenge depending on the team, timeline, and install. I’ve heard this handled in a few different ways like you mentioned above. Some include it as an add-on, others loop in the planner entirely. It’ll be really helpful to see what other think.

​@Elizabeth Gaines - When I did event design and planning I moved the pieces if I had intended them to be repurposed. I didn’t count on the florist to do it since they set up earlier in the day and came back at the end to tear down. However, I worked closely with the same florist every time and I knew how to handle the pieces. I’m not sure if that helps but I thought I would offer my past experience. 

As a florist myself, I used to offer it with every wedding we serviced until it became too much and the labor costs racked up fast after one busy season. I now offer it on a case by case basis. The deciding factor for me is:

#1 the venue logistics - if the venues are too hard labor-wise and nearly impossible it’s a hard pass for me now.

#2 - what type of flowers/structures are we moving? I no longer move arches/larger floral installations due to the logistics, weight and the short amount of time to move items before reception starts.

#3 - If the client is okay paying my hefty repurposing fee for smaller items, usually myself, or team will stay through the ceremony and move items. After talking with several, several planners in our area I’ve realized I am one of the very few florist that will move items (which tells me, no one offers that anymore). 

I think you need it to make sense for you, your team, the venue logistics and just stay strong to your policies. Or charge a lovely little fee because it’s NOT easy to stay through the ceremony waiting on photographers and moving items where flowers shift, fall out and look like crap once their moved. Hope this helps. 

Best of luck!!