Wedding Decorations - Floral - Pricing

[ljsmith001]

Okay.. I have a question for you girls. Am I getting ripped off? Keep reading for further info.

Instead of hiring a florist to do my flowers, I ended up hiring a "decorator." My venue is a large arts center with basically a huge open room with tons of columns. Here are the stats: 10,500 Sq ft with 12 ft ceilings, 1,500 sq ft attached Balcony & outdoor Patio, Ambient sound system ,$2,095. Here is the link it if works: arts center It is the bottom picture, the larger rooom. Anyway - I hired the decorator. She is responsible for taking care of all the centerpeices, all the flowers for the wedding: my bouqet, my bridesmaids bouqets, flowers for the families, bouteneires(sp), etc. She is responsible for lighting up all the columns and covering with fabric. She will be taking care of candles in every single window and throughout the venue on tables. She will be responsible for making and hanging a fabric drape that will seperate our ceremony from the reception area. I didn''t want people to be able to see the reception area and its decorations during the ceremony. She is also ordering us a custom monogrammed aisle runner for the ceremony area and making two huge floral peices for the ceremony area - by our arch. Anyway - my question is this - is all that worth about 4.770 dollars? I just got my final estimate today and that is approx what it is. I have everything broken down item by item (ie: my flowers -red rose bouquet - $180.00 - bridesmaids -$50 a peice) Her fee for getting this all together and being there the entire day is 1,000 dollars? Do you guys think this is fair? Its too late for me to cancel - already paid my $1,000 deposit. Im just trying to make sure I didn''t make an awful idea. I think it will be nice not to have to worry about any of the decorations or flowers and leave it all up to her.

Thoughts?

 

[Gypsy]

Sounds like she is diong a lot of work. Much of it is day of set up (hence the 1K fee for being there... she's not just going to be standing around). I don't know what type of centerpieces you are having, or how many tables, or how many people. Franky, when you started listing all that she was going to do I was expecting a larger bottom line... not that its inexpensive but the fabric draping itself and the lighting and all that are costly in terms of time, she's organizing all the decor, she's dealing with vendors, so... doesn't sound unreasonable to me if you are having a decent amount of guests (and therefore centerpeices). The bouquets sound fairly reasonable. That's about all I can say.

 

[espressa]

I am by no means an expert on flowers or decorations, but I think that whether or not you''re getting a good deal depends largely on the types of flowers you''re having, and also how many centerpieces there will be, among other things. Your venue looks very large (and very nice!) so if you''re filling that entire room with decorations, then I''m thinking that you probably aren''t getting a really bad price from your decorator.

Also, it sounds like your decorator will be setting up quite a lot of things, so I personally don''t think $1000 is outrageous for a setup fee, but it''s quite possible that I''m nuts and everyone else will tell you it is, haha. But when it comes to all of the fees associated with wedding stuff, I try to keep in mind how much *I* would want to be paid to be doing everything that that person is doing for me. For instance, my wedding planner is costing about $3500, which would be crazy to some people, but since it''s a destination wedding (and an elaborate destination wedding at that) sometimes I feel like she deserves to be getting a little more!

My point is, you''re going to pay more money to not have to worry about things and have someone else take care of it all for you. Could you get cheaper elsewhere? Probably, sure. Could you get the same level of service and quality for cheaper elsewhere? I really can''t answer that. I would say that since you already paid the deposit, as long as you like this decorator''s work and can afford her prices, don''t worry about it so much. I''m sure it will turn out absolutely beautiful, and that''s the whole point, right?