Allium Floral Design & Event Styling

s together! Coleen

the future. Coleen

n the very peak of our wedding season. We have most of our clients who rescheduled from 2020 and our 2021 clients. We are also navigating a global floral shortage, a labor shortage and a supply shortage. We are all working overtime ++ just to be able to get the current weddings completed to the standard we expect of ourselves. It means that we are left with a very small window of time to both meet with prospective clients and create full proposals for them. I'm the owner of Allium and the only person who meets with our clients. That relationship is really important to me. I want to make sure that the clients are a great fit for us and likewise that we are a great fit for them. We will have a relationship for anywhere from 6 months to a few years. And yes-we have an idea of the budget you'd like to have, but until I meet with you and get a feel for the big picture, I can't say if the budget you'd like to have is a realistic one for what you'd like to accomplish. The internet is a challenge, pinterest, especially. They show gorgeous pictures of lavish arrangements under the headings "budget weddings". But it's not based in reality, especially the current reality for florists, where all of our pricing is currently and is going to continue to increase by as much as 30% over the next year. So, in our consults, I do let clients know if their budget is not in alignment with what their wish list is. It's not about trying to get you to raise your budget so I make more money, it's about helping clients understand what true costs are. We do roughly 150 weddings and events each year. We know what clients are going to be over-the-moon thrilled with the services we offer them. Clients who have an open vision and who trust us with the process, rather than micromanaging every detail are the best fit for what we do. If we aren't a good fit for your needs, we are up front about that. We want a great, comfortable relationship with our clients. And I know that you want the same from your vendors. I'm confident you'll find someone who is a perfect fit for you, and I am so sorry about the delay in getting in to see us. -Sarah

ember last year, three months ago. First, I'm so glad that you thought the flowers were gorgeous. I thought the wedding was beautiful too. Here is the response that I left for your daughter: "Dear Lindsay, I'm so sorry to get this email from you and am happy to help explain to you further how we work. We 100% work as a team. Your wedding was large. It would be impossible to do it solo. I have a group of 20 freelancers who work with me. I always tell our clients that we work as a team. I make it very clear on our website and instagram where you often see people from our team working on projects. I often credit members of our team online who did specific arrangements. I do even occasionally have people who own their own floral businesses in as freelancers. But when they work for me they are doing it under my umbrella and from my space. I am the one who meets with our clients. I design the wedding. I order the flowers. I set the recipes and show the team, often with samples, EXACTLY what I want your wedding to look like. I'm also actually the person who did a portion of the delivery for your wedding that day as well. Since we do multiple weddings in a day, I'm not always the person who even delivers the wedding. Your wedding took 3 people to deliver. I am a little puzzled because the way you are describing this sounds like another florist actually took credit for your full wedding. Like I had passed it along to them at their studio? I've built up a team so that I would never have to do that. Even if I had to because of some crazy circumstance, I would always tell the client that needed to happen. In our case it would be because the studio burned down or there was a death within our immediate team. Something truly tragic would have to happen for us to need to do that. I take a tremendous amount of pride in my work and that of our team's and would never sell to another account like that. If someone tried to tell you otherwise, I would very much like to know who it is, because they are erroneously taking credit for something they did not do." Karen, your daughter's flowers were gorgeous-you even say it here. I've explained fully how we work as a team. Again, no single person could have designed and executed your wedding alone. We need to work with freelancers and employees in order to create a wedding the size of your daughters, any florist would. At no point in any of our conversations did I set any kind of expectation that I would be doing your wedding alone. If someone has taken credit for the wedding that I designed for you and that my team and I executed, I would very much like to know who that is. Otherwise, I'm not sure what more I can say. We all worked hard to make your daughter's wedding gorgeous, and so this additional 1 star review feels especially untimely and hurtful. Sarah

nd am happy to help explain to you further how we work. We 100% work as a team. Your wedding was large. It would be impossible to do it solo. I have a group of 20 freelancers who work with me. I always tell our clients that we work as a team. I make it very clear on our website and instagram where you often see people from our team working on projects. I often credit members of our team online who did specific arrangements. I do even occasionally have people who own their own floral businesses in as freelancers. But when they work for me they are doing it under my umbrella and from my space. I am the one who meets with our clients. I design the wedding. I order the flowers. I set the recipes and show the team, often with samples, EXACTLY what I want your wedding to look like. I'm actually the person who did a portion of the delivery for your wedding that day as well. Since we do multiple weddings in a day, I'm not always the person who even delivers the wedding. Your wedding actually took 3 people to deliver because of its size. I am a little puzzled because the way you are describing this sounds like another florist actually took credit for your full wedding. Like I had passed it along to them at their studio? I've built up a team so that I would never have to do that. Even if I had because of some crazy circumstance, I would always tell the client that needed to happen. In our case it would be because the studio burned down or there was a death within our immediate team. Something truly tragic would have to happen for us to need to do that. I take a tremendous amount of pride in my work and that of our team's and would never sell to another account like that. If someone tried to tell you otherwise, I would very much like to know who it is, because they are erroneously taking credit for something they did not do. As for your concern about not being featured on our social media, I do some of my social media, but I also have someone who I have hired to do social media. She directly contacts photographers (because they are the ones who own the rights to your images) to get the entire gallery from a wedding and painstakingly goes through hundreds of images to find what she wants to use. From there she creates a blog post and uses images from that to post on social media. I'm copying her on here to see if perhaps your photographer didn't respond to her when she asked for.your gallery. Sadly, even if you sent images to us, we cannot use them. Your photographer has to be the one to grant permission and send them over. I know I wanted to use your images for sure because we had a great before/after picture talking about how important pinspotting is. She may have saved that for a specific blog post just on that. She creates a calendar and works pretty far out with it. For now, if you want more social media, I would love to see your gorgeous wedding featured on Adore Weddings LV. You can go right to the top and click on the button for submissions. You fill out some information and we get to tell your story. Again, we need the gallery and permission from your photographer because they own the rights to your images. Hopefully this helps to clarify how we work, and again, if you were told otherwise, I'd be very interested in hearing who might be saying that. And please do fill out the submission for adoreweddingslv.com. Your wedding would be amazing on there!!! Warm regards, Sarah