SAY HELLO TO CONE FLOWER DESIGNS
By Courtney Zuber
I’m Courtney, the owner and lead designer. I graduated from Texas A&M in 2018 (whoop!) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Horticulture with a focus in floral design and a minor in Recreational, Park, and Tourism Sciences. I also was able to obtain my Professional Event Management Certification.
Cone Flower Designs was established in 2018 after I graduated from college. Since then I have been a part of almost 50 different events! I wanted to create a full service floral company for brides to have a one stop shop for all things floral related. I have a deep passion for bringing floral visions to life, so after interning and working at several floral companies I decided to take a leap of faith and go all in by starting my own floral business. Working to create someone’s dream in real life is what I love to do. Another aspect I work towards is educating clients about the floral industry and what exactly goes into each design. I offer alternative flower choices that work within each clients budget as well as tips and tricks to get the most out of a floral budget.
THE CONE FLOWER STYLE
How would you describe your design style? (e.g. traditional, modern, rustic, organic) – This is a question I’m still figuring out! I feel that our style at Cone Flower Designs is truly different for each client. We love our clean, crisp look but if a client wants wild or organic style then we can do it! We love to try new designs and go outside the box.
Based on my wedding style and budget, what set of floral arrangements would I need? – You typically need bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, flower girl petals, arch piece or statement pieces for stands during the ceremony, some brides want aisle markers for the ceremony too. For the reception, we typically do garlands, centerpieces, cocktail pieces, accent pieces around the venue to spice things up. It truly depends on the venue and how big the wedding is!
SEASONAL FLORAL
Which flowers would you recommend based on the time of year/season, color palette, and budget? – A majority of the flowers people think are in season we can actually get all year long. Not all of them but most. When we’re making a proposal we recommend the flowers that go best with the client’s colors and budget. For example, if a bride had a low budget we probably wouldn’t suggest using peonies throughout the entire wedding. We would suggest to use those few peonies for the bridal bouquet since it’s photographed the most during a wedding! So, you can still get that special flower and stay in budget!
Which flowers can be substituted to better fit my budget? – Carnations and mums are some of my favorite substitution flowers because they come in so many colors and are very pretty! Carnations are making a comeback and we’re here for it! Haha
If I give you a picture of a bouquet and/or centerpiece that I like, can you recreate it? – Absolutely! We can recreate it to the best of our ability depending on if we have to sub flowers or anything like that. We like to take inspiration photos and put a little twist on it to make it more meaningful to our couples.
FLORAL BUDGET
Floral budget really depends on how many people you have in your bridal party, table count, etc. I would always suggest to budget higher when dividing your budget up. If you think $2,000 would be a good budget I would double it just to be sure! * Keep in mind when setting a budget to include tax in it. We have a lot of brides that inquire and we’re able to stay in budget then tax is added in. It’s something to remember with every vendor!
Do you require a minimum floral budget? -We don’t have a set minimum because every bride’s budget is different. As long as you work with us then we’ll work with you!
Can you work with my budget? – We work with all budgets as long as you’re willing to have an open mind!
TIPS AND TRICKS
What recommendations can you give me to maximize my budget? – I always suggest repurposing any ceremony pieces to the reception. For example, if you have arch pieces they can be cut off and moved to the reception to sit on the sweetheart table, etc. Repurpose the bridesmaids and bridal bouquet as centerpieces. Use aisle markers as accent pieces around the reception or even to make a garland on the head table. There’s many ways to really maximize your budget!
Do you offer specific packages or is everything customized? – We have a branch of our company called Simplee Cone that has 8 different predesigned collections to choose from. There’s also an option where you can tell us your colors and we take it from there! Cone Flower Designs doesn’t have specific packages because everything is completely customized to what the client wants!
Created in 2020, Simplee Cone was designed to make ordering flowers for your wedding or event simple. You need flowers but don’t need a full service florist? Want to DIY your own centerpieces but want fresh flowers still? This is where you need to be! How it works is you’ll browse our collections and find what works best for your event and order straight from our website.
Once you’ve added all of your flowers to your shopping cart, you’ll select your delivery or pick-up date in the shipping section and then check out as usual. It’s as easy as that! You can mix and match across as many different collections as you would like.
There is a $450 minimum order before delivery cost but after a few bouquets and boutonnieres are added you’re good to go.
LOGISTICS
How do you price your floral arrangements? – Pricing depends on flower choices mainly plus the labor and material cost.
How long do you need to set up? – Set up time depends on what all needs to be done on site. If we’re just delivering and placing the centerpieces, attaching the arch, and everything is done prior then we normally plan for an hour or so. If we have to do on site set up then we’ll normally plan for 2-4 hours depending on what all we have to do.
We try to arrive prior to the photographer arriving so the venue can be set and ready for them to start taking detailed shots, and we really try our best to get in and out in a timely manner since there’s so many moving parts. We want the vendors that we’re working with to have enough time to do their jobs too without us being in the way. Sometimes depending on the weather we’ll have to wait to set things outside if it’s too hot. If that’s the case then one of our team members we’ll wait and set it or the coordinator will do it. This is a case-by-case basis because it depends on what needs to be set up.
Is there an extra fee if I need you to stay throughout the ceremony to move arrangements to the reception site? – There is an extra fee for this. It depends on what all we have to do.
WHEN TO BOOK CONE FLOWER DESIGNS
*If someone knows they want to work with us then I highly recommend reaching out and getting us booked ASAP!! The year 2020 is the combination of 2019 and 2020. Because of the pandemic it’s pushed a lot of 2019 brides to 2020 so we have double the amount of brides wanting to book us for services.
I strive to make each wedding and event unique. I am so excited to make that happen for you! Please email me if you have any floral questions, or would like to check out availability!
Email: courtney@coneflowerdesigns.com
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