Frequently Asked Questions
At the very beginning
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As we are a small studio that offers our couples a boutique experience we recommend 12 months out, or for our planning services 12-18 months. This allows us to secure your dream floral team, and across styling & hire we can secure key hire items for you that book out quite far in advance. To ensure we keep a high quality of product offering we cap our floral services to a maximum amount per weekend, so ideally securing your services with us 12 - 18 months out allows us to avoid disappointment, especially across our busiest times. That doesn’t mean to say that we aren’t able to assist with shorter times frames – just email us to find out.
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If you have hired items from our inventory and paid for setup & packdown, we will arrange our own staff to pack those items up and return them to the warehouse. You only need to be there (or someone on your behalf) if you have personal items to pick up from the venue, or if you would like to keep your wedding flowers. Centrepieces and arbour flowers especially are worth keeping or gifting to guests, as they can stay beautiful and fresh for a day or two after the wedding when kept in water.
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Sometimes. Mostly we set up the morning of the wedding so that we can make sure everything is in place before guests arrive – and especially with our floral components, it’s important that these are delivered fresh. However we can set up the day before in special circumstances, provided you have permission from your venue.
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Yes, a lot of venues prefer midnight packdowns, especially if they are a busy venue with weddings booked across multiple days. This makes it easier for them to get the space ready for the next day. And yes we can absolutely cater for this! We just charge an after hours bump out fee to cover our staff getting there on the night.
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We are mindful of the floral industry's impact on the environment. We strive to use local and in-season blooms as often as possible to help support our local farmers and lower our carbon footprint; however, we primarily use imported florals with our fresh flowers.
We seperate green waste from soft plastics and dispose of them thoughtfully.
We use candle sand which is recycled after every wedding cutting down the wastage of standard wax candles.
Our vases and pots are multi - use and we use designs that are foam free where possible.
Florals
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Yes, we usually make our wedding florals in advance of the wedding day – this give the blooms the chance to come to life and look their very best for your day. We also like to arrange bridal florals the day before so that we can deliver them to you first thing on your wedding morning, so that they are there for photos as you are getting ready. And it honestly doesn’t make a difference to the life of the flowers – when they are stored correctly in specialised refrigerators like the ones we use, your flowers will come out fresh and ready for their big moment, and can even last a few days after your wedding if kept in water. The product we use is of the highest quality, sourced from trusted growers, so we can be confident in how they will perform in different conditions and seasons.
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Sorry, but no. Some couples might convince themselves they can cut costs by sourcing flowers themselves, but it just wouldn’t be worth it! If you want your flowers to have the Couture Botanical signature look, we will need to use the tried and true, premium quality product that we source from our growers, which has been correctly stored and prepared so that it will last perfectly.
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Absolutely we LOVE working with other talented stylists and do so regularly. We originally added our styling services to our business profile to ensure that the decorative pieces were as beautiful as the florals we created. We of course love the opportunity to provide that consistency across the board in addition to reducing the amount of vendors you need to liaise with, so combining our Couture Botanical pieces with our florals has been designed to be beneficial across all aspects – not to mention being financially beneficial.
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Couture Botanical have a minimum spend of $6,000 for our full service weddings and $2500 for smaller intimate weddings and elopements. This does NOT include delivery or backdown and set up costs are dependant on the size of your wedding.
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Unfortunately no. We do not work with other florists/family/friends for our weddings. We pride ourselves on providing premium quality florals. To protect the Couture Botanical brand and to ensure that all florals are harmonious throughout we must do all florals on your wedding day.
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If you like our style and would like to book our creativity all we ask you to do is to pay a 30% booking fee and sign your contract and we’re exclusively yours. The remaining balance of your invoice can be paid in two equal instalments. Our booking fee is non-refundable and is a retainer of our services.
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Each wedding is unique, but a good rule of thumb is that you should allocate about 15% of your overall wedding budget to florals. If you are looking for very lush, elaborate floral designs you should plan on closer to 20%-25% of your overall budget.
We understand budgeting for a wedding can be tricky to navigate and florals are a luxury item so come with an associated cost. We explain these costs in our blog, here is the link for some further reading
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Absolutely and we strongly encourage this but there are some exceptions to the rule.
Repurposing will depend on the size of the wedding, the time frame, the floral arrangements (if they are of considerable size), and weather conditions. This is specific to each wedding as no two weddings are the same. Please mention that you want to discuss repurposing your ceremony flowers when enquiring.
Socials
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We are so glad you love engaging with what we’re up to, and seeing the finished product on the day. We absolutely try our best to show glimpses of our brides’ floral preparations and wedding setups, because we know how exciting it can be. However we simply can’t guarantee that certain parts of your day will ‘feature’ on our stories, because we work in a busy industry and sometimes it’s just not possible. Posting is at the discretion of staff on the day.
If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to ask we are here to help.