We are so happy to meet with you and talk about your wedding or special event! Here’s a look at the process we use. For even more information, please see our FAQs as well!
INSPIRATION: It all starts with gorgeous images. We encourage our clients to send over pictures or pinterest boards that evoke the feel of what they would like to create, even a few images are helpful! Don’t know where to start? That’s okay too. We can always talk you through some ideas and look at images together.
SCHEDULE A CONSULT: Please send us an email at inquiry@alliumfloral.com and include your event date, location, and inspiration pictures. From there we will schedule a time for you to meet us at our studio (if you are planning from outside the Lehigh Valley area or would prefer, we can set up a phone call or videochat with you). Please note: You must have your venue booked in order to schedule a consult with us.
BEFORE THE CONSULT: We ask our couples to fill out a brief online questionnaire that outlines the details of your needs, wedding party size, locations, etc. This helps us to quickly create a thorough proposal for you, sometimes as soon as the end of our consult.
THE INITIAL CONSULT: Consults with Allium founder and lead designer, Sarah Petryk typically take about an hour. Sarah is a former event planner, so she asks all kinds of planning as well as design questions. We really want to be prepared for every possible scenario at your event.
OUR PROPOSAL (no rings involved in this one though!): Since we have your inspiration pictures and details prior to meeting we are typically able to get you a detailed, line-itemized proposal pretty quickly, often within the day we meet and are always happy to answer any questions you might have as you go through it.
Please keep in mind: we budget about 10 hours of planning and administrative time per client prior to the wedding. Excess meetings/planning time may be subject to additional design fees. You may have some questions about design or your wedding before your 8-week consult, feel free to email those to us!
From Monday to Friday we are typically able to get back to our clients within 24 hours. Over the weekend, while delivering weddings, it may take an extra day. If you don’t hear from us within 48 hours though, please resend if you didn’t get a response. We want to make sure we got your email!
NEXT STEPS – OPTIONS AND EDITS: Our proposal will feature the items we talked about in our initial consult, but will also include a category called “Possibilities”. Some of our couples like to DIY, and we find it helpful to price out styling and décor options to give you an opportunity to rent items at a fraction of the cost of purchasing them.
We typically do one round of edits from the initial proposal. From there, we’ll meet 8 weeks out from the wedding to review everything in great detail before placing your floral orders. Since it is unlikely that you’ll know your timeline or table count at this meeting, we will also touch base over via email about 3 weeks before the wedding to finalize these details.
SECURE YOUR DATE: We encourage you to make your first payment (25% of your total cost, or $500; whichever is greater) promptly after receiving the proposal, as this secures us working together for your date. You can change any aspect of your wedding up until 1 month before, so you don’t need to worry about having the entire proposal finalized when make the first payment. From there, 50% of the total is due 1 month prior to the wedding and the remainder is due two weeks prior to the wedding. Unless we have made billing arrangements prior to the event, payment for non-wedding events are due the day of delivery. We CANNOT deliver any florals without payment in full.
We hope this helps give you a look into what you can expect when working with us! For more details, please be sure to read our FAQs or feel free to contact us with any other questions you may have.