What It’s Like to Work With Us

We are so excited to be in the thick of wedding season, and working with more engaged couples than ever! Since we are getting lots of inquiries for next year, I wanted to share a quick look at what it’s like to work with us. We know that most engaged couples are shopping for wedding vendors for the first time, and it’s hard to know what to expect. Additionally, not every business is focused on YOUR experience as a client! So, today we’ll walk through what it looks like to work with us, and how we center our couples in everything we do.

with every kind of bloom. No matter what your event calls for, when you work with us, you'll have an expert floral designer at your side who can make it possible. You can read more about me here.

I love providing a design experience that elevates your ideas, gives you confidence that everything will go smoothly, and provides beautiful, breathtaking transformations that will give you and your guests an experience they will never forget. 

I've been married to my bestie for 12 (!) years now, and we do almost everything together. The man has moved to Africa for me (twice), learned trumpet so he could join our rowdy brass band, and always washes the dishes. (My least favorite chore.) If that's not true love, I don't know what is!

Who We Love to Work With

Our favorite couples are kind, fun, and creative people who have a vision, and just need help making it happen. In our business, we focus more on quality over quantity, which means that we do not accept every wedding that comes our way. Instead, we focus on making magic for creative, vibrant couples who are excited about their wedding ideas and who LOVE flowers! 

Every wedding presents an opportunity for creative partnership. We work closely with couples and their planners for months and sometimes years to make absolute magic happen. We genuinely adore our couples and bend over backwards for them frequently, because of the trust and relationship that we build over time. However, this level of service would not be possible if we were trying to do a million events per year. So, our initial inquiry form is the best way to understand more about your wedding and whether we are a good fit. We ask a bunch of questions, because it really helps us understand what you are looking for and whether we are the right florist for you! We don’t want to waste your time with the next steps if we’re not aligned to begin with.

Our Booking Process

Our inquiry form is always the first step to work with us. Once you submit an inquiry, we typically have an initial meet-and-greet chat, where we just talk for a few minutes about your vision and get to know each other. This is not a high pressure sales meeting. We do not even get into the details of the flowers! This is literally a quick way to get to know each other, suss each other out, and figure out how we want to move forward. It also helps me understand your wildest dreams and start brainstorming how I can help make your wedding the special, perfect day it should be. It’s not scary at all, and we usually laugh a lot!

After this meeting, couples are usually ready to commit to working together, so a small initial deposit is all that you need to hold your date. It’s really easy and chill. Here is what some of my couples had to say about the initial chat we did:

• “Carolyn was SO WONDERFUL to work with! We had such a lovely video-chat to go over what I had envisioned for my ceremony that immediately put me at ease on what to expect for my big day.”
• “Carolyn asked such great questions to gain an understanding of my style and vision, and she made helpful recommendations and suggestions along the way.”
• “During our very first meeting she asked thoughtful questions to get to know my partner and I and help us shape our vision for the wedding - it felt like chatting with a friend.”

Sounds fun, right? And if we’re not an amazing fit, that’s totally okay, too. Part of being a good wedding vendor is that we always try to refer out to another florist who might be a better fit.

Our Creative Process

Once our couples commit to working with us, we get into all of the really fun and creative processes! As your creative partner, we are here to elevate your ideas, make them better, and figure out how to make them happen. We ask you to fill out a very detailed design questionnaire, which includes everything from making sure we have the correct details, to looking at inspiration images and key moments during your wedding. We absolutely love hearing your ideas – the wilder, the better – and we provide helpful suggestions and guidance throughout the creative planning process, so that you feel at ease about knowing what to expect, and have confidence that everything will go smoothly.

Once we have all of your info, we go back into our creative mode and help craft your wedding vision into a real-life design concept. With all of these ideas documented, we will schedule another design presentation with you (and usually, your wedding planner). During this meeting, we present your wedding concept and visuals, and we again talk through all of the creative ideas and touchpoints for your wedding. We believe that YOU are the dreamer – we are just here to support those dreams and make them a reality! So we talk about edits, tweaks, and anything else that needs to change before we develop your customized floral proposal.

Here is what some of our clients had to say about our creative work together:

• “I let Carolyn take creative freedom with what & how she pulled together; providing her with the color palette & a few other details to help guide the way. The bouquet, flower cuff and boutonnieres she created were exquisite.”

•  “I only had a few specific flowers and colors in mind and let her take the creative reigns otherwise, which is definitely the way to go. The palette alone was amazing and exciting! And what she created for my flower crown and bouquet was absolutely phenomenal and breathtaking.”

Once the design is solidified, we have everything we need to develop your custom design proposal, pricing, and logistics. This is where my past life as a project manager kicks in – I put everything into our project management software, build GANTT charts, figure out staffing, build spreadsheets for your flower orders... This is all the back-end stuff that you won’t see, but we are organized as hell over here! There is no way to pull off incredible wedding designs without having a tight team and strong leadership. So, we build all of that out on our end, and then present you with your proposal, contract, payment plan, and all your design assets. Once this is solidified, you are ready to sit back and relax! All you have left to do is enjoy your engagement.

The In-Between Times

So, you might be wondering…what happens between when we finalize all that stuff, to my actual wedding day? There are a few things that might happen in the in-between times. Behind the scenes, we are hard at work getting everything ordered, organized, staffed, and planned for. But you should know that we have also some tricks up our sleeves that we like to use to surprise and delight our clients. (If you book with us, you will definitely find out what those surprises are!)

We always check in periodically, just to see how you’re doing. Maybe you need help with another vendor referral? Maybe something has changed? We are always here to support you and make sure you are getting what you need! I love to communicate with my couples frequently and openly so they have a fun, easy experience working together and are confident that their wedding will be a success.

Here is what some of our couples had to say about that:

• “Carolyn was a dream to work with…There was excellent communication the whole time, so by the time my wedding came, I had so much confidence about everything going smoothly.”
• “I could not speak more highly of Carolyn at Bloom Poet! She was truly a delight to work with and so unbelievably accommodating every step of the way.”

Floral samples can also be requested during this time, and usually can be provided 3-4 months before the wedding. However, 99% of the time, our clients trust us to do an amazing job, because we’ve already done a bunch of creative work together. By this time, we are almost always on the same page, and you know exactly what to expect. But if there are any lingering doubts, we are happy to provide sample florals.

We are also available to talk through anything that we are working on, even if it seems dumb to be worried about it. It’s not dumb. Wedding anxiety is real and pernicious, and I want you to feel the lowest stress you could possibly have.

If there are things that need to shift, we can also make contract changes during this period. We typically make some tweaks as we get closer to the wedding and have firmer numbers on guest counts, wedding party attendees, and family who may be traveling from abroad.

The Wedding Week

Our biggest goal during the wedding week is to cheer you on! Wedding weeks are bananas for us behind the scenes, as we pick up and process thousands of flowers with a two-day turnaround for your wedding day. But we are still going to check in, make sure you are not stressed about anything we can control, and reassure you with our zillion backup plans. One of my favorite parts of this job is that I get to provide clients with confident support and professional expertise in really difficult times. My past professional life was in public health, which is fundamentally about caring for other people. I always care for my couples, but this past few years, my public health background was also something that came in really handy during COVID.

Here’s what one of our clients had to say about the support she received:

• “When we had to change course due to COVID, [Carolyn] made sure to support us and offer encouragement as we had to make some hard decisions about what our wedding would look like. She ended up providing us with *the most* beautiful flowers for our tiny backyard ceremony. There is so much more I could say about her enthusiasm, emotional support, and genuine talent as a florist but I'll leave it at this: do yourself a favor and hire Carolyn, she will help make your wedding the special, perfect day it should be!”

After the wedding, we also make sure our clients feel the love and appreciation we have for letting us be a part of their big day. Instead of “goodbye,” it’s usually a “see you later” – because a lot of our clients end up referring their friends and family to us! We love working with these “repeat” clients and continuing to support our amazing couples!

Now that you know more about what it’s like to work with us, are you ready to chat? I would love to see your new inquiry in my inbox so I can get excited about a quick video call to get to know you!! Just fill out our inquiry form and I’ll get back to you ASAP so we can meet and start this creative journey together!