The questions to ask a wedding florist come down to five. How do you price, and is there a minimum? What do delivery, setup and teardown cost? What happens if a flower on my list is out of season or arrives in poor shape? When do you need my final counts? And are the vases mine to keep or yours to collect? A good answer to any of them is specific, written down and priced per item. Here is each question in detail, what a good answer sounds like, and the vague ones that should send you elsewhere. Every one of the five has a written answer at Cindy's Flowers: prices published before you ask, no consultation fee, and a line-by-line quote back from our Toronto studio within one business day.
The Money Questions to Ask Your Wedding Florist
Pricing is the conversation couples dread most and the one florists least often start. The Knot's list of questions to ask before hiring puts it plainly: "Ask how they charge (package, flat fee, per item, etc.) and if they require a minimum floral budget." The same guide flags delivery fees, setup fees and breakdown fees as extras that add up quickly, so ask about all three before you compare anyone's numbers.
There is a reason you have to ask. The 2026 Wedding Flower Price Study, our census of 2,231 florists across Canada and the United States, found that fewer than half of florists publish any wedding pricing at all; our corrected estimate is 47% in both countries. The full transparency data lives in our breakdown of how many florists publish wedding prices.
At the consultation, put these on the table:
- How do you charge: per item, flat package, or a percentage of my overall budget?
- Is there a minimum spend? Among the Canadian florists in our study who publish one, the average minimum is $3,890; our minimum-spend guide has the full picture.
- Does the quote include delivery, setup and breakdown, or are those separate lines?
- What does the payment schedule look like, and when is the balance due?
- Is the consultation itself free?
A good answer arrives itemized: this bouquet costs this much, that centrepiece costs that much, delivery is its own line. A vague answer ("it really depends on the season") is not dishonest, but it makes comparison impossible, and comparison is the entire point of asking.
Who Delivers, Who Sets Up, and Who Takes It Down?
Wedding floristry runs on two service models, and your contract should say which one you are buying. Delivery-only means finished pieces arrive at the venue and your wedding party places them. Full service means the florist arrives, installs and styles everything on site. At Cindy's Flowers wedding studio in Toronto, full service adds 15 to 45 percent of the floral subtotal, depending on the venue and how much gets built on site, and wedding delivery reaches up to 3 hours from Toronto. Ceremony installations are full-service only here; an arch cannot be dropped at a loading dock.
Ask:
- Is delivery a flat fee, or priced by distance and venue access?
- Who moves the ceremony flowers to the reception, if they move at all?
- Do you come back for teardown, and is that a separate charge?
- Are vases, arches and candle holders rented, or mine to keep?
That last one matters more than most couples expect. Rented vessels come with return deadlines and damage fees, and collecting forty vases lands on somebody the morning after the wedding. Some studios, ours included, sell the vessels with the order instead, so there is nothing to return and the centrepieces double as favours for guests. Neither model is wrong. You just want to know which one you signed before the honeymoon flight.
What Happens When a Flower Is Out of Season?
This is the question that separates florists who work with the market from florists who overpromise. Flowers are agricultural. In Ontario, peonies run roughly from late May through June, and outside that window they are imported when available; our peony season guide covers the timing in detail. Dahlias begin blooming in midsummer and carry on until first frost, per the Old Farmer's Almanac. A February peony bouquet is possible some years and impossible others, and an honest florist says so at the consultation, not the week of the wedding.
So ask: how do you handle substitutions if my exact flower is out of stock or arrives in poor quality? A good answer names a method. The substitute matches the original's colour, shape and price tier, and you hear about it before the wedding day, not after. Ask who signs off on the swap, and get the policy into the contract. "Trust me" is not a substitution policy.
While you are talking design, you may hear the 3-5-8 rule. It is floristry shorthand drawn from the Fibonacci sequence: some florists mean container, flowers and total height in a 3:5:8 proportion, others mean three focal stems, five secondary and eight filler. Interpretations genuinely vary shop to shop, so treat it as a design convention, a guide rather than a law, and simply ask your florist what they mean by it.
When Should You Book, and When Are Final Counts Due?
Planning sites treat florist booking as a winter-before project. The Knot's guidance: "You should book a wedding florist anywhere from 9–10 months ahead of your wedding date, starting the general vendor research process about 11–12 months out." Treat that as a planning convention rather than a law. A delivery-only order of bouquets and boutonnieres needs far less runway than a ceremony built on site, and an off-peak date is more forgiving than a Saturday in June.
The deadline that actually bites is the final order. Poppy Flowers' deadline guide reports that "Most wedding florists require final orders 30-90 days before the wedding, with the sweet spot being 60 days," and puts local boutique florists at 30 to 45 days, because they buy from local wholesalers with weekly inventory. The same guide notes that additions after the deadline tend to be easier than reductions, since the flowers are already on order. So ask three things: when is my final count due, what can still be added afterwards, and what happens to the price if my guest list shrinks.
One more timing note: come to the consultation with your date, your venue and a rough list of pieces, even a guessed one. A florist can talk real numbers against a list; nobody can price "romantic, but make it affordable."
What a Good Answer Sounds Like
Across every question above, the pattern holds: a good answer is specific, itemized and written; a poor one is friendly and fog-shaped. You should leave a consultation able to compare, line by line, what two studios would charge for the same list of pieces.
That is the standard we hold ourselves to. Cindy's Flowers publishes every wedding price up front, bridal bouquets from $215, and there is no consultation fee. You can build your own wedding flower list piece by piece and a written, line-by-line quote comes back within one business day. And if you are not yet sure who on your list actually wears flowers, our guide to who gets flowers at a wedding will get your headcount close before you talk to anyone.
Bring the questions. A florist with good answers will be glad you asked. The ones who bristle have just answered a different question.
