It's made estimating pricing for weddings and events a nightmare for me as a business owner, but also for you, my couples and clients, trying to budget for your wedding or event.
Where We Stand Now
While I'm writing this on April 15th 2025, there is a 10% tariff on imports from many South American countries as well as the European Union—all places we import lots of flowers from.
There is also a plan to increase tariffs on imports from the EU up to 20% around July 9th (unsure of the exact date).
There is also a huge tariff on imports from China (I believe we are up to 145% as of now) and tariffs on other Asian countries. Though we don't typically import fresh flowers from Asia, there are lots of other supplies we use (vases, ribbon, candles, etc.) that do get imported from countries there.
How Tariffs Affect the Cost of Flowers
The industry standard way to price floral for retail & weddings is directly correlated to the wholesale cost of flowers. So when new tariffs are made, wholesale prices go up, and thus the final cost of floral goes up.
Working with the current information, I have thus decided to increase price estimates for weddings & events by about 10-15% at this time.
What I'm Doing to Make Booking Less Stressful for You
First, here are a few things of note from my typical booking process:
- A 20% nonrefundable retainer and signed contract are required to book your wedding date.
- When you book, you are signing off on a quote with prices. Though I try very hard to not have to increase prices after booking, my contract does give me the right to increase prices "due to cost increases beyond my control." Meaning for example, if tariffs continue to increase, prices may also have to increase.
- After booking, we allow you to reduce the total amount of your quote by up to 20%.
There is so much uncertainty right now, and as someone who tries to run their business by the golden rule—treat others as you'd like to be treated—I sympathize with how stressful it must be to plan a wedding at this time, when our current administration changes tariffs every day, and we have no idea what anything will cost a year from now.
If costs continue to increase due to tariffs, couples may decide they need to reduce their budgets or cancel their wedding floral all together.
Therefore, I'm temporarily implementing the following changes for my clients at the time of booking—
-
Half of the nonrefundable retainer will now be refundable. Meaning at booking, you'll pay a 10% nonrefundable retainer, and a 10% refundable retainer.
- After booking, you can reduce your total budget by up to 30% instead of 20%.
These changes will be applied for new couples via an amendment to the standard contract at the time of booking. I'm not sure how long I'll offer these changes—just until things start to feel a little more normal in this country.
Other Good Things to Know
These aren't changes, but just things I do standard anyway that are nice to know—
- If flower prices go down between booking and your wedding date, I will reduce prices on your quote. Note that I cannot guarantee a pricing decrease if tariffs go away because this doesn't ensure wholesale prices will immediately decrease. Unfortunately I do not control the wholesale prices :(
- My prices / sizes are always rough estimates anyway, because flower prices already fluctuate weekly. I use the same formula to create all of my clients' floral recipes and ordering their flowers, so know that I will always give you as many flowers as possible using your budget.