Most couples are planning a wedding for the first time and when they start to look it's easy to become overwhelmed with all of these terms like wedding styling and wedding dècor. Let me try and explain.
From simple candles to stunning floral centrepieces, there are so many different offerings for wedding styling/wedding dècor. From modest village halls and social clubs to extravagant castles, we can create a beautiful and unique setting in your chosen venue.
Wedding Dècor Hire
Some companies offer a dècor hire service only and have set packages of items to choose from. They may or may not be able to adjust these packages to suit you, it totally depends on their capacity and flexibility. Set packages often come with a discount added as there's less consultation work involved for the company. Some companies offer a combination of both, they will have set packages to choose from or you can put something together yourself to suit you. Package prices vary significantly across the industry and this relates to factors such as:
Quality and cost of product- generally if it's an expensive product to source and buy in, the hire price needs to reflect that.
Business overheads- if that business has property such as a showroom and storage units their overheads will be larger than a company with minimal stock storing it at home for example.
Staff- larger companies providing more variety and larger scale weddings will likely have staff costs to consider.
Artificial/fresh- Some florists offer venue styling using fresh floral items which will always be more expensive than artificial.
Experience- If you choose a company that's been styling weddings for 20-30 years you're also, rightly so, paying for their knowledge and expertise.
Service- Not every company has the capacity to offer in person consultations, those who do have to reflect the costs of their time in their pricing. If you're looking for something more bespoke than a set dècor package, this requires more time.
Wedding Styling
Wedding styling is what we do with the dècor items, essentially. We're the interior designers of the wedding world and can transform your venue into your fairytale. Venue styling is about a little more than just hiring items to be set up and look pretty in your venue. We have a unique ability to be able to look at your venue and know what will work. Some may offer styling using only the items available in their own stock, and some may offer something fully bespoke and put together venue styling to suit your specific theme.
It's about more than making the venue look good though. We consider so many other factors, like how will the position of items affect your photography team or your guests etc and how it works with the flow of the venue. From your chairs to your table place settings, it's all styling and forms the backdrop of your big day. Even the most beautiful venues can be enhanced with the right dècor to suit the space. Venue stylists take your wedding in your choice of venue and make it truly unique and yours. Before any of your suppliers and guests arrive, we have been there setting the scene.
Venue stylists can generally work to your own unique theme and source items to suit you.
So how do you choose?
When you start to look for your wedding styling it's difficult to know who to choose from photos. Often you look at so many that things can all start to blend together, it's easy to become overwhelmed particularly if you aren't looking for the typical "white wedding" feel as there are always more images showcasing this simply as it's always the most popular choice.
My first advice on how to choose would be firstly to work out what you're looking for, have a look around at a few different companies, check out their brochures etc and see what they have to offer. Are you happy with choosing a set package from their options? Do you want to be able to go and physically see the items and have a chat? Do you want your day made a little more unique to you? Do you want to have the feeling of being involved and planning out your ceremony setting and table settings but without any of the stress of doing it? These are all options you'll come across in your search.
My next advice would be to chat to stylists and get a feel for them. Remember this person will create the whole vision and setting for your day so don't underestimate their importance. If you're happy with set items being put in place and minimal contact, you'll have tons of options to choose from. If you want something a little more involved then the search will start to narrow as you find the suppliers you connect with. I'm more than happy to admit and accept that not everyone is our client. Some couples may just simply find a better connection with another company and that's absolutely fine. We have styled many weddings where the couple came to us after a long search as they hadn't yet found anyone that "got them".
Don't become too hung up on finding someone who's specifically worked at your venue or someone on the venue's supplier list. Often venue's don't update their supplier lists for years or suppliers on it may have a connection with the venue in some way- not always of course, we are listed on several venue supplier lists through our own merit. Do your research and don't limit yourself if it doesn't work for you.
It very rarely matters whether we have worked at your venue before or not. The process is the same and every venue was new to us the first time we did them, we don't do a poorer job because it's our first visit. I can't speak for everyone however for us if it's a venue we haven't seen before we'll make sure we do our homework and we will go and visit if your setup requires us to have a full picture of the space. We can make our magic happen anywhere, just leave that to us.
What does all of this cost?
The sky really is the limit with venue dècor and styling. As I said earlier, the most "Budget friendly" option is to choose a supplier offering a set discounted package with limited consultation. Every styling company will work differently however for us, we have individual prices on our specific items which form the basis of your quote.
With us, for aisle dressing and table settings using premium quality floral arches and centrepieces you can expect to pay generally anything from £600-£2000 on average for artifical florals. This depends on the size of your setup of course and how many centrepieces are involved and how elaborate you'd like your aisle to be. An arch and simple aisle dressing will cost much less than an elaborate aisle and 15 tables, that's just common sense. Additional extras to consider are chair dressing and table settings. Your chairs form a large part of your styling, they're in all of your room photos. You may want white covers or chiffon drapes to suit your colour theme. You may also choose to enhance your table settings with the addition of decorative charger plates and colour theme napkins. Costing also varies for something more bespoke. If we need to spend time sourcing specific items for you or making custom items then the time for this needs to be reflected in the cost. We have the flexibility and the creative imagination to be able to work to any style and theme, it totally depends on your budget.
Personally, we don't offer set packages as its not a "one size fits all" industry. There are venues that may pose more of a challenge or certain things that just don't work in them. For us- we aren't going to take your money unless we're sure we can make it work. Some venues require extra time or extra hands to put a set up together. Edinburgh city centre venues for example pose unique challenges so sometimes we may have additional costs for extra staffing etc. Also if we're required to move items from room to room after ceremony this requires extra time and resource.
How does the process work?
Every company will have their own process so I will explain how things work with us specifically. Firstly, we will briefly discuss your requirements with you. We need a date, venue and number of guests as a starting point. We need to know if it's both ceremony and table set up. If you're having your ceremony elsewhere then let us know that.
Often couple's have a rough idea of what they're looking for enough to allow us to provide them with a quote via email and this gives them a starting point, if they're happy with the quote they may then book a showroom appointment to come in and view our items and meet us. Some couples prefer to make an appointment and come in to view our showroom before we put a quote together, and sometimes couples don't have a clue where to start. That's when we would have a sit down one to one chat and we will talk you through it and get an idea on what you like and don't like and build your quote from there. We are fully flexible and we can adjust and adapt to suit you throughout the process. Couples will often book 2 or more years in advance and it's unrealistic to expect you to still want exactly the same thing after thinking about it for 2 years. If required, we will have a final chat in person during the 6 month build up to your day to go over the final plan.
A final summary
Your wedding dècor and styling forms the entire backdrop of your day. Everyone's tastes, budget and requirements will vary drastically. Do your research, look around and chat to suppliers. If your priority is the cheapest option that makes it look pretty or if you want full bespoke styling, both are absolutely fine, you do what works for you!
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