A Day in the Life of our Wedding Manager

Ever wonder what goes into getting wedding flowers to our customers? Here's the skinny behind the scenes here at National.

Our wedding season tends to run between mid-April to early November. During a typical week, we may handle 25-30 wedding orders a week. Our highest months are June, September and October, where we might handle as many as 55-60 wedding orders in a week, in addition to our day to day orders.

Initiating a Wedding Order

Sometimes customers know exactly what they would like to design with and submit a ready-made purchase list. Other times, they bring us a mood board or send us photos of the look they are trying to capture for their event. There is a collaborative dialog back and forth with the florist and sales rep about each item, pricing and estimated availability. Once a sales rep confirms the order for a special event or wedding it's put into a priority system and kept separate from our everyday orders. Ideally, this process occurs at least 2-3 weeks prior to the event so that we have time to find the product and deliver it on the days needed for the florist. The later an order is received, it becomes increasingly more difficult to meet appropriate shipping timelines, and general product availability narrows.

Sourcing and Buying

Our Wedding Manager, Danielle Tomasi, is the point person who sources and buys all our wedding/event product. Once the sales rep secures the order with the florist, product is tracked, sourced and bought through a number of farms. The buying process takes considerable time, depending upon the requested item. Danielle goes to work sourcing the product from across the globe, trying to get the product in time and at the right price. While fair pricing is always a factor, Danielle ensures quality consistency by routinely selecting the best items available from the most reliable farms. She sets the ship date directly with the vendors, which are then monitored for timely arrival by our logistics department.

Product Arrival

Our typical day starts around 6:00 am, when inventory is logged in and sorted in our cooler. Our inventory and production staff sets aside all the incoming product for weddings and special events before regular sales can be made. If market availability allows, product is always timed to arrive fresh each Sunday. If anything is missing, delayed or arrives in poor condition, it may be re-sourced for midweek arrival. Around 6:30 am our production staff arrives to begin pulling orders for the day and around 7:00 am the sales staff starts coming in.

Danielle begins her day perusing the coolers and reviewing all the deliveries, noting which products arrived that day and which have been delayed until later in the week. Typically Monday and Tuesday afternoons are spent on the bulk of the wedding orders for the week, as most are typically shipped out by Wednesday morning. Products that are delayed until later in the week are flagged and given priority on the morning of the shipment arrival. The day before the wedding delivery is made, the flowers go through an extensive quality control process and are scrutinized before they are shipped to the customer. The quality control process can take several hours depending upon the volume of wedding and event orders that are scheduled for the next day's delivery. If there is damage or the wrong product was received, Danielle will then search through our coolers to find the closest substitution if extra stems of the needed product are not readily available. During our busy wedding season (June-October), the entire production staff is on hand to go through the product.

Together the team works with all the staff here at National to ensure that each wedding order is given detailed attention and care. Our goal is to provide personal care for every order to ensure the florist has the best possible product to work with, despite what issues we may encounter working with perishable product.

Danielle with her beloved dog Salem

"Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it.

It is what the client or customers gets out of it."

Peter Drucker