On every other vendor we take your quote, divide it by the hours the job really takes, and compare that with what the person actually earns. For flowers we are not going to do it, and the reason is the most useful thing on this page: a florist BUYS THE PRODUCT. Most of what you pay is not anybody's time. It is stems, and they die.More
A photographer sells you their labour and their skill, and very little besides. So dividing the quote by the hours tells you something real. A florist buys flowers at wholesale, has them trucked, keeps them cold, conditions them, strips them, wires them, arranges them, delivers them, sets them up, and then throws them away three days later. If we divided your flower quote by a designer's hours we would produce an enormous hourly figure, you would conclude you were being fleeced, and you would be wrong, because most of that money never was a wage. It was tulips. What we can tell you exactly is the labour: BLS surveys the occupation directly and puts a floral designer's median at $17.96 an hour, against $24.51 for every occupation in America. Below the US median, like almost every trade on this site. What nobody publishes is the share of a wedding flower bill that is flowers, and we have looked and we will tell you exactly where we looked and what we could not get. So this page prices the labour, refuses to invent the rest, and spends its length on the five questions that genuinely move a flower quote. Those questions will save you more than a made-up average ever would.
What the design labour comes to
$1,006
Design labour, at what BLS says a floral designer earns$1,006
Flowers, wastage, cold storage, the van, the vases, the business. NOT profit$1,494
We are not going to divide your quote by the hours, and that refusal is the point.
On every other vendor, that division tells you something true, because you are buying a person's time. A florist
BUYS THE PRODUCT. Divide a flower quote by a designer's hours and you get a huge hourly number, conclude you are
being fleeced, and you are wrong: most of that money never was a wage. It was tulips, and they are in a bin by
Tuesday.More
What we know exactly. BLS surveys the occupation directly. A floral designer's median wage
is $17.96 an hour, against $24.51 for every occupation in America. Below the US median, like almost every trade on
this site. So the labour figure above is real, and it is probably smaller than you expected.
What we do not know, and will not invent. The share of a wedding flower bill that is actually
flowers. We looked. BLS gives wages and no materials. The Economic Census gives florists' receipts with no unit: no
count of weddings to divide them by. The Census Annual Retail Trade Survey does publish a retail gross-margin table,
and we opened it: it stops at NAICS 453, Miscellaneous Store Retailers, which holds pet shops and gift shops alongside
florists, and its latest column is 2015. Quoting you that number as a florist's would be sourcing-shaped nonsense, so
we will not.
One thing this page used to get wrong, corrected in public. We said the statistics carried no HOURS
for florists. They do: BLS's Current Employment Statistics has published average weekly hours for florists monthly
since 2006 (series CEU4245930002). A revenue per employee-hour for the florist trade is constructible from Census
receipts over those hours, and we have not built it, which is a gap in this page rather than in the data. But note
what it would be, because it is this page's whole argument: that figure is ALL-IN. It contains the stems. It is not a
labour rate, dividing it against a designer's hours would be exactly the error we refuse above, and it still does not
tell you what share of your bill is flowers.
So the big number above is not profit and we will not let you read it as profit. Out of it come the
stems at wholesale, the ones that arrive broken, the ones that open too early, the cold storage, the buckets, the
wire, the foam, the vases you give back, the van, the fuel, the insurance, and the fact that the entire product is
worthless seventy-two hours after it is made. A florist carries inventory risk that a photographer simply does not.
What will actually save you money is the five questions below, not an average.
§ 02 What we can price, and what we will not
Person-hours in the job, on your numbers56 hours
The design labour, at a floral designer's actual wage$1,006
Share of the quote that is labour40.2%
Everything else. We will NOT tell you this is profit$1,494
The wage is BLS's and it is exact. Everything else on this page is your own input. We do NOT publish a price for wedding flowers, we do NOT divide your quote by the hours the way we do on every other vendor page, and we do NOT know what share of your bill is flowers. The page says exactly where we looked for that share, and exactly what we found when we opened the one table that looked like the answer. One correction we publish rather than bury: the florist trade's HOURS are published (BLS CES, CEU4245930002, monthly since 2006), this page once said they were not, and a revenue per employee-hour could be built from them. We have not built it, and it would be an all-in figure containing the stems rather than a labour rate.
Recommended next steps
The hours you have entered account for a meaningful slice of the bill, which usually means an installation: an arch, a hanging piece, an aisle, or a lot of setup and a midnight breakdown. Worth confirming those hours with the florist, and worth asking specifically whether breakdown is included, because it is the line most often billed on top.
A florist BUYS the product. That single fact makes the usual arithmetic a lie here.More
For a photographer, a planner or a trainer, the quote is almost entirely a person's time, so dividing it by the hours is meaningful. A florist buys stems at wholesale, keeps them cold, conditions and wires them, and then the whole product is worthless three days later. Divide a flower quote by the design hours and you get a number that looks like a scandal and means nothing. We would rather publish less and be right.
A floral designer earns a median of $17.96 an hour, against $24.51 for every occupation in America.More
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, SOC 27-1023, May 2025, 40,590 employed. Below the US median. Two warnings, as always: the occupation is Floral Designers generally, including the person making up a supermarket bunch, and BLS excludes the self-employed, so that count is the designers on somebody's payroll.
The remainder of your quote is not profit, and this page will not call it profit.More
Out of it come the stems, the ones that arrive broken, the ones that open too early, the cold storage, the buckets, the wire, the foam, the vases, the van, the fuel, the insurance, and an entire product that is worthless seventy-two hours after it is finished. A florist carries inventory risk that a photographer does not. What is left after all of that is the business, and we do not know how big it is.
Hours means PERSON-hours, and setup happens at unsociable times.More
Two people for a ten-hour setup is twenty hours of labour, not ten. And the delivery, the ladder work and the midnight breakdown are real hours with a real crew: if your venue wants everything gone by midnight, somebody is being paid to be there at midnight. Ask whether that somebody is in your quote.
The five questions that actually move a flower quote.More
One: are delivery, setup and BREAKDOWN in this price, or billed on top? Two: can the ceremony flowers be moved to the reception, and is the moving charged as labour? Three: what is the substitution policy if a stem is unavailable that week, and will you be told before or after? Four: which of these flowers are in season in my month, and what would the same look cost using what is? Five: what happens to the arrangements afterwards, and may we keep or donate them? Every one of those is worth more than a national average, and none of them requires you to argue about anybody's hourly rate.
Nobody publishes what a wedding florist charges. The florist trade's HOURS are published, and this page used to say they were not.More
BLS gives the wage. The Economic Census gives florists' receipts with no unit: no count of weddings, and no price per wedding falls out of it, which is why the quote box on this page is yours to fill. What we also wrote, and what was false, is that the statistics carry no hours for florists. BLS's Current Employment Statistics has published average weekly hours for florists monthly since 2006, series CEU4245930002. A revenue per employee-hour for the trade is constructible from Census receipts over those hours, we have not built it, and that is a gap in this page rather than in the data. It would not be a labour rate: it is all-in and it contains the stems, which is the entire point of this page. And the number we most want, the share of the bill that is flowers, is still not published: the Census gross-margin table that looked like the answer stops at NAICS 453, a bucket holding pet shops and gift shops alongside florists, and its latest column is 2015. We went and looked rather than assuming.
Sourced: the wage, and only the wage. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage
Statistics, May 2025, SOC 27-1023 (Floral Designers): 40,590 employed, median $17.96 an hour, with a wage for 52
areas. Yours: the quote and every hour figure, because nobody measures how long a wedding's flowers
take. What we refuse to publish: the materials share, and any hourly rate derived from your quote.More
This page deliberately does less than the others, and that is a decision rather than a gap.
The photographer page divides a quote by hours and compares it with the wage, and that is honest there, because a
photographer is selling you time. Doing it here would manufacture a number that looks like evidence and is not.
The most common way a cost site lies is not by inventing a figure; it is by performing a valid operation on the
wrong quantity, and this is exactly that trap.
We went and looked for the materials share, and here is exactly what we found. The Census Bureau's
Annual Retail Trade Survey publishes a gross-margin table. We opened it. It does NOT break out florists. The finest
grain it reaches on that branch is NAICS 453, Miscellaneous Store Retailers, at 48.0 percent, and that bucket holds
pet shops, gift shops, art dealers and used-merchandise stores alongside florists. Quoting you 48 percent as a
florist's gross margin would be the wrong-class error dressed up as sourcing, and it is the single easiest way this
page could mislead you while looking rigorous. So we are not going to. Two further things about that file, since we
have it open: the most recent column in the version Census currently serves is 2015, and its own note says the
sub-sector totals may include kinds of business not shown. It is neither current enough nor fine enough to answer
the question. The honest answer remains that we do not know the materials share, and now we know why.
And here is what we got wrong while doing all that. We wrote that the Economic Census gives
florists' receipts "with no unit and no hours". The no-unit half is true and it is why your quote is your own input.
The no-hours half was false. BLS's Current Employment Statistics has published average weekly hours for florists,
at that exact retail code, monthly since 2006 (series CEU4245930002). It is the same mistake this site has now made
more than a dozen times: open one agency, find it lacking, announce a fact about the world. A revenue per
employee-hour for florists is constructible from Census receipts over those hours. We have not built it, and that is
a gap in this page rather than in the data. It would not change the page's argument, because that figure is all-in
and contains the stems, and it is not the materials share.
Rule 22. SOC 27-1023 is Floral Designers generally, not wedding florists: it includes the person
making up a supermarket bunch. And OES excludes the self-employed, so the 40,590 are the ones on a payroll.
Where every number above comes from
Wage data
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national. Floral Designers (SOC 27-1023): 40,590 employed, median $17.96/hr, $37,360/yr, 10th percentile $13.75/hr, 90th percentile $24.52/hr. All occupations (SOC 00-0000): median $24.51/hr
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, by state. Floral Designers: a median wage published for 52 areas, from $10.97/hr in Puerto Rico to $23.14/hr in Alaska
BLS, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics FAQ: 'Does OEWS have occupational employment estimates that include the self-employed? No.' This is why the 40,590 count above is the designers on a payroll, and why we do not divide by it
BLS, Current Employment Statistics, series CEU4245930002: average weekly hours of all employees, florists (NAICS 4593), monthly since 2006, with average hourly earnings (CEU4245930003) beside them. These are the hours this page spent a version telling you the statistics did not carry
Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.
The page deliberately does NOT divide your quote by the hours. That is the finding, not an omission.
It would produce a large hourly number and a false conclusion, because a florist buys the product and a photographer does not. Performing a valid operation on the wrong quantity is the commonest way a cost site misleads people, and it is exactly the trap here.
The hour figures are yours, and the defaults are guesses.
Nobody measures how long a wedding's flowers take. A few bouquets is not an arch, an aisle and twenty tables. Ask the florist, and put their answer in rather than ours.
We do not know the materials share, and we went and found out WHY nobody publishes it.
The Census Annual Retail Trade Survey does publish a retail gross-margin table, and we opened it. It does not break out florists: the finest grain it reaches is NAICS 453, Miscellaneous Store Retailers, at 48.0 percent, a bucket that also contains pet shops, gift shops and art dealers. Attributing that to florists would be a wrong-class error, and its most recent column is 2015 in any case. So the number this page most wants genuinely is not published, and we can now say that having looked rather than having assumed it.
SOC 27-1023 is Floral Designers generally, which is wider than wedding florists.
It includes the person making up a bunch in a supermarket. The wage is the occupation's, and you should read it knowing that. And BLS excludes the self-employed, which many wedding florists are.
Frequently asked questions
How much do wedding flowers cost?
Nobody publishes a national figure, and we are not going to invent one. What is worth knowing is why the usual trick fails here. On every other vendor we divide the quote by the hours and compare it with what the person earns, because you are buying somebody's time. A florist buys the PRODUCT: stems at wholesale, trucked, kept cold, conditioned, wired, arranged, and worthless three days later. Divide a flower quote by the design hours and you get an enormous hourly figure and a completely false impression. So this page prices the labour, which BLS lets us do exactly, and refuses to price the rest.
Why are wedding flowers so expensive?
We cannot give you the honest breakdown, because the share of a flower bill that is actually flowers is not something we could find published, and we would rather tell you that than guess. What we can tell you is what is inside the number. The stems, bought at wholesale. The ones that arrive broken and the ones that open too early. The cold storage. The buckets, the wire, the foam, the vases. The van and the fuel. The insurance. The delivery at six in the morning and the breakdown at midnight. And the fact that the whole product is rubbish by Tuesday, which is an inventory risk no photographer carries. What is left after all of that is the business, and we do not know how big it is.
What does a florist actually earn?
A median of $17.96 an hour, which is below the $24.51 median for every occupation in America. That is BLS's figure for Floral Designers, SOC 27-1023, May 2025, across 40,590 employed people. Read it with the usual two warnings: the occupation includes the person making up a supermarket bunch as well as the one building your arch, and BLS excludes the self-employed, which a great many wedding florists are.
How do I actually bring the flower cost down?
Ask five questions, and none of them is about anybody's hourly rate. Are delivery, setup and BREAKDOWN in this price or billed on top? Can the ceremony flowers be moved to the reception, and is the moving charged as labour? What is the substitution policy if a stem is unavailable that week, and will I be told? Which of these flowers are in season in my month, and what would the same look cost using what is? And what happens to the arrangements afterwards, may we keep them or donate them? Those five will do more for your budget than any average, and they will tell you a great deal about the florist.
Is the leftover in your calculator the florist's profit?
No, and we have deliberately labelled it so that it cannot be read that way. It is the flowers, the wastage, the cold storage, the van, the vases, the insurance and the business, and we do not know how it splits, because nobody we could read publishes that. If we called it profit we would be doing precisely the thing this page exists to refuse.
