Floral Facts & Fiction

Sharon Rumsey  0:00  
On this episode, we're turning it all over to our favorite guy. Mikey is taking the mic for this one as we discuss wedding florals and everything you need to know.

Kristina Stubblefield  0:09  
Don't miss this episode as Mike talks about how to get the most out of your budget. 

Your listening to The Ring The Bling And All The Things Podcast. I'm Kristina Stubblefield, one of your hosts, along with my two good friends Michael Gaddie and Sharon Rumsey. We are here to get you from down on one knee, down the aisle and into happily ever after. Our informative episodes deliver valuable tips, trends, ideas, and advice covering everything from you saying yes to the i do's and all that happens in between and after. Now, let's get started with this episode.

Sharon Rumsey  0:55  
I've been looking so forward to this episode because Kristina and I are both guilty of not letting our co host always have enough words to say enough time to say all the words say the words he wants to say. But this episode we are gonna I am gonna. And Kristina is going to turn it over to Mike. I have so many clients that asked me questions about florals. Why do they need them? How can they make the most of the money they're spending in their florals? And why do they cost so daggone much? So questions answered. Now's your time setback. We are going to have our co host one of my besties he does not toot his own horn well enough so I'm going to toot for him a little bit. Michael Gaddy owns Lloyd's florist. However, he is so much more than just a wedding florist. He does full service floor florals for all kinds of events. He is an award winning float creator for the Rose Bowl parade multiple years in a row actually got to see his work on TV this past New Years and oh my gosh.

Kristina Stubblefield  2:16  
So I can't wait for you to say his other acclimate. Go ahead

Sharon Rumsey  2:20  
has lots of letters behind his name. And I'm going to let him tell us about that. And I want Michael, I want you to tell it, all of it. I want you to really, really let our clients know what goes in to becoming a professional florist and the training you've had to have and the certifications you've had. And let us learn a little bit more about what you do today.

Kristina Stubblefield  2:45  
Mike, we want to know

Michael Gaddie  2:45  
all that. Okay, I thought I was gonna get some words in here in two minutes. So

Kristina Stubblefield  2:50  
it's your turn?

Michael Gaddie  2:52  
No as what she's talking about initials and things behind my name. It's I am Michael lasqueti aifd km m f. And CFD.

Kristina Stubblefield  3:03  
Are you going to say what she originally thought it was? No, no, I'm

Michael Gaddie  3:06  
not. So aifd is stands for American Institute of floral designs, which was a course that there are about four or 5000 people in the United States plus all over the country that has this certification. So it's worldwide. CFD, main certified floral designer, and KmF is Kentucky floral master, which is a I have taken a course in the state of Kentucky and you got those letters. So yeah, I felt like a doctor but

Sharon Rumsey  3:41  
you didn't just hang up your shingle and say Oh, I'm a floral designer.

Michael Gaddie  3:45  
No. But one thing you did talk about is talking with brides and why they call so much and all that good stuff. But as everything in the world today, everything is going up. The main thing is when we have our brides coming in, our main thing is we want to work with your budget and as you know, we do that sharing as close as I can. The one thing is you know, you know when our brides come in, they bring us their Pinterest board and they'll say I like this, I want this but what I try to do and they tell me their budget, what I try to do is get that same look and not use the same flowers. Supporting example ponies ponies are not available your favorites and we can incorporate cabbage roses instead of ponies when it's a different time of the year. There's different products that we can use, you know to give you that same look with a lesser price, but I'll be honest with you the prices of everything is going up so much. You just going to have to expect to pay that price, but let me say this, you know, the first thing that they come in and they say, some brides say, Oh, that's not, flowers aren't my thing. It's not a big part of my wedding. You Never Noticed the flowers, I have to honestly disagree. I mean, just like when you go to the wedding, and you have a cater, if the food sucks, your gift are going to remember it. Right? If the decor sucks, your gifts are going to remember right, if the DJ is not good, your guests are going to remember it. Now flip that around and say not saying that you have to spend an arm and a leg on flowers. But any kind of decoration such as bases, with candles in it, and greenery, there's a way that you can turn a ballroom into an elegant room without spending lots of money. You know, we talked about this on another episode, you know, we try to make you or help you save money. But sometimes it's not always the vision or the things that you think would help you save money. Just like we mentioned earlier, you know, you're going to move one thing from one plate from the church to the reception. I don't recommend that at all. I'm not saying I'd never do that, because sometimes it has to be done that way. But I don't recommend it. When it comes to your florals, and planning for your flowers and becoming getting your reality and your dream and your vision, the best thing you can do before you even come see a florist and I'm not just talking about myself, is get your Pinterest board together. And just because you bring us a Pinterest board, we're going to elaborate on that. We're going to change things, we're going to make your look because I don't like to have I don't like me personally, I don't like to post, you know, on our Instagram page and our Facebook page. And we don't want all of our weddings to look alike, right? We want your wedding to be special and different than anybody else's. So I mean, that's why we. But the big part about that is all of you are looking at the same Pinterest boards. So I understand that, oh, I've got to have this. But what I recommend is when you're looking for your Pinterest, or look at starting to plan your wedding flowers, use unique colors. Don't you know when you search, popular wedding flowers, cream blush, yeah. And that's the first thing that's going to come up it's cream and blush. Put in and type in your color that you want. And you're going to get more creative and individual ideas than you would for the whole everybody looking up there. Same thing, because that's how everything starts to look alike. And sometimes it does look like that with our shop. You know, you'll you'll post brides of our pictures our brides every week. And sometimes the bouquets look the same. But we try to do something different in each one of them.

Sharon Rumsey  7:55  
Well, and I love what you were just saying, and I've done enough bridal appointments with you that I know. You can achieve the same look, maybe with different flowers to help control budget a little bit. But as a wedding planner, how do I best educate my clients? What percent of their budget? Should we allow for florals because I know that it's gone up. Usually it's

Michael Gaddie  8:21  
it used to be like eight to 10%. But really, you're looking right around 10 to 12%. With the prices of things going up, you know, you look you go into the grocery store, bread is higher, milk is higher, everything is higher. So you just expect when you come to your local florist and sit down with them, things are going to be a little bit higher. But you've got to also think about the time. You know, I sit down with that broad we go over everything that she wants, starting with her bouquets all the way to the reception. After you leave, you know then we've got a week of planning such as ordering flowers, we have to do that three weeks out, believe it or not, we have to order all those flowers three weeks out. And then we're constantly contacting Holland, Ecuador, California to make sure that that product is good and this is the part that we never you don't see right. And I've always said I would love to take abroad sit her down. Go through like what you and I do all the time with them. And then that three weeks before Blom to Hawaii, Holland, Ecuador and follow what that flower takes place to get to right Lloyd's florist in Louisville, Kentucky. Because I mean it's on a jet. It's it's well just for example, last week I had a wedding and I ordered a box of ginger. That all came in frozen. Oh my goodness. So we had to back up and read order all of that, because of the weather with it being four degrees, you know, you pass down in ups at all, it's just that it probably got stuck on a plane somewhere and couldn't get off. There's so many details, a lot of variables that you have to judge you have no clue that we deal with. It's just not like going down to the flower market, picking them up or going to the garden and pick them out of flowers all let's make it pretty okay. It's not about that. It usually takes us our team 15 people to get the flowers processed, made, delivered, setup, and also coming back at midnight, after the receptions over and tearing everything down. But it doesn't stop there. On Monday morning. What do we do? We have our three bands, we unload those bands, all that product has to be cleaned, repurposed, restocked, and then turned around and got a container. So yeah, but it says the basis the you know, candles, drip can't I mean, everything has to be cleaned and restored. You're talking about

Sharon Rumsey  11:06  
a team. You can't you know, you couldn't just put me down in the basement of Lloyd's florist and say, Sharon, make this beautiful centerpiece. I don't have a clue. So you're you're having to hire professional floral designers, aren't you yourself doing these things, and those people command a wage for their training experience. So I think a lot more goes into the cost of wedding anybody ever known anybody ever knows. And I know another thing that you've taught me is I love the big tall, you know, I'm a wedding planner. So I just am obsessed with the big tall over the top, full centerpieces. But you've taught me you don't have to have those on every table. What do you recommend if a bride is really trying to watch her budget, but she wants that, that dramatic, she wants that boom?

Michael Gaddie  11:59  
Well, so for an example, if you have, if you have 30 tables, I wouldn't even recommend doing a two or $300 arrangement on all of them, or even half of them, I would split that in threes, do the third of them tall, then do the meeting. The next one's a shorter one. And then the next one, the next 10, maybe even something even a lot less than hurricanes with some hurricanes with a candle in it. But still, you're getting as your guest walks into the reception, the wow factor from those large ones, because you're going to have them spread all over the

Sharon Rumsey  12:35  
room. And I love you know, since you've taught me that the look of a reception room, when everything isn't the same. So much buried and everything's balanced out. And again, that's where that professional floral designer comes into play. I would have never known that had you not taught me that. Plus, you can look over a room and you can see, you can visualize what that rooms gonna look like and where you want those taller centerpieces to go versus the small.

Michael Gaddie  13:01  
And that's where the wedding planner comes in. Well, she'll send us a diagram, and we will jot it all down. So when my team gets there, we just did this. This weekend, the bride's mom sent me a diagram and said, Where do you want the big ones? Because actually, they were going to do the smaller ones. Uh huh. So we marked it not total table 358 1012. And then we came in and did it and they did the rest. So it made it so much easier by having that floorplan of that diagram of that

Sharon Rumsey  13:29  
process, really. And I know, we think of our floral designers just when we think of flowers. But I know that I bring my the floral designer in on everything. I just sent you an email last week, asking you to help me select linen colors because I I really know the vision this bride wants and I just wasn't able to find a linen that I felt like really pulled it together. And I respect the creativity and the training that floral designers have to have that vision. I'm a very logistical person. You're a very creative person.

Michael Gaddie  14:06  
Well, that's one thing we do you know, we see the whole vision right? You can see it or you can't see it. I can see the whole vision no matter if it's just the chairs and everything because every little detail matters matters. It really does. But going back to the designers, you know when it comes to wedding work, we have designers that specialize in bouquets. We have designers that specialize in centerpieces. We have specialized people whose boutonnieres and corsages is, so I really have four designers that does different parts of that wedding. And so you've got, you know, when it comes to designing the wedding, including myself, bringing it all together, and then also have five other people working on it to make it and then we have other people delivering it, taking it in turn. Wow. So there's

Sharon Rumsey  14:54  
a floral designer who's a wedding florist. There. It's even sub special Seems like I'm specializing in bouquets. Yes, that's right. I didn't even know that I

Michael Gaddie  15:04  
actually have a really good designer. And if I'm not doing them, she's doing them. I have another girl that does all of our boot nears and massages. I usually take care of the church and the reception. Uh huh. But now I've got a new girl that does all the centerpieces on I

Sharon Rumsey  15:19  
know another thing that that a lot of couples don't think through. Is that professional designer? Is there on for your setup? Yeah. I mean, when Lloyd's does a wedding, you're usually there.

Michael Gaddie  15:32  
Yes. Yeah, I try to be 99% of the time, I'm at every wedding setup that there is. Now if it's something that we just have to drop off. I may not be there for that. But if it's something that we have to set up, where I'm there for

Sharon Rumsey  15:46  
our production that you have to put together or assemble or

Michael Gaddie  15:49  
maybe a room flip, right. I'm always there for that. Yeah. So I mean, we've covered a lot today. And I mean, I just want to bring awareness of how much a florist is that does put into it, and what we can put into it and take out of it. So I think it's very important to for the brides to know, all the detail that

Sharon Rumsey  16:13  
I think one of the main goals, when we decided to do our little baby podcast UI, and Christina, was we wanted to educate couples. And I think that this it all, you know, every specialist on your wedding team is a specialist. And I think that it's important to understand what has gone into that person becoming an expert in their field. And what all goes on behind the scenes that maybe, you know, we don't realize. So I appreciate the information. You're so so good at what you do. I mean, just blessed to have you working with my clients and can't say enough about hiring a professional floral designer.

Michael Gaddie  16:55  
Well, thank you. I enjoy working with you, too.

Kristina Stubblefield  16:58  
Well, I tell you what, I didn't want to interrupt any of your conversation, because I felt like it was going so well. You all click like no other

Sharon Rumsey  17:08  
until we bicker like brother and sister. Correct? You know, I take a bullet for him.

Kristina Stubblefield  17:14  
I have been fortunate to know Mike for I don't know, like all the way back to maybe the early 2000s. And I can tell you, one of the things that stands out to me is how much praise and appreciation that I've heard over the years from not only engaged couples or married couples, but from other wedding professionals from venues. Because it is like Mike treats every event like his own. And that is so important when you embrace it in a vision and really help bring that to fruition. So, you know, Mike and his entire team as well as Pam, she's a saint, but Sharon, that's all patient.

Sharon Rumsey  18:05  
And not she's very, very good at what she does. And if you're in need of men's formalwear, she's hands down, she's gonna go to Yeah, but she's a saint for being married to Michael.

Kristina Stubblefield  18:15  
Right. But back to the praise that was given him since we're going to end this on a positive note. In all honesty, if you're doing some type of event, Sharon mentioned in the beginning, you know, it's it's not just everyday floral work. It's not just weddings, him and his team have been part of small and large projects.

Sharon Rumsey  18:32  
And I mean, not not to, again, bring ended on a sad note, but we lost somebody in my family this past year, that, I mean, just send us all in a downward spiral. It was unexpected, it was horrible. And just knowing I could call Mike and say, Hey, this is super important to us. Can you take care of it for us? And when he said, I've got you, I didn't worry about it again. Well, and I see I know he did.

Kristina Stubblefield  19:01  
And that's a point to I think sometimes people will think of Lloyd's florist just as a wedding designer. But Mike and his team at Lloyds florists can do all types of occasions. I know recently, you've even done a baby shower. So if you're there for the good time, he's going to be doing another one soon. Yeah. And the bad times that we don't like to talk about, but having that full service florist, for us here locally in the Louisville, Kentucky and surrounding areas is truly a blessing. So kudos to you. I know. You've been doing it for many, many, many years. And I know Lloyd's Florida celebrated 50 years. And hats off to you, your wife and your entire team. Well,

Michael Gaddie  19:42  
thank you very much.

Kristina Stubblefield  19:43  
Thank you for all for listening to this episode. You can always connect with Lloyd's Florist, as well as our podcast on social media or on the web. And we hope you enjoyed this conversation. And we'd love to hear your feedback go to our website, hit the contact button. or you can find us on social media. Until next time, everyone, have fun planning those weddings and we'll talk to you soon.

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Ring The Bling And All The Things. If you liked what you heard, make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button on your favorite podcast platform to get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, ringblingallthethings.com where you can join our email list and get notifications about new episodes and other information. You can also follow us on your favorite social media platforms.

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