The Myth of the “Wedding Tax”

Have you ever heard that florists charge more once they hear the word “wedding”? I have no idea where this myth started (probably some internet article published 15 years ago), but it has taken root in the cultural consciousness of lots of folks getting married, so we wanted to dispel it here.

Here’s why it’s not true:

Flowers have a standard, industry-wide markup. Why the markup to begin with? Well, when we purchase our flowers at wholesale cost from farms or suppliers, they come to us tied in market bunches with leaves on, often covered in dirt (or even bugs!), and generally not design-ready. We transport these flowers back to our studio, cold-store them, then process them. That means we strip the leaves and extra lateral branches we’re not going to use, we clean the stems, remove any pods (looking at you, poppies), slice open the stems for better hydration (looking at you, hellebores), and prep them for design. Once our blooms are design ready, our team gets to work carefully placing each flower where it needs to go to make floral magic.

Let me let you in on a little secret: retail floristry and wedding floristry use exactly the same markup. How do we know this? Because here at Stems Brooklyn, we have both a retail shop and a weddings department.

Why would we charge more for a wedding than for retail arrangements? We’re doing the same work to condition, process, and design with the flowers. And when it comes to designing, pricing flowers is just math. If tulips retail at $6 per stem, and we put 8 tulips in an arrangement, the arrangement is priced at $48. Easy!

The only difference is that, for a full-service wedding, you may need on-site set-up and breakdown services, which we of course charge for as a percentage of your flower subtotal. The flowers themselves, however, are priced the same.

So next time someone tells you, “just say you’re having an engagement party or a family reunion!” to save money on flowers, just know that when you come to us, our flowers are priced transparently across the board. No wedding tax, no surprises. Happy planning!