Florist Delivery, Set-up, and Pick-up Fee

I honestly believe for a 30 minute drive from your venue and charging $3000 is too much. I am having vendors coming from Los Angeles to San Marcos and are around $150-400 for delivery fee. Will they be transporting several times or all at once? I would ask those questions and ask how much is it for the fees individually. Also they should give you a rundown of all fees and total price. This will help you compare with that florist and others locally near you. Think about it it is technically $6000 and $3000 just for setting up and bringing down. This can be done also by your coordinating team if you have one and find other ways to help reduce those fees. Also having your close family members, bridal, and (or) groom party help bring down the set up and have everything mostly prepared for pick up could help. Best wishes 😊

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Thank you so much! I really appreciate all of the advice and insight.

My delivery fee was $150 😂 and my venue was an hour from her. Oh and she delivered to two separate locations!

That seems incredibly high. Are you having labor-intensive items/arrangements that will take hours to set up and tear down? For instance, will she be needing to construct a structure (like an arch or installment, etc.)? Will you have really tall or intricate floral pieces?

View Quoted Comment I have the same questions. It seems high, but it also seems high to spend $6,000 for flowers. If you have things that require significant physical labor or she’ll need to have multiple staff members to help with setting up and breaking down than I don’t know that $3,000 is unreasonable. It really comes down to what the job actually entails.

I just took a look at my contract and my florist charges 20% of the price of the florals for delivery/setup/teardown. This was pretty consistent with other quotes I received in the Asheville, NC area. With the numbers you've described ($6,000 in product and $3,000 delivery) that is 50% which is quite a bit higher. Best of luck planning!

I agree, that is really high. I would ask her to be specific about what that delivery and set up entails or how she calculates it. Feel free to keep shopping around and get quotes from multiple florists.

This will probably depend on your location and the type of work done with your florals. Our setup/take down fee from our florist was around $2000 after taxes, and this was 2 and a half years ago. Our florist was located 15 minutes from our venue. The florist built our chuppah which was fairly elaborate and added to the labor costs. We're also in a high cost of living city where this is the norm. We got quotes from about a dozen florists and the setup/take down fees ranged from about $1800 - 3200 for what we were looking for. In the end we spent $6000 on florals because $4000 was the base cost and $2000 was for the labor and added fees. What you are describing seems to be the same percentage of the base cost of the flowers + the fees. I'd recommend getting quotes from multiple florists in your area to make sure this is the norm for the type of floral arrangements/decor that you're wanting. We were pretty shocked at first when we realized how much the fees would be, but then after getting about 12 different quotes from most of the reputable florists in our city, we realized this was the norm.

That is way too high. absolutely not

I would have choked when I heard that. That’s insane. I have a hard enough time justifying the cost of flowers for bouquets alone so I’m keeping it simple. Unless you have that kind of budget, I’d explore other options.

Hi Alexie! Although I do agree that is high for a delivery fee, something that could be a factor is if you have the owner onsite and their top team members. My floral bill was also expensive, however, for me it was worth every penny. If you are looking for that “wow” factor with a designer touch, in my experience, this is an appropriate estimate. The florals was where I splurged for our wedding. For example, I had floral arch that was covered completely in flowers, floral chandeliers, artificial trees with twinkle lights lining the parameter of our tent, 17 centerpieces, etc. in which I did not lift a finger putting up or taking down. Any of my own decor my florist also would incorporate into the design and pack up for us afterwards. Two days before our wedding when me and my now husband were dropping off our decor we bought and setting up (my own choice to get it started) I was SO THANKFUL my florist would be there to finish the job. For me, I was beyond stressed and knowing the owner and top team would be handling it was my largest comfort. Our florist was so on top of it, provided excellent customer service, executed my vision, exceeded my expectations!! Hope this helps with your decision 🌸❤️🌷

I’m sure your wedding will be beautiful but seeing that number is why I’ll be doing my flowers myself because that hurt to read lol

Hi there! I know this is such an old post but I felt the need to comment anyway for anyone else who might come across this, present or future, and want another perspective on this question!


The cost will all be dependent upon the time and workload.
If the work going into designing is more elaborate (ex. constructing an arch on sight then taking it all down after, building up rentals/props then undoing it all after, any other time intensive things on sight, etc) then that could very well be why it's higher in cost. You have to also consider the time/work it takes loading and unloading all the floral work and rentals from in and out of the vehicle. That easily could be various trips back and forth, back and forth from the car. Then there's the 2 hours of drive time collectively (30 min there and 30 back after setting up your event and then another 30 mins there and 30 back for the breakdown) and they possibly are making two trips for both setup AND breakdown if there's a lot to move, or they could be taking two vehicles, unsure. Something to think about though. Then once they're back to the studio/shop, it's unloading everything again and completely breaking things down even further/thoroughly and cleaning everything and putting it up for whatever event/wedding they have booked next. There's a lot that goes into delivery/setup/breakdown/cleanup that people don't fully see the scope of!
Another thing is how many centerpieces are there? How many rentals and how big?
For example if there's a total of 5 centerpieces, not too time consuming! But if you have 10-15+ that could take some time to go back and forth to the vehicle to grab and set out on the tables. Is the florist solo or does she/he have helping hands? If solo, that's multiple trips. If there's help, that cuts the back and forth a bit but now that's a worker that needs to be paid too.
All of this takes time to do so time will always play a factor in fees. Plus the labor, if it's intensive or not. That's on top of overall floral design fee, the floral designing work that happens at their shop/studio, behind the scene stuff + materials used.
Hope this sort of clarified a little bit for you! I know there are a bunch of factors at play that I may not have touched on as examples or exhausted all options, everyone's wedding is different, but this is the gist!