Spotlight: Ellen Ho

Our second spotlight is Ellen Ho of Hong Photography, who photographed the beautiful Cool Water wedding on Nancy's website!

Name: Ellen Ho
Age: 31
Occupation: photographer
Location: Vancouver BC and destination
Five most played songs on your iPod:
Ella Fitzgerald - Can anyone explain? (No, No, No)

Four Tet - My Angel Rocks Back and Forth Tribe Called Quest - We've got the Jazz

Seu Jorge - Rebel Rebel

Bob Marley - Waiting in Vain
Vanilla or chocolate: Vanilla
Cookie or cookie dough: Cookie
Black & White or Color: Both

Old or new: Mix old and new

The one item in your closet that you can't live without: skinny jeans
Favorite shoe brand: Christian Louboutin

Favorite wedding magazine: Real Simple Wedding Magazine

Wedding pet peeve: wedding guests trying to be the official photographer at the wedding
Favorite wedding venue: God's Mountain Real Estate in Penticton BC
Your go-to camera: Nikon

If you could only use one camera for an entire wedding, which one would it be: Nikon D3x
Predicted wedding trend for 2010: more intimate wedding and less cliche

Predicted wedding color trend for 2010: bright yellow and beach tones

Behind the Scenes: Intern - Time is Money, Friend (Part II)

Everyone warned me that working in this industry would be difficult, frustrating, and not the lying in fluffy piles of rose petals that they thought I was picturing in my head. Maybe because I have been cautioned so often, I wasn't surprised that it is hard, tiring, and not at all glamorous. I was surprised that it was more water + Windex, and not so much flowers. In fact, that's the big surprise. There is very, very little flower in a week with Nancy, at least in her current off-but-not-really-off-because-she's-popular-and-apparently-a-workaholic season. What there IS plenty of is phone, email, consultation, and proposal. There is a great amount of communication of both ideas and logistics: coming up with ideas, changing ideas, tweaking ideas, and all of that involves a lot of talking and typing. Nancy has the most frightening inbox I have ever seen - emails come in at the rate of approximately one every five minutes. On top of that, Nancy can spend an entire work day just working on proposals that need to be sent out.

Every time a bride (or groom, I think it's awesome how many grooms care!) wants to add a tall arrangement for the entry, change a centerpiece design, or add another flower type to the bridal bouquet, Nancy has to tweak the proposal again, change descriptions, update the numbers if necessary, and send out a new one. The client likely doesn't consider having to pay Nancy for the time she spends doing that, and the time she spends on the phone or in consultation with them deciding on the exact right flower for the groomsmen's boutonnieres. Many of these are even potential clients who haven't signed a contract with her but just want to compare costs with other vendors, and often they do not end up hiring Nancy anyway. Conclusion? In my opinion, labor is the single most underestimated expense of wedding budgets. And when I say underestimated, I mean by the clients, who think "How could this possibly cost that much? I can buy flowers at Trader Joe's" but also by the vendors, who have to eat costs because they know that it sounds like a ripoff to charge anything for a redrafted proposal, even though it takes quite a bit of time to do.

Nancy is always happy to discuss design details, and I have seen her excitedly talk with clients for over an hour at a time about a single charger choice or just the floral selection in the bridal bouquet, but having been on the client side very recently, I know at least that I personally never realized how much of a event or floral designer's time is taken up by customer service and labor. And having been the person who thought boutonnieres were grossly overpriced (because I didn't realize that a client would care so much and debate for over an hour on one little detail), I've seen in person that they take quite a bit of time to make even for an experienced, talented floral designer, and that's why they cost what they do, even though there may only be one or two flowers in them. They get wired, then wrapped in floral tape, then wrapped in silk ribbon that has to be pinned on carefully. The flowers have to be carefully picked, because if there's only one of them, it has to look perfect, and it's easy to ruin the flowers while wiring and wrapping, so sometimes you have to throw out the ruined ones and start again. And an experienced floral designer has to do it, which means I can't really justifiably even say you'd want to pay a skilled tradesperson the bare, legal minimum wage. (Would it change the way you looked at that sentence if I put "talented artist" instead of skilled tradesperson? Why is it more justifiable to pay the plumber $50 an hour than it is to pay a floral designer $50 an hour?)

Crappy volunteered labor like me would probably produce something ghastly that would never be approved by Nancy's very particular eye. (I say "crappy", but Nancy is very nice to me and just says "unskilled".) I'm tempted to go through the floral garbage and practice wrapping old flowers with discarded ribbon, so that I can be slightly-less-than-unskilled labor by next month, but Nancy says a lot of the more difficult techniques need to be learned from a floral school. So instead, I try to comfort myself by teaching Nancy things like how to merge all her windows in Safari and what "<3" means, and configuring her network for her so she doesn't have to call the Geek Squad. Can't wire an orchid? Can't wrap a bouquet? Yup, you're unskilled labor. Welcome to the world of floral design! ;)

Another week, another lesson. Will Michelle make it to the end without killing her insanely demanding boss, Nancy? Or will Michelle realize that the excitement of working in this never-a-dull-moment industry is perfect for her? Stay continued for the Behind the Scenes take on what's life like as a wedding vendor?

Ask Nancy: What are you supposed to do?

Dear Nancy
I am an experienced florist and I usually spend hours writing very detailed proposals.
Recently, I spent half a day's work writing up a detailed proposal only to have the client not hire me. What are we suppose to do to sell our services to clients who have no understanding about how many hours we put into a proposal that probably gets shopped? How do you manage clients who have unrealistic budgets and yet want a proposal?
Yours,
Not Enough Time

_____________________________________

Dearest NET

You've arrived to the land of PIF(pay it forward). Welcome to the world of wedding flowers. Welcome to the world of designers. In order to get business, you have to pay it forward which means you have to invest in your clients which means spending time(which equals money) with prospective clients. It means spending resources to get the job. And that's life.

Or is it?

I'm a believer in doing my homework.

I'm a believer in knowing what I need to pay my bills.

I'm the breadwinner in my family and I have no choices.

As you can see, I don't have the luxury of time to waste on clients who cannot meet our business needs. I run a business after all. And it's my responsible as a business owner to make sound decisions that are in best interest for the continuation of our modest business.

Simply put - We cannot meet all needs of all clients. And I'm guessing that you cannot as well. You cannot satisfy every client. You cannot meet all budgetary needs. And you certainly cannot afford to burn out if you continue to write proposals and spend half a day on a potential client who's budget may not be able to compensate for your time and energy.

The time you spend on meeting with a client and then coming up with creative ideas cannot be wasted on a client's budget or vision that might be inappropriate for your business. (Brides, do not get scared if you are reading this. There is a florist and FD for you. There are PLENTY of florist and FD in all ranges -  there is someone out there that can meet anyone's budget. Period.) For a client that meets your needs, you probably have all the time in the world, no?

So what I do - I know that I have to be selective up front. We put on our website that we have a minimum and yes we stick to it as close as possible(there are exceptions to every RULE). For the most part, there are a few exceptions and when there are exceptions it is because the wedding is small or the wedding is interesting to my creative soul.

When we do meet with clients, we don't always write a proposal anymore. It takes me too long and our proposals are so extensive for me to write one for every client who meets with us. They are complex things because we use the proposal to schedule employees and IC(that's Independent Contractors), order flowers, cost out props, and on and on. It's detailed so it doesn't work for all clients. Think about it, if someone is coming to you to order a bouquet and boutonniere, why do they need an elaborate proposal when they are merely shopping?  As a floral designer, you should be able to quote a price for these two things in your sleep.  You should be able to write a very simple invoice if they want to order the flowers for you.    And you should also be able to just give them a hand written quote on your professional letterhead or type it on a very professional template or give it to them verbally.

During the first consult, I'm there to find out if we are a match. Sometimes, yes and sometimes no. I'm there to help and listen to the client and to offer up suggestions. I'm not there to sell though it's hard not to. We are creative businesses so we have to "get business" to be creative, right?

It's alright for me to give a ballpark figure. After all, we all know that a proposal is simply an estimation of possible costs.

Do I share ideas, yes and no. Sure I give them some ideas. You have to in order for them to see that you genuinely care. Some will disagree but for the scale of our projects, we do have to give them some suggestions, tips, and creative solutions. Are these the ones that will actually make it on the proposal, sure but it's more to show that I care about the execution and direction of this project.

The clients who make a connection with you will ask for a formal proposal because you are a serious final candidate. For these clients, I will write the proposal with delight!  I'll even drive over proposal to someone if they are ready to sign(trust me, I've done that!)  For all others, I generally do not. In my experience, you have to learn to read people. It's all part of business. Haven't you figured out yet when a client is genuinely a good match? Haven't you found out when it isn't going to work unless you give it away?

Take more time listening to your clients in hopes of making a true connection with a client. Find out what you want in an ideal client and what the client is really looking for. Don't waste their time and don't waste your own.

News: Nancy's Signature Collection is coming.

After 300+ weddings, I'm finding that you can't do business the same way. During economic downturns, you can't always go back to the well and redo what you have been doing. You can't stick to things if they are not working. To survive you have to rethink.

One of the things that I've been working on is how to make sure that we satisfy two very different clientales. We have many clients who want our designs and style but don't have the resources to pay for expensive, tedious, customized weddings. And we have clients who aren't comfortable with a set package and want customization and enjoy the design process. As we grow I understand that when you do customized events every weekend, you have to set aside time prior to an event to work with the client. Sometimes these meetings, design changes, and resource trips take up so much time that you cannot work with smaller clients because you just don't have enough time(remember - time = money). For those clients on a budget, the design, creativity, time spent on meetings and updates sometimes drive up the cost so that smaller budget clients cannot be serviced. However with the economy being what it is, even a higher end floral designer cannot just walk such clientale or can they?

This must be a dilemma that so many of you also face.

How to do creative and custom work in a market that seems to be shrinking?

How can you grow and satisfy both clients?

To that solution, I've been thinking about something for a long time and I'm very happy to announce that we've come up with 4 collections which start at $2250 for a client who doesn't need hand holding, extensive meetings, and who simply are not SPECIFIC about their container or floral needs! It's for someone who can tolerate a bit of a surprise. It's for a bride and groom who is comfortable and willing to sacrifice customization for convenience. To that we are finally offering 4 collections in 4 unique styles.

After so many years of doing business, I realize that like a Giorgio Armani or a Gap, you can distinguish your brand without "killing" it. Is this the future? For that I don't have a crystal ball that can predict the future, but the bottom line: We all have to make it easier for clients to hire us. We have to figure out ways to work smarter.

If you are interested in one of our collections for your Bay Area wedding, let us know. We would happy to share them with you!

Ask Nancy: Free Advice

Dear Brown Bag Readers

I'm very honored to have Michelle Loretta of Sage Wedding Pros as a guest blogger this week. Many of you know that I've been answering questions via the Ask Nancy posts but I thought it might be refreshing to hear from one of my colleagues. So today, instead of me answering questions, Michelle has offered to answer one. Thank you Michelle!

_______________________________

Dear Wedding Pro

I’m new to the wedding industry, and it seems like a lot of people email me solely for advice. They want me to help them with their florals but have no interest in using my services. These people only want my expert advice. What is the best way to treat them?

Floral Freshman

_______________________________

Dear Floral Freshman,

I’m of the opinion that free advice always has the right price: it’s FREE. And, that is why it is in high demand. There are a few ways you can go about this. But, the bottom line is that you need to justify some sort of value to your business – whether it’s just an intangible value or a priced service. Time is money. And, if you don’t charge for your time, you will feel like you were taken advantage of by that person.

Consider these 4 questions:

1. Is this a relationship investment?

By answering “free advice” requests are you investing in something greater? Are you investing in potential referred business? Are you investing in a relationship with this person for the longer term? Are you investing in good karma, just because? And, does this investment give you enough reward to justify the expense (your time)? In this case, you make an investment of your time for the greater good in the future.

2. Is this an investment in “building your expertise and reputation”?

While you are building up your career, it may be good to help people out so that you build a good reputation. This goes in line with investing in relationships. If you want to create a buzz based on your expertise, you may need to speak as an expert. This may mean giving out a little free advice.

3. Is this an investment in goodwill?

Sometimes you just want to do nice things. And this is OK. If you want to take a number of “free advice” emails each week, then go for it. Pay it forward.

AND - This last question is the one you really need to consider…

4. Is doling out free advice getting in the way of your profitability?

The minute that your free advice is getting in the way of your profitability is the minute you need to put the kibosh on it. Time is money. How valuable is your time? Are you spending time answering emails and phonecalls for people who aren’t going to pay you? You could spend that time in a consult, writing a blog post, or having coffee with a colleague.

Is your art being compromised by people who don’t value it? You wouldn’t charge less for your floral design than the price that reflects the art, would you? How does the advice differ? You are sharing your technique for free. Are they going to buy the cow if they’re getting the milk for free?

In summary…

If you can justify the investment in giving free advice, then go for it! However, if you feel that it is detracting too much from your time, focus, sales, energy, and art, then don’t do it. You should feel REALLY GOOD about handing out the free advice. If you don’t feel REALLY GOOD about it… if it sorta makes you shudder with angst, then decide how to proceed:

- Price your consults (this would be a “no design – solely consult” meeting); it could be by phone or in person and they would pay a fee for your advice

- Kindly decline

OR

- Refer them to someone else

Good luck Floral Freshman! I’m sure you’ll do the right thing!

Michelle Loretta of Sage Wedding Pros

Sage Wedding Pros is dedicated to creating sustainable businesses in the wedding industry. Visit www.sageweddingpros.com to learn how to be sustainable!

About Nancy: Modern Day Lemonade Stand

I want to thank all of you for your support as our 1st ever Pop Up store went off without a hitch. Thanks to the many wonderful people for their support and for actually buying all the beautiful flowers. We were able to help feed 30 families for a day with the proceeds that went to Glad Tidings Church for their relief effort. Huge thanks to Piccino SF for being a great partner.

And a special thanks to my husband, KC and my friends, Matt, Lisa and Matthew who came by to say hi and to get some flowers!

Spotlight: Natasha Lisitsa of Waterlily Pond

Dear Brown Bag Fans
We are starting a new series which is Spotlight! We spotlight one of our vendor buddies. This week, Michelle has chosen to feature one of her favorite vendors. Let's meet, Natasha of Waterlily Pond.

_____________________________________

Name: Natasha Lisitsa

Occupation: Floral and Event Designer, Owner of Waterlily Pond Studio
Black & White or Color? Color
Old or new? New
Favorite wedding magazine: Grace Ormonde Wedding Style
Wedding pet peeve: Salt and pepper in front of bride and groom
Personal favorite flower: Gloriosa Lilies
Go-to flower: Dahlia
If you could only use one flower for an entire wedding, what would it be: Peonies
Favorite wedding venue: Oh my... this is too hard. I have many favorites, depending on the style of the wedding, indoor or outdoor, city or wine country. It would torture me to name just one.
Predicted wedding trend for 2010: Sparkles and crystals
Predicted wedding color trend for 2010: Black

Real Groom's Series: Another Groom's Perspective

Dear Brown Bag Readers,

I am delighted and thrilled to offer you another Groom's perspective. This article was sent to me via twitter from a follower and recently engaged groom, @benmvp. We thank @benmvp for this write up and perspective. To read more about his life please go to Ben's blog at www.benmvp.com

____________________________________

So I want to take a vote. Raise your hand if before ever being seriously involved with your future spouse, you had thought of (and possibly planned) how your wedding day would go. Keep 'em up! Now I'm almost certain that 99.99% of those who raised their hands were female!

Now be honest. How many of you girls were marrying your Barbie & Ken dolls??

I can't remember exactly when I first starting thinking about marriage. I want to say it was relatively late – maybe not until college. But even during those thoughts, I was more so thinking of what married life would be like, not how the wedding day would go. I mean, I'm sure growing up I probably had some assumptions about the wedding, based on things I had seen in movies and the like, but I definitely wasn't walking the red and pink Power Rangers down the aisle to unite them in holy matrimony!

I think it's because girls have been thinking about their wedding day for sooo long that the guys take a back seat during the planning of it. Shoot, some guys are in a whole 'nother car a few exits back when it comes to wedding planning.

Thus far, I've been pretty involved in the planning of our wedding. I've had my hand in just about everything, except for the wedding dress (because apparently I can't see it at all until our wedding day). I've actually been getting quite a deal of compliments for being such an involved groom-to-be. I'm very appreciative of the praise, but I can't take full credit like it's 100% altruistic. Of course I want to be a good fiancé and help out Rashida, but to be honest there are some ulterior motives behind me being so involved (aside from the fact that by nature I'm someone who's involved with planning).

My new mantra.

Ulterior Motive #1 is that the more involved I am in the planning, the more control I have over keeping us within our budget. Sounds kind of bad (and obvious), but the more money we don't spend on the wedding, the more money we'll have for our new life together. I'm not saying that if left alone Rashida would go all wild and crazy with the money (cuz if she would, we'd have much bigger issues than the wedding), but it's those "is it REALLY worth $300 more for the napkins to be "kelly green" instead of regular ol' green?" questions that help keep costs down.

You've heard the phrase "Happy Wife, Happy Life" right? Well there is the "happy fiancé, your engagement won't be doomsday" corollary. Enter Ulterior Motive #2. The more involved I am in the planning, (hopefully) the less stressed Rashida will be, which in turn will make my life muuuuuch better. As I'm coming to find out, wedding planning is pretty stressful when you can't afford a wedding planner. There are emails to send out, meetings to attend, decisions to make, etc. Rashida sometimes already feels overwhelmed with all the stuff that we have to do, and I'm right there helping her with everything. I can only imagine what it'd be like if she were rollin' solo. You may find it surprising, but her "stressedness" doesn't just go away when I go over to visit her. So in an effort to make our time together more enjoyable, I help with the planning to reduce her stress. Well, that and back rubs...

But fellas, even if you're like "Ben her parents are paying for the wedding so she can knock herself out for all I care!" or "Ben I'm too lazy... I'll just take an L during the engagement period", I highly suggest that you at least participate in the food tasting. Why?? Because it's free fooood!!! I never knew this (well honestly I never really thought about it), but as you're trying to find a location for the reception, you also get to taste the catered food they'll be serving. And guess what?! It's all F-R-E-E!!

One of the many dishes we got to try for free at the Biltmore Hotel

Rashida and I spent our lunch & dinner on Saturday tasting the food at our top 2 location choices. The first place gave us full plates and meals! Of course, all the meat-tasting was left to me, so I was definitely stuffed afterwards. Rashida ended up trying two veggie dishes, so she left the tasting 5 lbs heavier too.

Rashida slurping up a bite of the pasta primavera

The place was cool because for the meats, they had many different sauces available. So instead of getting multiple dishes of chicken and multiple dishes of beef (which I definitely couldn't have finished), they gave me one of each, with two different sauces to try for each. Rashida originally only got a pasta dish with marinara sauce, but after being wary of how that would impact her wedding dress, they also let her try an alternate ravioli dish.

Proof that going with the pasta was a bad idea. Where's club soda when you need it??

The second location wasn't as generous or accommodating of Rashida's meatlessness, but the NBA Dunk Contest (while extremely disappointing) was on TV so it made the experience a bit better. Instead of full plates to try, they only gave us little handful samplers. There was a greater variety of food, but after coming off a stuffed lunch, we were expecting a bit more. And unfortunately most of the food wasn't vegetarian-friendly, so Rashida was still hungry when we left. That's not a good sign for our wedding reception...

Feeding each other food is only one of the perks of food tasting

Rashida and I already have had two cake tasting as well. Those have been fun because not only do we get to try a handful of flavors, we get to take whatever's left over in a to-go box! We have another tasting scheduled for sometime this week and potentially a fourth for this weekend. I'm going to need to make an appointment with the dentist when this is all said and done.

With all this free food we've been getting, Rashida and I were joking around that if planning for a wedding wasn't so time-consuming (we still have to find a photographer, videographer, DJ, florist, etc.), we'd just spend every weekend scheduling tastings with various caterers who we're "interested" in. We could use all the money we'd be saving on food towards a better photographer or an hour more music with the DJ.

So fellas, if you're hemming and hawing about joining your fiancée (i.e., the woman you love) on the tastings, I would strongly suggest that you go! Not only will you get to taste good food for free, but she'll think you're so loving and caring for taking time out of your "busy" schedule to join her for the tasting. Unless of course she reads my blog too... Then it's just about the good food...

Be sure to check out the full album of pictures from the food tasting...

Behind the Scenes: Intern - Time is Money, Friend

I was going to post and say, "I think I'm starting to get the hang of this job!" But then, I broke my first vase, and unfortunately, it was a big one, so I guess, not so much. (Nancy was very kind, and was far less upset about it than I was.)

I volunteered to help at The Wedding University, and the behind the scenes setup was very educational. There were at least 11 volunteers there to help Nancy and Gloria set up four beautiful vignettes, but the setup still took us nearly a whole day.

On Saturday, we started from 1:30 pm and I stayed until 8:30 pm, and on Sunday we started from 9 am and went until 11, when The Wedding University started. This doesn't include the time before the actual on-site setup, when Nancy designed the floral arrangements, bought flowers, brought them back to her studio, prepped them, arranged them, and we had to track down the materials, vases, and props for the vignettes.

As a result of my experience at TWU, I have a new appreciation for labor. I've starting to take a look at every wedding, event, task, or errand a different way - how much does the labor cost? Something I didn't know - San Francisco minimum wage is $9.79. At SF minimum wage, that would make the cost for the labor alone, $1000, not including Nancy and Gloria's work on the setup and the work that we put in before, and this is just for the event design and floral setups alone, not including the rentals, lighting, draping, and the hotel's setup.

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of my intern who went from being a bride in January to being a wedding worker. Will she survive? To be continued...

Image of Professor Andrew Hsu of MSV from The Wedding University by Janae Sheilds.

Inspirations: Chinese New Year with Love!

As many of you might know already, this weekend is both Valentines and Chinese New Year's so instead of doing two inspiration boards, I grouped both Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day Red together to come up with this Double Happiness Board.

Must admit, I am really not that good at doing these boards so I will continue to work on it. Thank you for being patient with me! And may you have twice as much happiness during the Year of the Tiger.

Real Weddings: Wedding of the Year #1

Thank you Style Unveiled for another great post on our wonderful couple, Nanie and Clifton who got married in San Francisco at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel but did a wedding portrait in Paris. Read more about the details and their story at Style Unveiled's San Francisco edition. And of course, the hubby gets a huge shout out for taking these lovely images. You will find more images on Kevin Chin's fabulous blog. Thanks, Kevin Chin!

Behind the Scenes: TWU - Recap Short Film

I'm calling this week, "short film week". Yup, it's another short film but this time it's from The Wedding University.

Here's a great look inside what it takes to produce these all day workshops and bridal seminars. What I love about Andrew Hsu's video is the time lapse portion. You can see how much work it takes to design and setup just one small tablescape. There are 4 vignettes to look out for - Classic Luxe(which we called "Penthouse"), Sophisticated Simplicity(called "the Suite"), Rustic Charm(called "Lodge"), and Modern Pop(called "Gallery").

Which one do you like?

The Wedding University SDE from andrew msv on Vimeo.

About Nancy: A Holiday to Remember

My dear husband is now a filmmaker and I'm so thrilled to share my Holiday video with all of you. As you can tell, my family is filled with creative souls whether it's my niece and nephew making a gold wreath, my brother cooking, or my sister in law baking.

There's so much love around me that I think this little snippet is perfect for this week - a week to celebrate LOVE.

Thanks, KC(the hubby)....for this wonderful short film.

About Nancy: You've got to Smile

As many of you might know, last week I was working on The Wedding University. Here's a few behind-the-scene images that I thought I would share. Thank you Kevin Chin for letting me borrow these images from your blog.

Though TWU had over 100+ students, it took nearly that many helpers from designers, assistants and installers to transform half the ballroom into four distinctive vignettes from Classic Luxe, Modern Spirograph, Rustic Lodge, to Palm Springs Sophisticated Chic not including preparing the packets, magazine bundles, and so much more for the students. There's so many people that I need to thank and I'm going to fail because I cannot possibly do it.

So I will try.


John Woods of Enhanced Lighting and his crew. Fab. John was also part of the Design and Decor Presentation. Like last year, John made the crowd laugh with his quirky jokes. He never fails to go the extra mile. Here he is hanging a crystal chandelier. His team also piped and draped the entire ballroom. One of the reason why pipe and drape is so effective is that it gives you a blank canvas from which to design and it masks unsightly things like patterned carpets. A designer knows that if you remove "noise" you can draw the eye to the details. If not, there's too much competition.

More thank you's - Amanda Chan and the rest of the administrative team. A shout out to my team of helpers including Marian, Lily, Michelle, Omega, Katie, Gail, Karen, Danny and many more. Of course, another thank you goes to Hartmann and Wild Flower Linens for the rentals. A centerpiece is just a centerpiece. A centerpiece with rental items is a transformation complete. And I couldn't do it without Gloria Wong - the best in the biz, Kevin Chin who photographed images, and co-founders, Jubilee Lau and Jean Marks.

What did I learn( too much and one day I'll try to put it into words)? No matter how popular, respected and experienced you are, you've got to be able to do it with a smile even on your knees ----- after working 10 hours! Even when you are stuffing tissue into favor bags to "fluff" them up, hanging a chandelier, counting rentals, taping things on the wall, you have to love working amongst the details.

PS: Keep a ruler in your tool box, you can use it to make sure that all the glassware, flatware, chargers and dishes are 1 inch from the table's edge! And a working lighter is key when you have so many candles to light.

Behind the Scenes: Intern - Perpetually Damp

Dear Fans of the Brown Bag


I've asked my new intern, Michelle Chang, to chronicle her journey as she moves from wedding-planning-bride to floral-and-event-designing intern. Michelle was recently married (New Year's Day 1/1/10) and at the conclusions of her very brief honeymoon, she started her 4 month internship in hopes of pursuing a dream which is that of working in our fast paced wedding industry. Will her hopes, dreams and views of this glamorous wedding industry be dashed as she navigates the politics, the physical work, and the business behind what many would call the most unappreciated and undervalued position in the wedding industry - that of the so called floral and event designer?


With limited editing and direction, I promised Michelle that I would let her tell her story in her own voice...so that all of you can see the good, the bad, the ugly and most especially the beautiful.


Thank you Michelle for your willingness to open your heart to all of us. I give you, Michelle Chang.
____________________________________

My name is Michelle and I'm Nancy's intern! I've just finished my first week working with Nancy and she asked me to blog about my experiences thus far.

Trying to describe working with Nancy is all about extremes. I already worked more hours and more days than I'd originally planned, because I never have enough time to do all the things that need to be done. To-do lists and priorities are constantly in flux, as new tasks always seem to pop up unexpectedly, and unforeseen problems occur at a regular rate. At the same time, I've been laughing so much every day because Nancy is so much fun to be around, but maybe my stomach muscles are also sore from carefully lifting all those heavy glass vases and plastic buckets filled with cold water and flowers. (I'm clumsy and inexperienced enough at handling flowers that the bottom half of my pants seemed to be perpetually damp.) There have been so many highs and lows, and it's only been a week.

One of the first things Nancy said to me was that as her intern, I would shadow her, which meant, "do everything Nancy does". I didn't quite realize how literally she meant everything. First thing Monday morning, we picked up a lot of wet and nasty trash outside her studio. During the previous night someone had gone through the garbage bin outside and thrown everything on the ground, and it was totally stinky and gross.

The next day, I went with her and attended an incredible networking event (Hartmann Open House) with wedding industry professionals, and viewed amazing rental options while tasting delicious catered snacks like skewers of sliced duck in endive with chili powder. I even got to meet a few of my favorite wedding bloggers, like Michelle Barrionuevo-Mazzini and Stacie Tamaki! (The only caveat was that we had to wake up at 6 in the morning to pack up, drive over, and set up floral arrangements, and then wait around after the event to break everything down and pack it back up! Totally worth it, in my opinion.) Yesterday was a decidedly unglamorous but very educational day in which I sawed Styrofoam, covered pots (and my hands) in paint, and was poked repeatedly by rose thorns as I learned how to use a dethorning tool.

Flowers are so expensive! I didn't realize. This picture from my iPhone is $75 worth of peonies. Can you believe it? I was horrified - especially at the idea that I as a floral newbie I might be made responsible for processing a flower that cost $5 a stem before tax. (Fortunately, Nancy processed the peonies. Instead I only had to learn to dethorn the roses, and hopefully I only ruined one of them.)
As I'm starting to realize, flowers are incredibly perishable and unpredictable in their lifespan, and plans change every day as availability and price and flower condition fluctuates. When Nancy's working on a design or an arrangement, she's alternately loving it and hating it, trying to estimate whether the flowers will be open enough, or too open, too tight, or wilted, when the delivery time comes, thinking that it's going to be amazing, thinking it's going to be a disaster. As the clock ticks down, she always somehow makes it work. The result is a gorgeous thing that is so far from the failure that she keeps saying it will be even as she's arranging, that part of me wants to laugh at her but I don't. She holds herself and her work to an incredibly high standard - when I think things are already amazing she's often still not happy with it. She strives for perfection, for her designs and arrangements, yes, but also for the quality of her flowers, and I think that's what makes her so good at what she does.

Nancy reminds me every day, many times a day, that working in the wedding industry is horribly hard work that can often make you feel incredibly under appreciated and frustrated. I've seen it in action and before my own eyes now, and she's totally right. And yet at the same time I watch her cooing over a lovely flower, being enthusiastic and excited during a client meeting, or just standing back and thrilling over a resulting beautifully arranged centerpiece - in so many big and little ways Nancy makes it clear-cut and obvious just how much she truly loves her job. I hope I still enjoy it this much when I've been doing it for more than a week!

Photo credit: Michelle Chang

Photo credit: Lilia Photography

Budget: What does $1000 get you?

Dear Fans of the Brown Bag -

Do you all remember the poll from last year asking brides and grooms what their floral budget was? Well, I thought I would revisit that article and see what this year brought.

It is an old article about what $1000 will get you in flowers. I hope this is equally informative.

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This was one of the most interesting polls that I've had on the Brown Bag so I decided to do some shopping so I went to cyberspace to see what would $1000 get me. The results are fascinating.




1 Good Mini Calla bouquet
1 Good Mixed Bridesmaid Bouquet
2 Calla boutonnieres
1 Female Corsage
10 Mini calla arrangements shipped in a box(no vase)
1 Mini calla carrangements for Escort Card table shipped in a box(no vase)
1 Church Arrangement

Total before shipping, delivery, local taxes and vases: $994.83

That was in 2009. If I were to search online, what would $1000 buy today. And let's not talk about just buying flowers because that doesn't solve the problem. Some of you might want to know the cost of the flowers but as we all know, it's about the finished product. So I searched the internet and found this collection of flowers through proflowers.com

1 Bridal Boutonniere

1 Groom's boutonniere
10 Boutonnieres

9 Pinned Corsages

11 Centerpieces - no glass

4 Flower Girl Bouquets - that I guess you could use for bridesmaid

All purple Peruvian Lilies. No change in colors or substitutes.

Total before shipping, delivery, local taxes and vases: $1050.00

What spurred me into writing this article? I'm sure you are wondering. I guess I'm doing this because I was challenged the other day to do a design for a 300 guest reception with a budget very close to this one. Certainly I didn't want to hurt or offend the client because I like a good challenge but as you can see, it's not that easy to produce a full wedding for $1000. Of course, many of you will argue that you can but I hope my example shows that you get what you pay for.

Please keep in mind, that I am NOT talking about buying grower boxes. That's another story. I am talking to clients who want a finished product, someone to set it up, someone to clean up, someone to design something unique. I'm sure for $1000 anyone can buy more flowers but this is not a question about the price of flowers but what someone can actually find for $1000 across markets.

Your comments are always so welcome so bring it on.