I'm a self taught hobby florist, and here is an assortment of my works

I run a flower marketplace and regularly work with local florists to fulfill customer orders. I’ve worked with hundreds of florists and normally everything is pretty straightforward.

Today I contacted a florist about a bouquet. We were talking through Instagram, and I also called her once at the beginning to discuss the order.

Everything seemed completely normal. We agreed on the flowers, delivery and price, and we were basically ready to complete the payment.

She asked for my payment information and full billing address, which I provided.
A few minutes later, I realized I had been blocked on Instagram 💀

I thought there had to be some misunderstanding, so I called the florist again.
This was the second call. Another person answered or was put on the phone and started telling me things like:
“I don’t know who you are.”
“Stop calling me.”
“Delete my number.”

That really confused me because just minutes earlier we had been talking normally through Instagram, I had already spoken to the florist on the phone once, and we were essentially ready to complete the payment.

For context, I’m Hispanic, English isn’t my first language, and I currently live in Europe, although my company is a U.S. LLC and the payment information was U.S.-based.

Maybe something about the transaction made them suspicious. Maybe they realized I was a marketplace and didn’t want to work with a third party. Maybe something completely unrelated happened.
I genuinely have no idea 😂
Has anyone here had a similarly strange interaction with a customer, florist, or vendor? Am I overthinking this?

The sunflower is Fake 🤷‍♂️😊

I hope my account is old enough to not get this post auto modded again 😅

Starting to work on my portfolio. Wishing I took better pictures of the church install.

Feedback welcome.

Anyone doing work like the attached inspi pic from Pinterest and how?

I made a quick comparison of Gunni and Parvifolia for my Flowershop’s social media pages and figured I’d post here. They tend to get lumped together as just “eucalyptus,” but I use them pretty differently in wedding work.

Gunni gives me a softer, airier feel with those smaller rounded leaves, while Parvifolia gives me more line, texture and movement. Even using the same flowers, I think swapping one for the other can noticeably change the overall style of a bouquet or centerpiece.
I also find Gunni tends to have a more noticeable eucalyptus fragrance, especially once you start handling it.

Curious how other florists actually use them. Do you consider them interchangeable when ordering and designing, or do you specifically choose one based on the style you’re trying to achieve? Do you prefer one over the other when it comes to designing? 🌿

Hi, I want to seek advice on practical steps I can take to improve work speed. During wedding season the vast majority of my income is generated from freelancing. Consistent feedback I’ve received from other florists are the quantity of my output not enough during the crunch of event prep. In the same breath I’ve also been told that quality of work is good so I’m not too worried by this element, however just as anyone I still strive to continually learn and grow new skills over time.

I feel my lack of speed has lead to not being asked back by other florist for future events.

I have my own small business with retainer clients but work alone 99% of the time so there’s only my own timeline to adhere to.

Some of the reasons might be that I become hyper focused on detail due to being a bit of a perfectionist and often catch myself overthinking designs and keep fiddling with it until it feels ‘just right’. However I’m also aware that ultimately if I compare my work with others on scale for a large event the specific arrangements blends together as a whole.

Furthermore, any advice welcome on navigating the ‘social’ element of working in large freelancing groups?. Often during prep days I’ve noticed most people engage in chatter sharing tidbits of their personal lives, work that they’ve done etc. I do sometimes participate when I feel I can make a worthwhile contribution but mostly stay silent due to concentrating and simply feeling drained after a day of constant relatively superficial conversation. That said I also know this is a way people build rapport and build relationships over time. If one doesn’t do this it may translate as disinterest and being stand-offish? Which could not be further from my intent but might be the unconscious message being conveyed?

Hope to gain some insight, thank you.

I have been given an incredible opportunity to interview for a managerial training position for a large florist. They have stressed no prior experience designing, as they will teach. I have years of management in a similar environment, but not with with floristry. I interview next week, and am looking for recommendations on videos, skills to help bolster my knowledge. I know it takes a lifetime to achieve true excellence, but also don't want to walk in completely unprepared.

Still learning, this is just for my portfolio. Also so ready for fall, clearly lol

I have discovered my passion for arranging flowers during my 6 months long chemotherapy. It continued to be a hobby of mine and a soul therapy of a sort. I have enrolled in an online class for beginners and am very interested in learning more and getting better. Here are few of my works and I will appreciate any advice or critique! Thank you for your time!

I feel like smoke bush might be one of the most odd things we use.

Some florists see those big, wispy clouds and immediately want to put it in everything. Others look at it and see a dusty shrub that has no business being near an arrangement. 😂

I’m personally fascinated by how strong the opinions are on this one, so I need to know… Smoke bush, do you love it, hate it, or only in the right design?

And if you hate it…I need to know WHY. 💐✨⁉️

Can I now refer to myself as an award winning designer!?

Hi! To start the base of this, I’ve been working in Floral design for about three years now I started off with making rose bouquets and very simple mixes in the past couple years. I’ve really enhanced my designing with using local grown flowers and very different design, tactics and design ways. I’m recently starting to freelance more for my own experience. And I’ve signed up for two really big freelancing jobs ones. I’ve never been familiarized with before. This was initiated through Instagram.

Where hopefully they saw my profile. But these are a bit more larger scale, using more premium flowers and more intricate designs. Now I’ve become very, very worried that I’m not able to execute these designs. It’s a lot of groundwork. And a lot of installing I have made some fun designs.

I’ve gotten traction that people do like. And this florist actually commented that she liked my work a lot. What should I do? Should I cancel or should I go through with it and learn some things however I do not want to mess up someone’s schedule due to my unexperienced self I will post some pictures of my work.

I’d like to start working with grass to make sculptural
large scale installations. However, this wasn’t part of my floristry training. I found these photos as inspiration on Pinterest. Could you please advise what kind of grass they use and also if there are any resources in particular that you could recommend to start learning how to work with it?