Floral & Event Consulting — Lindsey Claire Newman

You want your couples to feel the amount of love you put into every event, but you need more hours in the day to spend the time to understand them AND create their dream wedding.

Let me screen your couples and save your precious time for the ones that deserve your all! Only spend time connecting with clients that actually want your designs, fit into your calendar and can meet your minimums. I’ll take streamlined notes and return to you well organized information that you’ll need to create your proposal & book the event.

Allow me to create a base proposal featuring seasonally appropriate flowers, color palettes that elevate and impress, and dynamic imagery to describe your individual sense of style. I’ll give you a working document and the hand off the edits and fine-tuning to you.

Bring me in at the three month mark, when all of those final details fall into place. I’ll walk your clients through their final decisions, connect with planners to negotiate timing and day of logistics, and hand it all to you in a checklist and timeline of your own.

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You’ve booked out your season and turns out, you’re no longer a one-human show! Finding and scheduling staff and freelancers is an art form of it’s own and one that I happen to excel at.

Show me your calendar and your wedding orders and I’ll turn around an estimate for how many designers, crew members, drivers and strikers you might need in the studio and on site. Paying your staff for the correct type of work is clutch in taking your business from breaking even to profit.

I can assist in sorting through designers, crew members & strike teams and identifying the ones that fit your studio goals best. Whether this is getting job posts up and out (n spaces other than your Instagram feed, c’mon now), screening resumes, or even interviewing potential hires, I want you to find the people that you need to make the team of your dreams.

I’ll even coordinate, schedule, send out week-ahead reminders and outline your pre-event meeting to ensure that your team shows up, knowing where they’re supposed to be what they’ll be workign on. Letting team members in on the plan ahead of time lets them know they are valued and respected. This level of communications promotes staying power and long term relationships with the people you want to work with.

You’re bringing epic ideas into real life one weekend at a time, but couples are booking their vendors year round, not just in your off season! Getting your work out in real time builds buzz, gets your name swirling in the ethers and allows you to choose the clients you want to work with. Let’s think about next season now.

From creating a list of shots and a social media schedule that works for you, to following up with photographers, creating captions and cross posts, let me help you get to the center of the social media web.

Sending follow up notes and staying connected to planners and fellow vendors gets your business recommended by the people that matter., And also, because you also showed up on site calm, cool, and on time with your pro level team : )

From paid promotions to pop ups and trade shows, thinking out side the box gets you into spaces to be found! Not all engaged couples are at Wedding Walk and on The Knot. The fun ones are at the farmers market, reading design blogs and out for coffee around town. Let’s sit down and talk about where you want to show up to be discovered.

The quick and dirty: I find joy in the efficiency (and color choices) of a well-designed spreadsheet. I believe that with forethought and good communication a floral team should never be forced to compromise the plan because of a packing error, or a delayed shipment, or goddess forbid, the weather. A good plan has a good plan B. A proper toolkit has the supplies for all situations, including bandaids and those epically huge clear zip ties. A good design has flex to it, but flex without compromise, or at least the kind of compromise that nobody notices but you.

One thing I’ve learned about working with small business owners is that its HARD to hand off these tasks. They are the core of your business and you likely feel like they keep you at the center of everything. The truth is you are the face of your business and always will be! And I prefer to work like that invisible night ninja that disappears at dawn. I don’t want credit from your clients, I want you to let me make you more efficient (and share me with your other florist friends :) Each relationship begins with a conversation where we’ll discuss what you want off of your plate and how I can take some of the load. I will never share your client lists, staff lists, designs and any other information that I learn while working with you. Trust is the crux of why our relationship will work and I respect the hard work you’ve put in to build this so far!

With over 15 years in the wedding and floral industry, three of which were spent running a flower farm that began in my attempt to grow flowers for my own wedding (which I did and they were gorgeous :), I have seen a lot. I won’t say ‘it all’ because the wedding and events industry is one of surprises. I have grown the flowers, designed with them in an assembly line format, off of spreadsheets, with recipes and without. I’ve worked for committed foam-free companies, with many of the environmentally friendly foam alternatives, and used willow branches instead of chicken wire (not recommended). I’ve worked for the big event companies, and been the one woman show. I’ve worked in destination spaces, on farms, in the woods and in many of Chicago’s landmark venues. I’ve taken a ferry, with 4 rolling racks of buckets, which I later had to roll UP a really big hill, to build a floral arch and aisle, in the windy on an island in Michigan. I have attached flowers to babies, dogs, boats, tuk tuks and the sides of buildings. I’ve used string, wire, glue, magnets and oh, so many zip ties.

From all of this I’ve gleaned a sense of girl-scouted preparedness, and an ever searching eye for ‘what can go wrong’. I love finding the loopholes and missing information that could have evolved into disaster, beforehand, in the calm of the studio, or the safety of my desk chair. I bring to you my knowledge and understanding, from years spent farming, designing, producing and directing, from being epically scrappy to wildly over-prepared, openly and generously. I want to see florists thrive, to exist in the joy of this profession, in bringing flowers to the people, and to find a balance where they sleep well and wake up excited.

Getting your work out in real time builds buzz, gets your name swirling in the ethers and gets you more clients to choose from in the end. Let’s think about next season now.

From creating a list of shots and a social media schedule that works for you, to following up with photographers and cross posts, social media is truly the web you need to center.

Allow me to create a base proposal featuring seasonally appropriate flowers, color palettes that elevate and impress, and dynamic imagery to describe your individual sense of style. I’ll give you a working document and the hand off the edits and fine-tuning to you.

OR

Bring me in at the three month mark, when all of those final details fall into place. I’ll walk your clients through their final decisions, connect with planners to negotiate timing and day of logistics, and hand it all to you in a timeline of your own.