What Does a Florist Actually Do? Inside Our Independent Flower Shops
August 21, 2026
There is rather more to being a florist than putting a pretty bunch of flowers together.
Before a bouquet reaches the workbench, someone has chosen the flowers, checked their quality, conditioned every stem and worked out which varieties will sit happily together. Then comes colour, proportion, texture, the traditional spiral of a hand tied bouquet and the florist’s judgement about when enough really is enough.
At The Flower Studio, flowers have been our working day since we opened our first shop in Marlow in 2012. Six years ago, we added our second flower shop at Flowerland in Bourne End.
Today, behind the bouquets you see online is a team with decades of floristry, flower growing and horticultural experience.
So what actually goes on behind the scenes at an independent flower shop?
It starts long before we make the bouquet
Fresh flower deliveries arrive with us at least four times a week, with most of our flowers sourced directly from Holland.
Opening those deliveries is one of the most important jobs we do.
Every flower needs checking and properly conditioning before it reaches the flower stand. We trim the stems, remove the foliage that shouldn’t sit below the water line and place the flowers into clean buckets to hydrate.
And we really do mean clean buckets. Keeping the water and containers clean helps keep freshly cut stems in good condition.
Flowers that don’t meet the quality we expect don’t simply disappear into a bouquet. We return poor quality stems to the supplier.
At our Bourne End shop, we also have a dedicated cold store. This allows us to keep flowers at the right temperature while they’re waiting to be used.
It isn’t the glamorous side of floristry, but good flower care starts here.
Experience changes the way you look at a flower
Between our team, there are many decades of floristry experience.
Nicky and Sarah have each worked in the industry for around 35 years. Ola brings another 25 years of experience, while Lydia originally trained as a florist around 25 years ago and has returned to the industry after time away.
Poppy has worked with flowers for around 20 years, while Bonny, our newest florist, already has three years’ experience.
Our owner, Bryn, brings a different perspective again. With a background in horticulture and growing, he has more than 30 years’ experience with flowers and plants.
That experience matters.
An experienced florist doesn’t just see a pink rose or a white lily. They’re looking at the strength of the stem, the stage of the flower, its shape and quality. They’re already thinking about what might sit beside it and how it will behave once the bouquet reaches someone’s home.
Our flower shops are working flower shops
Visit us in Marlow or Bourne End and you’ll find our florists working front of house.
Bouquets aren’t disappearing behind the doors of a distant fulfilment centre. They’re being made in the shops.
Our Bourne End shop also has a dedicated workstation where we prepare the day’s flowers and tackle larger jobs such as weddings and events.
On any given week, that can mean making a birthday bouquet one minute and preparing wedding flowers the next.
We create funeral and sympathy flowers, wedding bouquets, party and event flowers, Christmas decorations and wreaths alongside all the flowers we make for everyday orders.
And the range can be enormous.
One order might be one of our relaxed jam jar posies. Another could involve flowers arranged across a collection of bud vases. Then the next florist could be working on a showstopper arrangement in a vase.
Different scale. Different techniques. Still made by hand.
A fresh hand tied bouquet leaving our flower shop, made by our florists and ready to be enjoyed at home.
Why do florists spiral a hand tied bouquet?
Watch one of our florists make a hand tied bouquet and you’ll notice that the stems don’t simply get placed together in a bunch.
We use the traditional spiral technique.
As each flower joins the bouquet, the stems follow the same direction. The florist continually turns the bouquet while working, looking at it from different angles and adjusting the balance as more flowers go in.
Years of experience make this look deceptively easy.
Colour needs balancing. Larger flowers need room. Delicate stems can disappear if they’re put in the wrong place. Height, weight, foliage and texture all affect the finished shape.
Every hand tied bouquet we sell is hand crafted and spiralled by our florists in our shops.
There isn’t a bunching machine doing it for them.
What is the difference between florist made and flower fulfilment?
For us, one of the biggest differences is choice.
A florist standing in front of a broad selection of flowers has possibilities.
They can spot an unusual stem and decide that it would work brilliantly beside something completely unexpected. They can change direction because two colours happen to look fantastic together that morning.
Large scale flower fulfilment has a different job to do. It needs consistency and volume, which generally means working with a more restricted selection and predetermined combinations.
Our florists work differently.
They have training, qualifications and practical experience, but they also have something much harder to put on a specification sheet: an eye for flowers.
They are genuinely interested in the product in front of them.
Floristry is their vocation.
What happens when you order Bouquet of the Day?
Our Bouquet of the Day is probably one of the best examples of this.
The name means exactly what it says.
Our flower stand usually contains a wide selection of stems, including more unusual varieties alongside familiar favourites. For Bouquet of the Day, the florist can explore that selection and work within the customer’s chosen budget.
There isn’t a predetermined combination they need to reproduce.
Instead, they can use their knowledge of flowers, colour and design to make the choices themselves.
One particularly good flower might provide the starting point. A colour combination might catch their eye. Another stem might arrive that morning and be too good not to use.
That freedom is what makes a genuine florist’s choice bouquet interesting.
Weddings require another level of flower knowledge
We work on approximately 30 to 35 weddings each year, alongside parties and other events.
Wedding floristry can involve bridal bouquets, bridesmaid flowers, buttonholes, table flowers and larger venue arrangements. It also means understanding how the flowers need to perform throughout a long wedding day.
Our experienced wedding florists work with couples to turn their ideas, colour palettes and inspiration into flowers that work for the actual venue and season.
You can see examples of real weddings we’ve worked on in our Wedding Gallery, including flowers created for our own brides and venues.
We’ve also taken some of that florist knowledge and made weddings more accessible for couples who want a simpler approach.
Our ready to order bridal bouquets and wedding table jam jars can be ordered without commissioning a completely bespoke wedding flower service, with selected wedding flowers also available for nationwide UK delivery.
There’s a real team behind an online flower order
The Flower Studio isn’t just a website with flowers attached to it.
Our wider team includes Nicky, Lydia, Poppy, Bonny, Ola, Sarah, Olena, Grace and Marcus, with Catherine joining us at particularly busy times.
Grace now works as one of our drivers but also spent five years working with us as a florist. So even flowers leaving the shop can find themselves travelling with someone who understands exactly what they’re carrying.
Sarah brings another talent to the shop too. Alongside her floristry, she creates our in house cards.
And while experience and qualifications matter enormously, there’s another quality that’s harder to list on a CV.
Our florists genuinely love flowers.
They follow the work of other florists around the world. They notice interesting varieties and new ideas. They’re still interested in what can be done with flowers after decades of working with them.
They also have a fairly wicked sense of humour, which helps during the very long days before Christmas and Mother’s Day.
Why does proper flower conditioning matter?
The work a florist does before arranging flowers can be just as important as the arrangement itself.
Cut flowers need water, clean containers, the right temperature and proper preparation.
That’s why our team conditions the flowers when they arrive rather than simply taking them from a delivery box and putting them straight onto the stand.
Correct conditioning helps the stems take up water properly and gives the flowers the best possible start before they leave us.
It’s also why our florists continue checking the flowers while they’re in the shops. We’re working with a fresh, natural product, so knowing how to look after it is part of knowing how to arrange it.
Real florists in real shops
Since 2012, The Flower Studio has grown from our Marlow shop to a team working across Marlow and Bourne End, but the basic idea behind the business hasn’t really changed.
We believe floristry is a skill.
Flowers need to be bought well, cared for properly and arranged by people who understand them.
Whether we’re making a jam jar posy, a luxury hand tied bouquet, wedding flowers or a large vase arrangement, there is a trained florist behind it.
That’s what we mean when we say:
Real florists in real shops.
And we wouldn’t want to do it any other way.
