How to Choose a Luxury Florist in London: Seven Questions to Ask Before You Order

There are a great many florists in London who will charge you a luxury price. There are far fewer who will give you a luxury experience for it, and from the outside the two look alike: the same words on the website, the same soft photographs. The difference shows in the details nobody puts on the homepage.

These are the seven questions we would ask before ordering flowers for anyone we cared about. We answer each one for ourselves at the end of it, so you can hold us to the same standard.

1. Who actually carries it to the door?

Ask whether the florist delivers with its own team or hands the arrangement to a courier at the studio door. It sounds like a small thing. It is the whole thing. A courier is paid per drop, has forty parcels in the van, and has never seen a hydrangea. A florist's own driver has one purpose that morning and knows what is in the box.

Ours: our own team, every delivery, across every London postcode.

2. When does "next day" stop being possible?

Most people remember flowers in the evening. Many luxury florists close next-day orders at midday or one o'clock, which means the flowers you remember at eight will arrive the day after tomorrow. Ask for the cut-off before you fall in love with a photograph.

Ours: order by 10pm for next-day delivery. Same-day from our Same Day Collection until 3pm.

3. Is the photograph the size you are paying for?

The picture at the top of a product page is usually the largest size. The price beside it is usually the smallest. Ask which size is photographed, and ask for a picture of the one you are buying. A florist who is proud of the small size will send it without hesitation.

Ours: every product page states which size is in the photograph, and the stem count for each size is listed underneath.

4. What happens when a flower is not available?

It will happen. Peonies finish, a shipment is late, a colour is not at its best that morning. The question is what the florist does about it: substitute quietly with something cheaper, or substitute with something of equal or greater value that keeps the shape and colours of what you chose. Ask, and ask whether they will tell you.

Ours: equal or greater value, always, keeping the shape, size and palette true to the photograph. Our substitutions policy is on every product page.

5. Will you see it before the recipient does?

The person paying is rarely the person receiving. A photograph of the finished arrangement, sent to you before it leaves, is the difference between hoping and knowing. It costs the florist thirty seconds. Ask whether they do it.

Ours: we photograph every arrangement before it is delivered and send it to you on request.

6. Does the recipient have to do anything?

A wrapped bouquet is beautiful and it also arrives as a task: find a vase, cut the stems, arrange it, clear the paper. For a home that already has everything, or an office reception at nine on a Monday, that task is the reason so many bouquets end up in the wrong vase. Ask whether the arrangement arrives finished.

Ours: our velvet-box arrangements arrive complete, in water, in the box. There is nothing to do but choose where it goes. Bouquets are there for those who love the ritual.

7. Does the top of the range exist?

Anyone can sell a £150 bouquet. Ask what the florist can make when the occasion is larger than a bouquet: a hundred roses in a heart, a free-standing initial, a thousand roses for a proposal or a reception. If the answer is a longer bouquet, you have found the ceiling.

Ours: from £90 to £6,500, and made to order beyond that for events, weddings and corporate spaces.

Three of ours

The eighth question

Ask what the florist would send. Not the most expensive thing, not the thing on the homepage: what they would choose for the person you describe, at the budget you name. A luxury florist answers that in one sentence, and it is usually the right one. Write to us and try it.