About Aisle and Stem

What we are

A floral designer and planner. We hold the brief, set the scheme, write the specification and stay accountable for the result. The making is placed with a florist near your venue, because fresh flowers are better when they are made close to where they are needed.

That model exists because of a specific problem. Good florists are usually small studios who are excellent at making flowers and stretched thin on coordinating a four location wedding day, three delivery legs and a venue that changes the bump in window a fortnight out. Splitting design and coordination from production means both get done properly.

What we are not

• We are not a retail florist. There is no shop and no bouquet delivery service.
• We are not a directory. You are not handed a list of suppliers to ring yourself.
• We are not a marketplace. You do not receive competing quotes from strangers.
• We do not white label other businesses. The design is ours and the accountability is ours.

How the florist network works

We hold relationships with florists in each published market. When a brief is approved, the florist nearest your venue receives a written specification: the arrangement list, dimensions, palette, substitution rule, delivery times, access window and site contact. They are not asked to interpret a mood board.

You do not manage that relationship and, in most cases, you do not need to know who it is. If you would prefer to, we will tell you.

Where we work

Seven published markets across four states: Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales, Melbourne in Victoria, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, and Perth in Western Australia. We work outside those regularly, including regional venues and destination weddings within a few hours of a capital.

We publish only the markets we can service to the standard described on those pages. If we cannot do your venue properly, we will say so.

What we work on

How we work with florists

The florists we place work with are chosen on three things and not on price. Whether they install as well as deliver, whether they have worked at venues like yours, and whether they can build to a written specification without needing to reinterpret it.

They are paid properly for the work. A model that squeezes the maker produces exactly what you would expect it to produce, and it is not a model we are interested in running. What we take is a coordination and design fee, and it is inside the scope you approve rather than hidden in the stem price.

Why we publish what we publish

Most floral websites publish inspiration. We publish costs, seasonal availability, lead times and the questions to ask a competitor, because those are what people actually need before they can make a decision.

Some of that works against us in the short term. Our cost guide tells you how to spend less. Our guide to choosing a florist gives you the fifteen questions to put to anyone, including us. We would rather be the source that answered the question honestly than the one that avoided it.

How we write

Everything published here is written to be useful before it is persuasive. Prices in our guides are indicative ranges for the Australian market, reviewed each quarter and dated on the page. Where something is uncertain, seasonal or venue dependent, we say so rather than rounding it into a promise.