F.A.Q.


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Photo credit: J Lucas Reyes


Q: When's the best time to request for a quotation?
A: As early as possible. One year should be a good time since it's easy to predict flower prices within that period. A lot of imported flowers, for example, do not change prices as much as the local ones; this is because they are available all year round (i.e. Ecuadorian roses, Cymbidium orchids).

Q: Do you have packages?
A: Unlike other florists, we do not have ready-to-send packages. Everything we do is customized. We usually send the bride a form to fill up, and the details in that form will be the basis of the costing. Our rates for entourage flowers (from the bridal bouquet to the flower girls) start at P30,000. The final cost, however, will be determined by your actual requirements.

Q: How do we go about asking for a customized quotation?
A: Brides (and Grooms!) are often made to fill up a form which contains all the details we need to come up with a customized quotation. Please email us at vatelmanila@gmail.com to get this form. 

Q: If we decide to request for a customized costing, how long will this take? How many revisions are we allowed to make before we book you?
A:We normally send back the costing one (1) week from the day we receive the properly filled-up form. Once you get the costing, we allow only up to one (1) major overhaul / change prior to finalization. You have to book us first before we allow more changes to your costing. This is to ensure that we do not spend too much time working on just one costing, and to give other inquirers their chance, too.

Q: Are your services expensive?
A: Most brides say our arrangements look expensive. We actually take that as a compliment. Of course this goes without saying that what drives the cost of entourage flowers higher is your choice of flowers (imported versus local), the kind of arrangement to be made (bouquets, for example, use more flowers than, say, a chest corsage), the season of your wedding, and the number of people in your entourage. Remember, the more people there are in the entourage, the more flower arrangements are needed.

Q: Can we expect a discount after we receive the quotation?
A: Our costing plan is easy: we charge you all materials at cost, then we just add the labor cost. This means, the costing we give you is already the lowest we can possibly offer based on your color scheme, flowers / arrangements chosen, theme (if you have one), and the month of your wedding.

Q: Do you work around a budget?
A: We try our best to work with whatever is reasonable. What we do is to give you our best costing, and then we can work from there.

Q: Are themed weddings more expensive?
A: That's a leading question but yes, themed weddings are more expensive than the regular ones. This is because everything - and we mean EVERYTHING - has to follow the set theme for your event to have a unified and pulled-together look.

Q: Are locally-sourced flowers cheaper?
A: Not necessarily. Locally-sourced flowers are the most susceptible to extreme price changes. The most expensive months to get married are in January, early February, May, late November and in December, all of which are busy wedding months in the Philippines. Locally-sourced flowers during these months go as high as 200% more compared to their usual cost during the rest of the year.

Q: Are non-floral or preserved / dried items cheaper?
A: No, they're not. That's because every item is hand-crafted and customized according to your wedding's overall look. The best thing about them is, you can keep them forever.

Q: How do I book?
A: If all the details of your costing are already acceptable to both of us, we send you a Service Contract to sign. Non-refundable down-payment (D/P) is 40% of the total cost upon signing of the Service Contract. Balance is payable a month before the event date.

Q: Do you join bridal fairs?
A: We currently don't join bridal fairs.

Q: Can we still back out of the contract?
A: Yes, you can as long as we haven't made advanced orders on your behalf. There are stipulated time limits as to when one can still back out. The Service Contract has all the details of how much can be refunded depending on how far from the event date you are cancelling the service. Of course we'd be very sad if you'd do that. :-(

Q: Do you do mock bouquets?
A: No. Mock bouquets add to the overall cost. A little surprise adds excitement to the wedding day. Relax. Leave it to us. No worries; we are not fond of nasty surprises either.

Q: What do you mean by being "Fully Booked"?
A: This means that we have reached our maximum monthly limit of twenty (20) events per month. We do a maximum of two (2) events per day if only for entourage flowers, but one (1) event per day only if we have to work on the reception / garden ceremony as well.

Q: Do you charge for out-of-town events?
A: Yes, rates vary but we have what we call Delivery-For-Pick Up (i.e. we deliver to an appointed meeting spot WITHIN METRO MANILA and transfer the goods to a group from your side - parents, friends, or your wedding planner - who will complete the journey to your venue or preps place). This is usually done for events in Tagaytay & other destination weddings in Luzon. It'd save you a lot of money, that's for sure. If this is not possible, we can make personal deliveries to certain locations (mostly Tagaytay or Nuvali areas). 

Q: If you do not come along with the flowers, how do we know how to care for them?
A: In the past, we have always attached Care Instruction Cards to the boxes carrying our flowers. We continue to do that. They're very helpful and easy to follow. Also, all the arrangements will be properly tagged.

Q: Can you coordinate an event, too?
A: We have been very fortunate to have worked with a lot of really good event coordinators. We can refer you to them.

Q: Why do you need to know who our photographer is?
A: Various photographers have their own signature look or color (ex. Metrophoto / Benjie Tiongo have a purple hue / Jaja Samaniego is sunny / Myio Okamoto & Zeus Martinez are muted). Some flower colors, like tropical hues, will not appear as bright in purple photos, but will appear bright in sunny ones. Because of this, we find out ahead who the couple's photographer is so we know how best to work around his / her photo color(s). We want our flowers to pop out in your photos, so we choose the right style to match the look of your photographer's output. :-)

Q: Do you accept reception styling?
A: Yes, we accept reception styling in select areas / venues. We l-o-v-e small venues, and intimate spaces like restaurants or garden venues.  

Q: Do you prefer to work with a specific caterer?
A: Not really, but it helps a lot to know who your caterer is so we can match the entourage flowers with the look of the reception for continuity purposes.

Q: Who are your design influences?
A: Our influences are not limited to florists. We are also a huge fan of architecture, photography, literature, travel (I used to run a travel blog), films (I used to review them), food (we wrote about it for a living), product, graphic, & interior design. We also visit museums a lot. 

For florists, I look up to a few London and US-based florists. We also follow a lot of awesome Sydney-based florists. Locally, we admire the work of a few Manila-based florists. We also introduced the Southern California (SoCal) look in Philippine weddings.  

Q: Why do you deliver flowers early in the morning?
A: We'd rather be early than late. If possible, we deliver at 8AM if the wedding is in the afternoon; earlier if you can wake up for us (yey!). Delivering flowers at the sun's peak hastens blooming and thereby advancing the deterioration of your flower arrangements. We want to deliver while the weather is cool so we can arrange the flowers at your preps place, too, for the photo shoot that will happen later in the day. For Boracay & other provincial weddings, we prefer that the flowers are flown to the area at least one (1) day before the wedding. For Tagaytay & Luzon weddings, we prefer that the flowers travel in the morning of the same day of the wedding.

Q: Do you deliver the flowers personally?
A: In most cases, yes. For Tagaytay & Luzon weddings, we transfer that responsibility to either assigned family members or your event coordinator. Sometimes we end up consigning the flowers to the hotel's Front Desk during cases where we arrive early and we'd rather not disturb the bride from her beauty sleep, but we try our very best to meet all our brides. :-)

For other locations in the Philippines, we ship via Philippine Airlines (Bacolod, Cebu, Davao, General Santos, Iloilo, Laoag, & Tagbilaran). or Cebu Pacific (other destinations not listed under PR). For special destination weddings (Balesin, AmanPulo), we ship flowers via their respective airlines.

Q: Where do you source your flowers?
A: With our adoption of our unique Green Weddings Initiativewe source more of our floral requirements locally whenever possible. Otherwise, we import flowers via our importer-partners from such countries as the Netherlands, Latin America, New Zealand, South Africa, and Thailand.
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{ TRIVIA } Do you know that Kenya supplies 20% of the flower requirements of Europe? It is not surprising if some flowers from there find their way here in Manila via Amsterdam, which is our only direct link to the European flower market.
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We are conscious about our sources of imported flowers. We require that our flowers carry the Flower Label Program (FLP) tag. Established in 1998, the objective of the FLP is to improve labor, social, health and safety standards for farm workers; improve the use of chemicals and pesticides used on the flowers; and to follow stringent standards to protect the environment.

We want to contribute to making the conditions in countries which employ mainly women whose working conditions are often not "rosy" become better. Unsafe working environment is the cause of accidents, insufficient working contracts and working time regulations create social problems, the lack of environmental protection threatens the surrounding countryside. We need to help reverse these conditions.

Locally, we try our very best to source from those who own farms, and not from middlemen.

Q: Who sources your flowers?
A: Buying flowers is very personal to us. Ever since we began in this business, we've personally bought each and every flower, fillers, and leaves we've used in all our arrangements. We can reject bad or defective deliveries on the spot and choose better alternatives. For imported flowers, we rely on at least three (3) shops in Manila to do the ordering for us, but we still choose from among the deliveries when they arrive.

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For other questions not discussed in this page, please do not hesitate to let me know the soonest. Thank you for your time and welcome to Vatel Manila! :-)


XOXO,

Dylan Yap Gozum
M: + 63.915.310.1251 (Primary | 0915.310.1251 (Secondary)
E: vatelmanila@gmail.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/WeddingsByVatelManilaOfficial
IG: @weddingsbyvatelmanila 

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