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<\/p>\nNEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n
Hanna Darnell spent $1,625 on flowers for two events, including premium blooms like orchids and anthuriums<\/p>\n
She highlights that greenery and imported flowers also contribute significantly to high costs, even when purchased wholesale<\/p>\n
Darnell uses social media to show the hidden costs of floral design and explain why florists charge premium prices<\/p>\n
A trip to the flower market can get expensive fast, especially when orchids and anthuriums are involved.<\/p>\n
Hanna Darnell, the 29-year-old founder of Hanna’s Roses NYC, recently gave her TikTok followers a look inside one of her biggest wholesale flower hauls yet: $1,625 worth of blooms and greenery purchased for two events happening on the same day.<\/p>\n
The Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based floral designer sourced flowers for an N.Y.C. jewelry line and Warner Music, and the unusually high total quickly caught viewers’ attention.<\/p>\n
“That haul was actually for two events happening on the same day,” Darnell tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I ended up buying a lot of premium blooms \u2014 orchids and anthuriums, which are incredibly costly per stem \u2014 plus a lot of greenery.”<\/p>\n
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Hanna Darnell with the flowers.
Credit: Hanna Darnell<\/p>\n
And greenery, she points out, isn’t necessarily the budget-friendly filler people might imagine.<\/p>\n
“People assume greens are the cheap part, but they add up too,” she says. “Buying in bulk is what helps keep it manageable.”<\/p>\n
For Darnell, who works across event florals, content creation and brand partnerships, spending four figures at the flower market isn’t unheard of. Still, she says this particular trip was on the high end.<\/p>\n
The first reason was volume: She was purchasing enough product for two separate events. The second was her choice of flowers.<\/p>\n
“These were more expensive stems than average, and I think it was really the anthuriums that drove the cost up,” she says. “This was honestly one of my more expensive hauls.”<\/p>\n
The price tag offered her followers a glimpse at something customers rarely see: how much a florist can spend before a single arrangement has been made.<\/p>\n
Darnell says the cost of flowers in N.Y.C. can be particularly surprising. Many of the varieties florists use are imported, and buying wholesale doesn’t necessarily mean getting flowers for a fraction of their retail price.<\/p>\n
“Even though we’re buying wholesale, that doesn’t make as big a difference in our cost per stem as people would expect,” she says. “The savings are smaller than most assume.”<\/p>\n
And flowers are only one piece of what a client ultimately pays for. Behind a finished installation are hours of sourcing, processing, designing, transporting and setting up the flowers, not to mention the creative expertise required to turn buckets of individual stems into a cohesive design.<\/p>\n
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You don’t need a $1,625 flower budget to achieve a high-end look, though. Darnell’s advice is to spend strategically rather than choosing the most expensive option for every stem.<\/p>\n
“Choose a few premium blooms to give the arrangement that elevated, high-end feel, then be smart about the rest,” she says.<\/p>\n
Instead of filling an entire arrangement with costly flowers, she recommends using a handful of statement blooms alongside more affordable varieties.<\/p>\n
“There are so many beautiful stems that don’t cost as much,” she explains. “And when you mix them thoughtfully with your premium flowers, you can create something that looks genuinely luxurious for far less than people would think.”<\/p>\n
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It’s an approach informed by years of experience. Darnell got her start in floral design while she was in college, working at a flower shop and learning the business from the ground up. She eventually turned that knowledge into Hanna’s Roses NYC, where her work now ranges from intimate dinners to large-scale installations and projects for brands including Shinola and OpenTable.<\/p>\n
Darnell has also made social media a part of her business, regularly taking followers behind the scenes of her trips to the flower market.<\/p>\n
Her haul videos had already developed an audience before the $1,625 trip. Still, she says predicting which TikTok will take off is nearly impossible.<\/p>\n
“The haul series is something I started a while ago, and it always tends to do well,” she says. “But I never really know which video is going to take off.”<\/p>\n
This time, she suspected the unusually large price tag might get people talking, and she was right.<\/p>\n
As the video gained traction, commenters were stunned by how much the flowers cost. For Darnell, that reaction made the video’s success about more than views.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s genuinely good to show people how expensive our costs are, so they understand why florists charge what we charge,” she says.<\/p>\n
“So many people are shocked by the cost, but that’s the honest truth of what we spend on product,” she adds.<\/p>\n
For her, showing the receipt \u2014 and eventually showing what those flowers become \u2014 helps make an often invisible part of the floral business visible.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s really important for people to understand the hard costs behind floral, because that’s what explains our pricing,” she says. “And once you see the finished arrangements, you realize that’s where the cost lives too.”<\/p>\n