Yes.......but it wasn't a full-service florist. I did do banquets and wedding flowers ,and the occasional funeral arrangement. I did not want to do the plants by wire thing, and being primarily a wholesaler didn't want to fart with onesie-twosie arrangments where deliveries would be involved. If you are thinking floral shop as an entity and then expanding into g'houses/nursery you may want to see about affiliating yourself with a floral wire service, prolly a necessity.

Now......the reality part. You'll need to invest in floral refrigeration units, take credit cards, spend time on the road delivering, set up a regular route with a wholesaler. It's hard to break into a full service florist business, because you'll spend money in advertising and when you order cuts, you need to order enough to make a variety of arrangments, and if you don't have the business flow, you'll eat them and your profits. That's why I chose to supplement my g'houses and nursery with only bulk design orders and usually in off season. Problem is the busiest season for a florist are holidays and it cooincides with busiest retail time in greenhouses. Ditto with graduation/proms and weddings. In May and June when you are busy in the g'houses.

Also consider the changing face of the florist trade. Box stores, supermarkets, floral chain stores and the inet has impacted their sales for certain items, like lilies and poinsettias. I hardly get orders for them from floral shops anymore...people buy them at the mass merchandisers.

My suggestion is to research if you have sufficient market to get a florist shop up and running, and research what share of that market you can expect. I chose to do it just opposite of what you are thinking about......as a supplement to the g'houses and after the fact. Not as the original business. Good luck.

My experience is very similar to calliope's - the floral design service (limited to weddings, banquets, funerals and special events) is a supplement to the existing retail nursery business. We only bring in the cut flowers as needed, so storage/refrigeration is not an issue. And we also 'rent' plants for weddings and other events, as well as arbors, trellises, benches, etc.

Several of the staff members have previous experience as floral designers but as this is by no means a full-time activity, even at the height of wedding/prom season, they have other, retail nursery-type functions to their positions as well.