When Every Order Is Someone’s Wedding Day: How Shropshire Petals Reduced Shipping Errors

In the rolling hills of Shropshire, England, a family farm has been growing flowers for over 40 years. What started as a dried flower operation in the 1980s has transformed into something far more romantic: Shropshire Petals, one of the UK’s most recommended suppliers of real flower petal confetti for weddings.

The pivot came from an observation. Michael, who founded the farm with his wife Rose, noticed that as dried flowers fell out of fashion, the petals naturally dropping from the bunches had potential. Why not turn them into wedding confetti? It was a creative reinvention that would eventually land their product in the hands of brides and grooms across the UK and beyond.

Today, sons Jim and John run the day-to-day operations, shipping dried flower confetti, floral bunches, and handmade arrangements through their Shopify store and Etsy shop. Michael and Rose are still very much around—often bringing visitors to the farm to see what their small operation has become.

“They are amazed at what we achieve as a team and how much we have grown,” said Laura Abrahams, General Manager at Shropshire Petals.

When wedding season meets harvest season

For most ecommerce businesses, peak season is stressful. For Shropshire Petals, it’s doubly so: their busiest shipping months—May through September, with June and July as the peaks—coincide exactly with harvest time on the farm. Order volume jumps 80% compared to winter months, and the team is simultaneously growing the very product they’re shipping.

That timing pressure is compounded by what’s actually in each box. This isn’t a generic product that can arrive whenever. It’s wedding confetti—part of someone’s ceremony, their photos, their memories. Any effort to reduce shipping errors isn’t just about operational efficiency—it’s about making sure someone’s wedding day goes smoothly.

Three hours of manual work, every single day

Before switching to ShipStation in 2024, Shropshire Petals ran a bespoke order system that wasn’t able to connect to modern shipping software. The process was entirely manual: print paper copies of each order, log into Royal Mail Click and Drop, print each label separately, then staple the matching label to the matching paper copy.

The room for error was significant. It was easy for labels to be attached to the wrong orders. Incorrect weights or services were selected, requiring labels to be redone. If orders didn’t ship that day, someone had to manually cancel labels one by one. This took two hours every morning during peak season.

Then, at the end of each day, another hour was spent manually marking each order as dispatched.

“This would cause various problems where the wrong label was attached to the wrong order, the wrong weight or service was selected so we would have to redo the label. If there were any orders that we didn’t manage to ship, we would have to go back and manually cancel labels,” Abrahams explained.

For a wedding vendor shipping time-sensitive orders, those errors carried real consequences. The team knew they needed to reduce shipping errors before peak season buried them.

A recommendation that proved itself immediately

The change came when an advisor—someone who used ShipStation in their own business—reviewed Shropshire Petals’ operations and suggested they simplify. The farm had recently migrated to Shopify, which opened up integration possibilities that their old bespoke system couldn’t support.

Onboarding was straightforward. The team connected their Shopify and Etsy stores, linked their Royal Mail and Parcelforce accounts, and were up and running without any custom development work.

More orders out the door

The results were immediate and measurable. Labor costs dropped by 5%. Those two hours spent on manual printing and label matching? Gone entirely. The dispatch team now redirects that time to actually getting more orders out the door—critical when customers expect their wedding confetti to arrive on schedule.

The shift to processing orders one at a time through ShipStation helped reduce shipping errors across the board. The right label goes on the right package, with the correct service and weight, every time.

For a product that’s part of someone’s wedding day, that reliability isn’t just an operational improvement. It’s the difference between a celebration going smoothly and a bride wondering where her confetti is.

“All dispatching processes are simple and easy, saving time and resources,” Abrahams summarized. “If you have multiple websites and third-party channels, ShipStation makes order management simple and can keep on top of shipping deadlines.”

Forty years in, the family farm is still growing—just with a lot less time spent on shipping labels.

Ready to reduce shipping errors and reclaim hours in your day? Whether you’re shipping wedding essentials or everyday orders, ShipStation helps you process shipments faster with fewer mistakes. Start your free trial today.