You're planning your wedding and worrying about all of the things that could go wrong Ñ everything from the bride's dress, to the food at your reception, to how the weather will be. With the help of a good florist/floral designer, at least you may not have to worry about the flower arrangements.

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A floral designer cuts and arranges live and artificial flowers into the designs that their customers request. They also give advice on various flowers and colors to use in floral arrangements.

Weddings are a large part of the floral business and the florist and floral designer play a large role in planning. "Since many young people don't have a lot of experience with flowers we try to provide as much reference material as we can. We're a steering person in the process," says Wendy Rockcastle, of Rockcastle Florist in Greece.

"We're the closest thing to a wedding coordinator for those who don't actually have one," she says, since they are needed in planning decorations for both the church and reception hall and the members of the wedding party.

The size of the floral shop determines the number of duties handled by the floral designer. In a small shop they do everything from writing up customers' orders, to putting together the actual arrangements, to handling some administrative duties.

Many people start in the field by working as a sales person in a shop, taking phone orders and handling requests from walk-in customers. Even in this position it is important that the salespeople know what's appropriate for each occasion, like which flowers/arrangements are used at funerals or weddings, Rockcastle said.

Generally a person needs a month of training to become acclimated with the sales job. Almost all training is done on the job.

There are continuing education courses offered in floral design in this area, which Rockcastle says are a good starting point as well.

According to a survey by Floral Finance Inc., beginning floral designers made an average of approximately $6 an hour in 1996. Meanwhile, those with more than three years experience averaged about $8.25 an hour while that figure was about 25 percent higher for managers.

Figures from the Society of American Florists indicate there are 27,341 retail florist shops and 23,000 supermarkets with floral shops in the country. If you've got the training and experience, the chances of finding a job in one of these are excellent. "The market is very dry. There are very few qualified designers on the market," says Rockcastle.