Chroniciling Valentine's Week: Day 1

And so it begins...

Hm....do you think I can post a blog every night of Valentine's week chronicling a small town florists experience of it?

No, I'm sensing epic failure.

Nonetheless! Epic Challenge!

"Valentine's Week" here not necessarily literally meaning "the week of Valentine's Day." For most florists (at least, the few I know of, ha), V-Day starts about a week out. (For those unaware of the date, the holiday is this next Tuesday.) About a week out we start receiving our largest shipments of flowers. There may be one or two shipments a few days earlier, but no, a week out is really when it all begins. We actually make our floral order about six weeks beforehand. As for orders coming in early, it entirely depends on the year. The past two years we've had almost no orders up until days before the big day. This year (and in other previous years I've worked) we've had a nice steady stream of incoming orders weeks beforehand. The latter is always encouraging.

Anyway, this morning I had to order our standard order for the week - in addition to the Valentine's order already on its way - when my boss alerted me he thought our wholesaler had already left for our way. Um... Immediately I mentally scanned through the list - if we could not get any additional flowers, we would be fine since we had called in our must-have's this past Friday. But I called our wholesaler anyway. Apparently they had already left because they had an entire vanful coming our way and they would make a second trip back mid-morning.

Now, this isn't really unusual since my bosses reminded me normally they go themselves and pick it up, filling up their own van. Nonetheless, it still bemused me that they were sending an entire van our way.  

This is the bulk of that first vanful- but even this doesn't include the greenery that came on it as well.

This is the part of Valentine's I love - I love that sense of beginning, that "we're all in this together" comradery as we load out boxes, process flowers, organize and get back into that holiday mindset. I love seeing the vast amount of flowers and being able to enjoy all the different kinds and colors and dreaming up bouquets. I love the anticipation even if I dread what it will be.

Unfortunately with V-Day, even though you have all these pretty flowers, there's less design and more recipe work. That's mostly because you have to bang out so many arrangements so quickly and you need solid pieces that people enjoy that you can have prepared in advance. However we do customize each piece that requests it (which is a lot) and I really enjoy that. (And sometimes all that means is we're told "pick whatever's prettiest." Okay! I can do that!) 

I guess that isn't entirely true. We actually do a lot of customization on pieces that allow for it. But we also have a website that people can choose their bouquet from as well. And since most people (understandably) want to see a picture of what they're going to receive, we do more standard arrangements. That's equally as much the reason why. 

As for tomorrow we will be receiving our second bulk shipment and then we'll get in smaller orders on Wednesday & Thursday. More roses come in tomorrow - I'm personally hoping for some Sweetness as they're gorgeous and they don't come in often, but I'll always take orange too since they're still my favorite. :)

Sweetness - Pic from Sun King. Drool.

Let the games begin.