Selling love: Florists
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 01 January 2013 09:57
- Written by Paul Gordon
Styles May Change Frequently, but Flowers Always Equate to Love and Other Emotions
One day a certain type of flower may be popular but be out of style the next day, silk may become hotter than fresh or bouquets may go from tight and rather plain to loose and colorful.
But there is no mistaking that flowers are symbols of a variety of emotions, from love to grief and anything in between. Florists will do whatever is needed, but they all prefer selling their wares for happy occasions.
“Flowers are personal and we do what we can to personalize each arrangement we make and sell. We are selling emotions and we want to touch the emotions of the recipient of the flowers in the way the giver intended,” said Kelly Pohl, owner of LeFleur Floral Design and Gifts in Washington.
Pohl said that whenever possible she and her designers will make arrangements that tell a story about the recipient or in the case of an anniversary, the couple. She cited one case where the husband asked for an arrangement that told the couple’s story from the time they were married to the present. “It told the story of their life together. We loved doing it. It wasn’t hard because we loved doing it,” she said.
“We are passionate people here and that is an advantage because so much of what we do is about passion,” she added. “We try to touch hearts and make people cry, in a good way of course.”
Telling a story also is done with funeral arrangements, Pohl said. “The family loves being able to see their loved one’s life told that way. It is special and it is something special we can do for them,” she said.
Lynette Hacker, owner of Georgette’s Flowers in Peoria, said her store will also personalize arrangements for any occasion, including funerals. “For families it is the last thing they can give their loved one who has passed, so we want to make sure we please them. We take special care to help the family feel at ease and comfortable. Usually when they leave here they are pleased,” she said.
Steve Ennis, owner of The Flower Box in Peoria Heights, said a single day in the floral industry can bring a plethora of emotions. “In one day we might be selling arrangements for love, then sympathy, then celebration and then comfort. This time of year you’ll get a lot of holiday arrangements in there, as well,” he said in an interview before Christmas.
While Christmas is a big time of year for florists, so is Valentine’s Day, Ennis said. And roses, he said, make up 75 percent or more of what The Flower Box will sell that day. “That is the flower of love,” he said.
That doesn’t make it easy, or even very profitable, for some florists, said Hacker of Georgette’s Flowers.
“There will always be the men who call or come in at the last minute and say, ‘give me the roses. That’s what she expects.’ And we’ll make it,” she said.
However, she added, “Starting right after Christmas the wholesalers and growers will start to raise their prices. They keep rising until, by the time Valentine’s Day gets here, we have no markup built in to what we charge. We’ve held steady on our prices and sometimes that hurts us.”
All the florists agree love is the emotion they sell most, whether it is Valentine’s Day or an anniversary or, the biggest of all, a wedding.
Floral arrangements for weddings go through cycles and even change within cycles, Hacker said. For example, a cycle she is seeing change now is from fresh flowers back to silk arrangements, with frequent changes in styles of those arrangements.
“Brides today want to keep their bouquets forever and that is why silk is making a comeback. The preference had been fresh flowers since the 90s, but the quality of silk flowers is so much nicer than it was 20 years ago. You have to touch them or smell them before you realize they are silk. Interestingly, because of that silk arrangements are now actually more expensive than fresh flowers,” she said.
Valeri Wilson, the senior designer at LeFleur in Washington, said florists spend time with brides and often the mothers of brides to make sure they get exactly what they want for the wedding day. “We find out their favorite flower and show them ways we can use that flower as the main show piece, for example. The real key is finding out what they imagine their wedding day to be and delivering on that dream,” she said.
Wilson, who came to Washington within the past year after teaching at the Chicago School of Flowers, actually began designing arrangements when still a teen in a small town in Indiana. Now 28, she said she has gained a good grasp on the differences between what brides in the big city want compared with those in small towns. In Chicago, for example, brides normally are willing to spend more but go more for tighter, less splashy arrangements.
Wilson said the trend she is noticing is the return of elegance when it comes to floral arrangements, with more bold colors and textures in the bouquets and deep and dramatic clusters. Such flowers providing those facets include peonies and Calla lilies. “A lot of brides these days think roses are overrated,” she said.
The return to elegance, she added, allows the floral designer to be more creative. “For us, it is like a piece of art we are creating,” she said.
Hacker said she is seeing a lot of different color combinations in floral designs these days. Many brides will go with neutral colors in their bridesmaids’ dresses and put all the color in the flowers. “We often see them picking bouquets of different flowers to get the color they want. Some brides also go with vibrant colors in their shoes and use that as their fun pop of color,” she said.
Hacker agreed not all brides want roses, but said they are still used in bouquets more than any other single type of flower, especially since roses can be different colors.
When it comes to bouquets, Wilson and Hacker differ in their opinions. Wilson likes that cascading bouquets are making a comeback because she believes they are elegant and stylish. She said designers can do much with those types of bouquets, including adding bling if the bride wants to have glitz while walking down the aisle. “It’s her day. She wants to stand out,” she said.
Hacker said she will try and talk brides out of cascading bouquets. “A loose bouquet, where the flowers aren’t tightly bunched, is one thing. And we are seeing more of that. A cascading bouquet is something else. There is so much going on with the wedding dress already it can be distracting and even cumbersome,” she said.
Ennis said he doesn’t do many weddings but added that he stills sees tight, round bouquets being requested more than anything else. Some have boldness of color and others have little, he added. “We will design something to reflect what they are wearing, of course. That is what they want and that is what we’re here for, to give our customers what they want,” he said.
