Covid19 Weddings aka Love during the Coronavirus

 Getting married has definitely changed over the past couple of months in Virginia.  You can still get married but the size and scope of your wedding may be different than you had originally imagined.  

Even if your wedding is just you and your love, we can still provide flowers for an intimate wedding !

Located 2 blocks west of the Frederick County Courthouse, We can have a wedding bouquet and matching boutonniere ready to go in as little as 45 minutes.   Obviously color and flower choices will be limited to what we have in stock daily, however, we do get flowers in every other day and our inventory changes.  Here are some of our same day Ready-to-Wed bouquets, boutonnieres and yes, even a corsage added on for a witness! 

Light Blue Hydrangea, Lavender Roses, Stock 

Peach spray roses, cream alstroemeria, white stock

white hydrangea

White sweetheart rose corsage with pink waxflower

Groom Boutonniere of white rose and waxflower

 All white bouquet of white lilies, roses, baby's breath and greenery

Pink alstroemeria, white roses, white carnations

Lavender roses, purple stock, white hydrangea, white waxflower, lavender limonium .

Message Inspiration: Sympathy

For Sympathy

Going to a funeral home,Church or home :
     Keep it short and to the point! There will be many, many cards, memorial gifts, and flower arrangements.  This is an overwhelming time for the family of the deceased.
Rule of thumb, if it's longer than 1 sentence, it should probably be sent to the home directly in a personal handwritten card.

Some messages for cards:

In our thoughts and prayers, from/love _______

With our deepest sympathies ,from/love _________

With heartfelt sympathy, from/love___________

Thinking of you, from/love _____

Thinking of you at this time*. from/love _________

*It is not necessary to put "at this time of loss, sorrow, etc.  They already know why you're sending the flowers, it's redundant to state loss, sorrow, etc.

In Loving memory of __________,from/love, ________

With fond memories of __________, we extend our condolences, from/love_________

With Sympathy, from/love _________

With love, from/ love_________

______ will always be remembered, love/from:_____

Sending healing thoughts to you and your family, from/love______

Sending warm thoughts to you and your family, from/love______

**A short bible or religious verse**, from/love ______

COVID-19 & Flowers

Running a small business this year is hard.  Running a small business that relies on imported fresh product is even harder.  90% of the fresh flowers we sell are imported from other countries, mostly in South America.

In countries that export, a sharp sudden decline in demand for flowers meant millions of stems of flowers being thrown away. Why ? Because the flower industry is a global economy and is balanced by a constant flow of demand and supply. 

For example:

Imagine throwing a weekly dinner party for say, 100 people.  You're supplying all of the food and beverages.   One week everyone cancels.  You already have the food. The next week they cancel again.....now you have two weeks worth of food that you are throwing away because you cannot possibly consume the quantity of food you now have on hand.  Plus it's perishable and maybe the bananas look okay but that salmon was toast after 3 days. Flowers are the same situation.

We do have some local resources for flowers but when the first restrictions were put in place in March, that meant many of the US farms had to shut down- for good.  Fresh flowers need to be harvested off the plants to promote new growth.  If no one is there to harvest, package and ship, eventually the business has to plow under the plants and call it a loss. 

Now that we've been open for a little over a month I can tell you things are never going to be the same for our industry.

Flights with cargo containing flowers may get bumped or canceled.  Airports might become completely shutdown due to sudden spike in Covid19 cases.   Yes the US is starting to reopen, but South America is just now riding the Covid19 wave.   This could mean serious implications on what flowers are available in the coming months.    Ecuador is one of the largest producers of roses worldwide.  Imagine ordering roses and not being able to get them until a week later instead of the next day.  That is a very real possibility. 

I have already struggled to get product in on a regular basis.  It's frustrating and there is really nothing I can do about it.  There is nothing my suppliers can do either.   Many of the sales and delivery personnel for the wholesale sector were laid off in March and were not called back by May.   Everyone in small business is trying to cut costs any way they can.  Labor is one of the biggest overhead cost in a small business like flower shops.  It is also the hardest one to scale back because we NEED people to run a business. 

Every week that I am open, I am grateful.   This is definitely a daily struggle to cover costs and make any sort of a profit.  There is a large misconception that small business owners are paying themselves really well and are taking all the profits for their own pockets.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Many small business owners draw a salary that is less per hour than minimum wage pays in some states.  Some even take less of a salary than what they will pay their most valuable employees.   Why?  Because we want our business to be successful, to have that pride in what you have accomplished and built.  If we wanted to be rich we would go work for a big corporation that can offer sick pay, health insurance and 401k benefits.