Ok! Here it is, the Friday before that silliest and sweetest of holidays and you might be wondering, are we offering anything special?
Short answer: Of course, always! Wouldn’t miss this love-centered holiday, because when else do we have that?
You can purchase a handtied bouquet or vase arrangement here, available for delivery or pick-up next Wednesday 2/12, in time for your Galentine’s/Valentine’s Day shenanigans. (No, we’re not delivering Friday - reasons enumerated below).
You can also purchase a subscription or gift subscription as a decadent flowery token of affection.
Because we only send 100% locally sourced blooms, these freshest-of-the-fresh flowers will last you a week or more.
What are we shipping next week? Gorgeous winter-grown specialty tulips. I personally fell in love with specialty tulips in February 2021, which you can read about here. Here are some examples of the dozens of new peony, parrot, fringed, and lily-flowering varieties I've now become acquainted with after discovering this incredible world... 'Finola,' (left) and 'La Vourtine' (right).
Longer answer: I was torn about whether to sell flowers for delivery on February 14th.
My heart said “YES!!” but my business-owning mind wasn’t convinced. I went for a stroll in the wholesale flower market a couple of weeks ago, to peruse vases, purchase some flowers and see what inspiration I found. I spotted the most adorable little vase and dreamed of offering a small, simple arrangement that you could send to your friend, lover, mother… nothing over the top. A token of love, appreciation, solidarity.
As fate would have it, around 7am as I was closing in on this small wonder of a vase, I bumped into one of my fellow florist friends (and idols) Lilli Wright, who owns the incredible floral design company Mimosa. She asked what I was up to and I sheepishly said “toying with Valentine’s Day.” She said “Ohhhhh…. Don’t do it! You don’t really want to make that $200 do you??”
I laughed, heartily. And thought to myself, “I made more than $200 last year, didn’t I?”
I had to go back to the books.
OUCH. We didn’t make $200. We made $57.16.
We had a decent showing last year. I remember the sales felt steady and decent and the bouquets and arrangements were fun to design, market and send on their merry ways. Playing cupid for a day - ensuring everyone’s adorable notes made it to their intended human - was absolutely lovely and joyful. We had a blast in the studio. 33 hand tied bouquets, 10 vase arrangements, on top of our 70-odd subscription boquets made for a bustling few days in the studio with extra hands, great music and sweet treats.
At the end of the day, though, it was break-even sales.
This is the story for many florists on Valentine’s Day. It’s kind of a secret (to consumers) that retail florists dread the holiday a bit. I doubt it was always this way. It’s just that in the last decade or two, the competition from grocery stores and renegade pop ups selling cheaply grown flowers (using pesticides and bottom of the barrel wage labor) makes it incredibly difficult for a small business here on US soil (and NYC soil at that) to make a profit.
The small business economic dilemma: You know people will want flowers, so you need to overstock your shop; you need to place advanced orders with wholesalers despite the fact that most buyers are super last minute and you have no true guarantee of sales; you staff up the store guaranteeing work to your team w/out the guarantee of sales; you worry and fret for days how it’s all going to pan out now that the Trader Joes subsidized flowers craze is out of control, and every store from your corner bodega to the local coffee shop is trying to get in on the flower action.
Lilli had a point.
It felt HAAAAARD to resist putting my little Valentine’s Day offering up on the website. I’d already fallen in love with it. See how cute?
I was also planning to tack on $20 to the price to collect as a donation to make to a local immigrant rights organization in Sunset Park. It was all very very compelling.
In the end, I decided to hold back. If you’ve been keeping up with my journal posts and read my two-part 2024 recap, you know that we had a loss last year. So, essentially I’m not looking to repeat any break-even projects or ones where there is a potential for a loss.
Sometimes, you need to put your self care first, in order to help others, and there will be more opportunities to fundraise and raise hell about the attack on human rights we’re now seeing coming at us hard and fast.
And, maybe we will entertain a proper Valentine’s Day offering again in the future - I hope so! It’s good fun and its food for the soul. Food for the soul is nice when you’ve got the cash to burn.
This year, I’m going to side-step the anxiety and stick with our regular tried and true options for Wednesday delivery: Flower subscriptions, Handtied Bouquets and Vase arrangements. They’re going to be lovely, the highest quality, long lasting and eye-catching.
Thank you to EVERYONE who has already purchased something! We’ve definitely seen an uptick in sales for next week and have more pre-ordered flowers looking for a home:)
Sending you love this love day. We neeeed it in spades right now!! Going to leave you with a bit more specialty tulip eye-candy…
