Whew! Done and Done! Valentines Day is always a double-edged sword for us florists. We look forward to snapping out of the winter doldrums. The constant ringing of telephones (and the cash register) is an exciting and welcome sound. But of course we also know there will be pressure and drama involved. Between employees, customers and flowers, there is bound to be a few flash points.

This year V Day fell on a Saturday. Weekend V Days always result in less sales for florists. People have time to go to dinner, see a movie or play, or just walk hand in hand on the beach. They'll skip ordering flowers. For a weekday V Day, the guys don't even think about it until a day or two before, and have no time to plan or get out and do something...instead they order flowers. That's great for us!

With all the economic turmoil, we didn't know what to expect this year. In fact, the photo above is from a TV crew who came out to the shop on Friday Feb 13th to ask us if the economy was going to ruin our V Day. It was our local ABC affiliate with anchorwoman Patrice Smith. Everytime she comes to our shop she mentions how much she would love to be a florist "It must be so relaxing". Except for the sleepless nights of wondering if your 3,000 flowers have been left overnight on the tarmac at the FedEx terminal in Memphis, worrying if you over ordered, under ordered, over staffed, under staffed , should have stayed in school, and the kids science test on Tuesday, sure, it's a dream job. A few folks told me they saw me on the news over the following days, that was cool.

Actually, for all the stress, it's still fun. For that holiday, the whole city it seems is all about flowers. Young guys trying hard to look cool when placing their order, dads coming in with toddlers to pick out something special for mommy, and older dudes who know how lucky they are and just want to spoil their ladies. Our vans were coming and going, each driver paired with a runner. It's especially needed in the busy downtown streets of Charleston. The driver stops, the runner runs to the back, grabs the right arrangement and takes off to the house or office building. If possible the driver waits. More often than not, the push of the traffic makes him circle around the block, hopefully timing it just right to pick up the runner as he returns from the delivery.

We came in at 8am Thurs -Sat. We left at 7p on Thur and Fri, but turned some folks loose at 3pm Saturday. Everyone left by 5pm. That was nice. It seemed the orders were split evenly between work deliveries on Fri and home deliveries on Sat. Spreading it out over two days made it a lot more manageable. We hear about other shops who work until 2am and come back at 5am, and we just never did that. Staff right, plan right, and stay aggressive with your production schedule and there's no reason to. Give us enough money, time and folks, and we can do anything.

Anyway, we sold out of roses on Friday, and had just a few flowers left on Sat. Planned it just about perfect in fact. Shout out to our purchaser DD Parks and General Manager Lauren Seaborn for making it all happen so smoothly. Great folks who really care.

The other photo is of our staff the morning of Valentine's Day, around 8am just as the staff was arriving. We don't sell stuffed animals (called "plush" in the biz), balloons, chocolate or any of that stuff. We focus on the best darn flowers we can possibly provide. But this customer wanted to include a stuffed bear with his flowers. He asked if he could bring one in that we could attach to the floral arrangement. We told him "Sure, no problem" and were waiting on a 10 inch little bear. So we see him walking up through the parking lot, carrying this gigantical beast of love. All the ladies just wanted to hug it and stuff, but we had to make sure it stayed nice and clean. We put him on a high shelf over the design studio where he wouldn't fall down or get knocked over. And there he stayed for three days, looking over us as we worked. We got kind of attached to him. When it came time to pair him up with the floral arrangement for delivery, we took a quick pic with him. He's on Gayla's shoulders. Gayla is usually softspoken, but she jumped at the chance to share the limelight with that big boy! Good way to start a busy day.

So that was Valentine's Day 2009. What did I get Clara? Yeah, I brought her flowers. A killer tight centerpiece of ranunculus, hydrangeas, hyacinth and lillies (thanks DD!) and a quart of Baskin Robbins double chocolate peanut butter ice cream. She had meatloaf waiting when I got home. Life is good.