It's a busy week at The Lily, as it should be! Valentine's Day always kicks off the busy season for us. This year it falls right in the middle of Charleston's Southeastern Wildlife Expo (SEWE). SEWE is one of the busiest tourist weekends of the year, so this town is hopping!

It's nice to be back rocking and rolling. The post holiday season is always a slow time for us. Other than a lot of wedding consultations, it's a time for our staff to take some extra time off and re-acquaint themselves with their families. That's all over now. Phones are ringing off the hook, all vans are on the road, and thousands of flowers are coming and going constantly.

A couple things about Valentine's Day:

1) Guys order too many roses. Roses are great and we love them. The roses we get are extraordinary. I measured a bunch this morning that was almost three feet long! But they are done a lot, are expensive at Valentine's Day, and there are other wonderful options. Because of the demand for them, their price doubles all along the supply chain, especially for the quality we require. Imagine growers and shipper increasing their volume by 800-1000% just for one week of the year! Just the logistics are mind boggling. Meanwhile, guys will overlook what is often their girl's favorite flowers like daffodils, tulips, colored calla lilies, hydrangea and hyacinth. We try to talk some of the guys into these other arrangements which actually costs less, but sometimes it just has to be roses. Either way, we try to offer the best they can get anywhere.

2) Valentine's Day creates a lot of pressure for us. We know people call Tiger Lily because they want to send something very special. We try hard to make that happen. With the ringing phones, late orders from good customers, and inevitable design studio "flower crisises", it is easy to get caught up in the stress of it all. But let me tell you, it's fun to talk to those guys who are sending the flowers. They're excited, want to do it right, and just want to spoil their ladies.

I had a gentleman come in Monday, he was at least 80 years old. He was with a younger friend who drove him to the shop, helped him get around, and place the order. The older gentleman looked at our flowers for around 15 minutes, deep in thought. Finally he told me that back in the spring, his wife saw an arrangement we did for an event that she just thought was the prettiest thing she ever saw. It was a large cymbidium orchid stem placed in a four foot tall cylinder vase with stone accents. Now, I knew what he was talking about, we did it a few times. It's big, bold, contemporary and clean. A cool event focal point, often lit with a pin spot for extra drama. Definitely not your everyday home order. I explained all that to him, and that the huge vase itself was $90. He just gave me a little smile and whispered "She's worth it". We delivering it on Friday. So this 80+ year old guy is still so in love with his wife after all those years, that he makes a special trip to our place , remembers the arrangement she liked so much, will not compromise on what he envisions, and makes absolutely 100% sure that his wife is happy on Valentine's Day. That's good stuff. That's wisdom. There is a lot we can all learn from that. Life is short, make the people you love happy. It might be flowers, chocolate, a trip or a love note tucked in her favorite bag of chips. That's what Valentine's Day is all about.