Can flowers help heal the world when this is all over?
Laura Daluga
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
We’ve all seen the meme running making the rounds on Facebook that reads, “When this is all over, I’m throwing the biggest St. Patrick’s Easter de Mayo of July party anyone’s ever seen!”
As a major cog in the special events industry, florists’ work adds that special touch to everyday and major life events. We’ve heard countless times from clients how our flowers make their events feel more special. And to our brides receiving their bouquet, flowers make their big day suddenly seem real.
We’re there for all the important days
All over the country, we’re seeing everything from weddings, baby showers, graduations, and even funerals being postponed. Putting aside any considerations of lost profit, it’s heartbreaking to think that these red letter days are going uncelebrated during this tough time. Thankfully though, we all know through our everyday check-ins with friends and family that these events aren’t going unnoticed. People can be pretty resourceful when they need to be. All the postponed events will eventually happen; all the weddings, showers and memorials will be celebrated when this is all over.
Life will go on
All over the world, we’re seeing so much empathy and kindness right now, and those are both skills we can develop into habits that stick with us well into the future. As much as we’re physically apart right now, we’ve never been closer as a society. Going through a real, long term hardship together, helps us to develop a greater capacity of empathy. The adversity we’re all facing right now is an opportunity to form a new habit of mind. Empathy is a skill that florists have in spades, we’re like bartenders or therapists! We hear about the highs and lows of life from our customers. We feel what they feel, and translate that into flowers.
We were built for this!
What florists can do right now is offer some beauty to the world, even if it’s just posting throwback photos to previous events and weddings. People are seeking diversions from the news, a healthy distraction for the mind, a shot in the arm. Your followers are your fans, they’re invested in your team too.
Check in with your people
They’re your work family, perhaps a post highlighting each employee, showing some of their work or with fun facts about them, (favorite food, flower, vacation spot, etc) would be uplifting to them right now. Share and communicate with your team, do what you can to keep your staff’s spirits up during this tough time.
Your people means your flower fans, too! Now’s a good time to reconnect with your best customers and previous brides by telling the stories of your favorite parties and weddings. In your post, mention your clients and tag them in photos. Here’s to better times! Bittersweet as it may be, they’ll thank you for rekindling the warmth and community that they felt on those days. They may even share your post as well. Be a part of that chain reaction of goodwill, get to posting flower friends!
Every flower must grow through dirt
When we eventually are able to relax our state of awareness around coronavirus, when our everyday trappings of life will return, people will be looking to us for help in celebrating their lost anniversaries, birthdays and weddings.
Reinvest in yourself
Take this time to deep clean your store, to update your website. Post all of those blogs you’ve been meaning to get around to. Work on long-term planning for your business. Tighten up and revisit your business plan. We never get a pause like this, everything’s on hold right now. Might as well make the most of it. Try to appreciate this window of downtime, because soon those virtual hugs, dance parties and cocktail hours will be real ones once more. The future you will be very, very happy you took the time to invest in yourself.
We’ll be ready when they are
We may even have to double-time it this fall to accommodate rescheduled weddings and special events atop our currently booked clients. Major wedding websites are suggesting to couples whose weddings have been postponed to consider rescheduling their events for the following year, or to consider having their events mid-week, fitting in between the already tight fall season. Adaptability is the florists’ strongest suit… we’ve totally got this.
When we’re all together, on the other side of this, the handshakes will be firmer, the hugs longer and warmer. The bouquets will be bigger and brighter. The card messages will be more personal, more emotional. Those of us creators will be so glad that we continued to share our love of flowers. We’ll be able to look back on this period of time collectively, and remember how we came together as an industry, both in our communities and in the world.