Flowers for every moment
The dress, cake, photographer, reception site and everything else that assures a bride’s wedding day will be perfect has been picked. Now all that is needed is the bouquet and accompanying flowers. As simple as it sounds, picking the flowers can be of the toughest tasks in planning a wedding. Flowers allow brides to incorporate a personal touch that will make their wedding day unique, whether it is with color or style.
Knowing what style or colors will work best is hard, but Katie Ball, florist at The Flower Shoppe, said the florists will sit down in a free consultation and decide exactly what will make the wedding day perfect based on the bride’s bouquet and flowers.
“We custom make everything. You don’t have to pick a certain picture where that’s all you get,” Ball said. “You can just tell us, ‘Well I like this about this bouquet and this about this bouquet’ and we’ll kind of mesh your ideas together and make it your own.”
The day in the life of a florist can be demanding between arrangements for wedding or funeral flowers, get well, thank you and anniversary bouquets. The demands don’t stop the love Ball has for what she does.
Ball said her day starts early around 8 or 9 in the morning depending on whether flowers need to be delivered. The Flower Shoppe will deliver flowers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple weddings and also to receptions or any other event.
“We’ll set up the whole reception and do everything,” Ball said. “For funerals, we set up flowers, too, for the family so they don’t have to pick them up and deal with it. When they show up to the viewing, everything is already set up.”
Ball said most people order first thing in the morning so that is when most work begins. Ball said there is a rush around 11 a.m. for deliveries but after that time, it calms down to arrange previous orders or to get flowers set for events later in the day.
When it comes time to arrange flowers, Ball said the possibilities are endless and if someone has a request, the shop can get almost anything.
The shop carries flowers ranging from irises and snapdragons to the more familiar carnations, roses, Gerber daisies and tulips. Ball said the flowers come fresh from flower markets located in California, Florida and even countries in South America.
“There are bidders that go and bid on flowers that sell them to our shop,” Ball said. “There’s a big long process but it only takes four to five days from the time they are cut at the farm to get here.”
Around lunch time, there will be another rush where Ball said it ranges from customers planning a wedding to men who are buying for a birthday or anniversary. The orders for that rush are delivered at 3 p.m. followed by another rush around 5:30 or 6:30 that evening.
Ball said her favorite arrangements to make are the mixes which include more than five different kinds of flowers. She also likes the fall time, because of the use of red, orange and yellow colors. Ball said the most popular arrangements The Flower Shoppe make are the mixes that almost always include Gerber daisies.
Ball has worked in the flower industry for more than 12 years, but specifically for The Flower Shoppe off and on for nine years. Even after graduating from USU in family and human development with an emphasis in marriage counseling, she said she knew her real work would always be with flowers.
“I thought for sure I wanted to be a marriage counselor,” Ball said. “I did counseling for a year and I just realized that I didn’t really like it. I really missed flowers the few times that I wasn’t working with them. I just crave it. It’s in my blood and this is just a happy place for me.”
The Flower Shoppe is located at 202 S. Main St. in Logan. Their hours are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.
–mackenzie.love@aggiemail.usu.edu