5 Things I learned from My First Mother's Day as a Florist

These ranunculus were grown by local the PNW farm Peterkort Roses.

This year was my first Mother’s Day as a Florist and I was trying to traverse the waters of online orders, deliveries, and flower sourcing. Not only was it my first Mother’s Day, but almost across the board florists are talking about the record sales they made this year. With Covid-19 preventing many families from being together this year there was a huge desire to send some love to mothers and mother figures. On top of that, here in Portland, the community really showed up to support local small flower shops. It was a beautiful sunny day and so many of us florists were immensely grateful for all the work! However, I got way more orders than I was expecting and having never handled multiple orders, I learned a ton. 

1. Get to the Market Early!

In Portland we are fortunate enough to have an amazing floral market with local product from surrounding farmers. It is so very convenient and since I try to only use seasonal and sustainably grown blooms, it is absolutely the best place to source flowers. I planned to go a few days before Mother’s Day to ensure all my product is fresh and last a long time. I get to the market at 7:30 AM on Wednesday morning thinking I am being an early bird, wrong. There is such a long line wrapping out of the market! I was in line to enter the market for at least an hour. 

 I know this was a bit of an unusual Mother’s Day because the market had to adhere to proper social distancing regulations and there was a large uptick in sales, but my lesson was learned. I also realized that a lot of the blooms will be picked over by 8:30 in the morning. I still got beautiful flowers for all my clients, but I couldn’t shop in the color schemes I had intended. 

Inside the market I heard one vendor say, “I had a feeling this would be the craziest Mother’s Day yet”. Overall it was still a really sweet memory for me I won’t forget. I got to know a few florists better who were next to me in line and I got to know that this is a community of morning people like me that I can jive with. It also pushed me out of my comfort zone to work with blooms I don’t normally choose and to be grateful for so much beauty growing around me in the Pacific NorthWest.

2. Regulate your Delivery Radius

I am new to web design and anything that has to do with online orders, but something I learned quickly is that if I am going to offer deliveries I need to be able to control where I will be delivering to. I had some deliveries that were very far away and caused my whole day to be much longer. That being said, I was just so stoked for the experience that I did not mind, but in the future I know that would not be sustainable or profitable. 

My tips are to have a map graphic on your website showing a visual representation of your delivery radius and to write copy about where you deliver to in every post you make about your sale. Write it everywhere. It doesn’t hurt to have text about where you deliver to multiple times in front of your client’s eyes.

I don’t know if there is a way to program your online orders so that clients can not choose a destination outside of your delivery radius yet, that is a bit advanced for my tech skills, but I am learning!

3. Have a Plan for if Your Client is Away

I had a few clients who were not home when I came to deliver their bouquets and it was abnormally hot Portland day. I did not want their beautiful orders to melt in the sun! Luckily I did not have to do this, but if a client is away when I come to deliver I think the right thing to do is to keep that order and retry later. Something I did really saved me a lot of time and driving though - I texted each client as I took off towards their location to let them know I am on the way. A few of my clients knew their loved ones who they ordered for would be away and gave me some directions on where to leave their order. It also gave me the ability to change my route if needed and to come back to them later without taking up too much time. In the future I plan on bringing some kind of recyclable water source to leave with the bouquet in case the client is away and the best option is to leave it at their doorstep. 

4. Have Your Designing Done the Day Before

I have a bad habit of wanting to completely re-do my designs right before I deliver them. I would say this is a time-wasting mistake. It also causes me to get unnecessarily stressed and to make a design less structurally sound, because I am rushing. My advice to myself and others like me is to set aside ample designing time the day before a big delivery day, trust your eye, and do minimal touch up work the day of delivery. It is okay to do a bit of pruning or adjusting the day of delivery if things have gotten a bit wonky, but try your best to not take apart your entire design and restart. The flowers’ beauty speaks for themselves, our jobs as florists are just to let them talk. Take a breath, you’re doing fine. 

5. Make a Written Itinerary 

This is a simple, yet huge one! I made a mistake of forgetting that two orders were in the same part of town and I ended up driving across the city multiple times just because I did not have my locations planned and written out in front of me. I would absolutely write out the locations of all of your orders the night before and plan your delivery route. This is a rookie mistake, so save your time and take this extra prep step!

All in all I am loving this whole journey of learning. Thank you to all the mothers and mother figures out there who have loved their kids. Thank you to what you do for us in the small and large ways. I am glad to be someone who helps children show our mamas how much we appreciate you all!