The tradition of giving flowers to loved ones on Valentine’s Day has been practiced by people for centuries. That is what makes this day one of the busiest and probably one of the most profitable days of the year for any floral store. Campus Floral, a BYU floral shop, is no different.
“We start preparing for Valentine’s Day well before Christmas,” said Corrine Smith, who is a manager of Campus Floral. “We order a lot of our flowers before Christmastime and then right after the first of January all of our orders have to be in just so we can be guaranteed the product.”
The number of flowers growers can provide to the stores is limited because of the finite quantities they can grow and the many florists who demand them.
Smith said it is really important to order the flowers ahead of time.
“We have to ensure that we get the product we want, and sometimes those flowers come on a first come, first serve basis,” Smith said.
Because of the large demand and heavy supply around this time of the year, the prices of the flowers go up, Smith said, but not by a lot.
“None of my prices really have changed too much,” she said. “The only significant price change happens to be in the rose department … but all of my other flower prices really stay the same they normally are.”
Prices are not the only thing that go up during the Valentine’s weekend. The number of the employees increases as well. While on a regular day, four to five crew members work at Campus Floral, the amount of work that needs to be done over the Valentine’s weekend requires the whole crew.
“We have at least six vans going at all times … And I have my whole crew of 20 here, so it is quite a jump,” said Smith.
The busy schedule is a pleasant change for Brittney Zundel, a BYU student working at the shop. She mainly works at the front of the store.
“Sometimes I do get bored up here because I’m here by myself… so it is nice to always have something to do,” Zundel said.
This year’s Valentine’s Day is a first for Zundel. Her work schedule is currently busy, but she is excited for next week when she will get to prepare the flower arrangements for sale.
“It will be a lot more fun to make all the flowers at once,” Zundel said.
And there will be a lot more arrangements to make. Smith said just in 2015, Campus Floral made 85 deliveries on Friday, the day before Valentine’s Day, and another 90 on Valentine’s Day. The shop also had about 100 to 125 orders scheduled for people to pick up in the shop. She said Campus Floral has about 10 pickups on a regular day. The floral shop estimates to have about 200 to 225 pickups this year.
“It is a significant increase from the day-to-day,” Smith said.
There are certain flower arrangements that are more popular than others during this holiday of love.
BYU student Mary Stuart is a designer at Campus Floral.
“The most popular arrangements are ‘Be My Love’ and ‘Polka Dots and Posies,'” Stuart said.
“Be My Love” is a bouquet made of red roses, carnations, white asiatic lilies and chrysanthemums arranged in a ruby-red glass vase. The “Polka Dots and Posies” is a mix of white daisies and pink roses arranged in a pink glass cube vase with a pink polka-dot ribbon.
But as Stuart said, “basically anything that is pink, white or red” is popular during this time of the year.
