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Thursday, February 14, 2008
Red roses draw double takes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gavin Averill / Special
Columnist Rick Badie delivers flowers on behalf of Brette Start Planning Floral & Event Design to a business in Norcross, Georgia.
“Be careful with the fiddle ferns.”
Brette Start, a florist, is talking to me. She’s loading a cardboard box into my back seat. It holds a mixed flower arrangement that has fiddle fern, a natural plant, in it.
It’s the day before Valentine’s Day. The Badie Tour has offered to make a few deliveries on the eve of the holiday. See, some people plan things. They don’t wait till the last minute - or completely forget - to show significant others some appreciation on this special day.
Start even made some deliveries on Tuesday.
“Some people are going out of town, and they want to enjoy the flowers a few days,” she told me. “And it’s great for guys to get them [Wednesday], so they can have them to give to their [wives and girlfriends] Thursday morning.”
Go ahead.
Pooh-pooh Valentine’s Day, the exchange of flowers, gifts, candy and cards. Say it’s a waste of time and money. Pat yourself on the back for being pragmatic, sensible, above it all. Call Valentine’s Day a marketing ploy and little else. Say all those things. Some of them may even hold truth.
But you know what?
You didn’t see the receptionist and others do a double take when I walked in Brandons Printing on Jimmy Carter Boulevard. It wasn’t me they were admiring. It was what I held: a vase with a dozen beautiful red roses for Darlene Byars. She wasn’t in, though.
“Where do you want me to put them?,” I asked the receptionist.
“Over there,” she said, pointing to a table in the lobby visible for all to see.
You didn’t see Carol Roush’s face when she opened the door of her Lilburn home to find me holding her mixed arrangement, fiddle fern and all.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” she said. Yes, they were.
She and Gerald L. Roush have been married 47 years. He didn’t always send flowers. That’s changed in the last couple of years.
“He realizes we are getting close to our 50th anniversary,” she told me. “This was just perfect.”
Later, when Roush and I talk on the phone, I suggest she check the water in her arrangement. The floor mat was soaked where her vase had sat in the truck. That wasn’t my only mishap of the day.
In Norcross, I had some explaining to do to Christian M. Stockhoff. He ordered a half-dozen red roses for his honey. By the time I got them to his office off Holcomb Bridge Road, there were five buds. My bad. Stockhoff, a vice president of operations for a brokerage firm, took it all in stride. Debra, his wife of 4 years, won’t mind. She probably won’t even notice. (Unless she reads this column.)
“She pretty much gets flowers and something else from me every year,” Stockhoff told me. “She’s come to expect it, and I have found it to be a happy routine.”
By the end of the holiday, Start will have filled more than 200 orders, most of which were scheduled for delivery. Her start-up business, Brette Start Planning Floral & Event Design, specializes in floral arrangements for high-end weddings and big events.
Flowers are her passion.
“Even if it’s a sad occasion, there’s nothing like seeing people’s faces when they receive their arrangements,” she told me.
“It’s great to see them get what they deserve.”
For more information about Brette Start Planning Floral & Event Design call 404-550-6986 or visit www.startplanning.homestead.com. Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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