Yeah, that's right - It's all about HER!

For those guys who think that Valentine's Day isn't a big deal to their wife, fiancee, girlfriend, wannabee girlfriend, or someone they want to attract, please think again. It's all about you showing that you think she is special to you, at least on the one day that everyone counts. If every woman in the office, except yours, received flowers, chocolates or some other gift, it's a BIG DEAL. So next year, don't be one of the guys we heard from the last couple of days who were trying their best to get out of the doghouse. Of course, we'll be more than happy to help you on either side of Valentine's Day, but your life will be a whole lot nicer when you get your gift to her before or on the big day. Just thought you should know.

Our New Website

We've been working diligently together with our new florist website provider, Epic Flowers, to update our website over the past couple of months. This change brings us a lot of flexibility and a host of new options, not to mention a much friendlier web presence.  One of the greatest features it provides is mCommerce. Some of you might be asking “what exactly is mCommerce?”.

Great question!  For starters,  Wiki defines it this way:

"Mobile Commerce is any transaction, involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods and services, which is initiated and/or completed by using mobile access to computer-mediated networks with the help of an electronic device."

So, basically, it means you buy something using mobile access, like a smartphone.  This definition can be expanded to talk about "True mCommerce", which uses a site that is re-formatted for mobile use.  You may not have noticed it, but all of the big boys are on it!

Below are the standard sites for eBay and Amazon, and next to them, the mobile versions, re-formatted for the iPhone.

So, why is this important to you?

If you’ve tried to do any online shopping from local businesses through your smart phone, you’ve probably found the process to be less than desirable.  The reason is that most independent eCommerce sites are not capable of providing a truly mobile formatted page.  So, you end up zooming in, zooming out, and fumbling through the shopping cart process.  Mobile formatting changes all that.

Here are a couple of screen-shots of what the The Treehouse Florist’s new mCommerce-ready site looks like on the iPhone.  We know you’ll love this new feature, because you no longer need a computer to order flowers on-line. And, we hope you enjoy browsing our new site from the comfort and ease of your smartphone.

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2010 - What a Year!

OK, I haven't posted in over two months, and now twice in one day. That's what waking up at 4AM will get you. So, before this month gets totally away from me, I thought I would recap this year here at The Treehouse Florist, and share a few personal events as well. Maybe you could consider this my Christmas card letter that I never send out. And not one tree was felled to share this!
January is typically a quiet month, as we spend a little time out of the shop visiting family and friends, not to mention preparing the tax documents and getting ready for the Mother of all floral holidays - Valentine's Day. In our six years, this was our best Valentine's ever.
While mulling over the previous year's sales and taking a hard look at our business and where we wanted to take it, we made the decision to leave all of the wire services. First, BloomNet in March, then Teleflora at the end of May. Since we had our website with Teleflora, we needed to act quickly to replace it. Flowershop Network was our answer, because we could get a decent looking website up in short order without too much work, and we could still relay orders for our customers. But, getting our own custom website was our goal by the next year.

Business this year included bouquets for the The Dance Academy production of Peter and the Wolf, adding on more churches for Sunday altar flowers, the most weddings we've done in a year, bringing home the blue ribbon from the local Flower Show for our design of Mardi Gras, joining flower forums and meeting some of the nicest, talented and helpful florists you would ever want to meet, getting a FB page, starting a blog, and most recently, getting our custom website up and running in less than a month (who knew?). Our special thanks go out to Brandon and EpicFlowers who helped make this all happen - yep, you guessed it, he's one of those special people I met in the florist forum.
Now that we have our new site up, hoping for a great Christmas season, and then having time to spend with family and friends.
On a personal side, my daughter and her husband bought a lovely home, and we got to spend some time with the grandboys. My son found his dream job, even if it is in DC. And we lost our mom to her battle with Alzheimers and heart disease, and then last week, a young man, my daughter-in-law's brother. A sad ending to an otherwise good year.

$10 off a $40 arrangement and a Merry Christmas!

All this week, we're giving you $10 off, if you order any $40 arrangement for delivery or pick-up anytime this month. But, you need to place your order by Saturday, Dec. 18th to receive the discount. Just consider it our little Christmas present to you. And if you stop by with the little ones, we have Candy Canes for them, complete with a card telling the Story of the Candy Cane. See you soon!

More on Bridal Consultations

Yeah, we ask a lot of questions during the consultation, many that you might not have given any thought to, but that's OK. We're the professionals, so we know what to ask.  When we ask about your dress or gown, it's because we want to make sure that the bouquet we design will match the style of your dress and event. A sleek, formal gown might dictate a more traditional bouquet style, whereas a kicky, contemporary dress would pair nicely with a less conventional bouquet.  The same applies to the formality and setting of your ceremony and reception. Our recommendations are based on years of experience, but we like to think of ourselves as good listeners too, so we take your likes/dislikes into consideration when we make our final recommendations to you.
Making your event memorable is what The Treehouse Florist is all about. You can count on us to interpret your vision into a beautiful reality by working with you to reflect your style, values and personality in every detail.

Brides-to-Be Florist Consultation Guide

Calling all brides - Here is a list of 10 things you should know when sitting down with your florist to discuss your wedding flowers, or really any large event requiring flowers.


1 - Your budget for the flowers, typically 8-10% of your complete wedding budget.

2 - Your vision or concept of the event, i.e. a formal church wedding, or casual garden wedding

3 - The style and color of your dress - pictures or fabric swatches are most helpful.

4 - The number of attendants and the style and color of their dresses - color swatches are great.

5 - Other people who will receive flowers, such as parents, readers, etc.
6 - The location and time of the ceremony and reception.

7 - Any restrictions imposed at the ceremony and reception sites, such as strewing of petals, open flames.

8 - The format for the reception, e.g. sit-down dinner, buffet, etc.

9 - The floral styles you like. Here is where it's helpful to bring pictures from magazines of your favorite flowers and bouquet styles, and let the florist know also if there are any flowers you don't like.

10 - The services you need the florist to provide, such as transporting flowers from the ceremony to the reception, set-up and tear-down of the reception site, or set-up only.

On losing your son

I don't quite know why I feel the need to blog about this, except that it was something that touched me very deeply.  On July 1st, a very prominent family from this little town grieved the loss of their only son, who died suddenly. The family owns the local funeral home that has been in the family for 125 years, which they are planning to celebrate later this year. What touched me was how the community came out to celebrate this young man's life. The viewing was not private, as one might think it could have been. But instead they welcomed the entire community to share with them the life that was their son's. There was a 1/2 to an hour wait to see and talk with the family, and the funeral was standing room only. And what a tribute they paid to him! Death is never an easy thing to deal with. But for those, like this family, who deal with it every day, I was given a new perspective on what it means to celebrate a life. Yes, I know they are grieving and will for quite some time, but it was wonderful to see, what they instinctively know, that this is all about the person's life and not their death.