Flower Shop AUs: the crash course no one asked for
Alright my dudes, I worked in a flower shop when I was in high school and I’m here to bring you some potentially useful information for all your flower shop AU needs. this is all my own experience, take it with a grain of salt, etc etc etc.
making a custom arrangement right when someone requests it (ie they walk in and say “I want XYZ” and the florist then making an arrangement on the spot and selling it, all in one customer interaction) is pretty rare- I see it in fic a lot, but I can only imagine it happening on a really slow day, and probably from a pretty good-natured florist. custom arrangements tend to be something that are ordered well in advance for very special occasions (weddings, quinceñeras, etc), because you’ll be paying for the consultation and the time that it will take to design the arrangement.
most places will have a bunch of pre-designed arrangements to choose from- there’ll be pictures of the options near the register, often with cheesy names like “a thousand wishes” or “happiness blooms”. because greens keep longer than flowers, a shop usually keeps a stash of greenery arranged in vases, so when someone orders one, you just have to add fresh flowers to a pre-made vase. if someone came in and said “I want this pre-designed arrangement, but with X instead of Y”, that’s a pretty reasonable request.
customers usually don’t know anything about flowers. you get a lot of people coming in and basically asking “what do you think my date/partner/parent will like?” the obvious answer is “why the fuck would I know?” but that’s “impolite” or whatever, so a good florist will ask questions about what the person likes, if they have a favorite color, what your price range is, etc. basically you have to just pretend you know what the recipient wants- ultimately, in nearly every circumstance they’ll just be happy to receive flowers, so it’s hard to go wrong.
sorry to say it, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone, florist or not, who was actually familiar with flower meanings. like it honestly never came up. it’s a fun element to include in a story, but realistically the only way someone’s going to “get the message” of an arrangement is if you tell them directly that the flowers are meant to “say” something, or maybe if you’ve talked about flower language in the past.
often, in the process of unpacking, processing, and storing flowers, you’ll get a few flowers that break at the stem, which makes them essentially unusable in an arrangement (generally speaking, longer stems=more expensive) however, you could, in theory, save any snapped-stem flowers, make a little bouquet of them, and give it to someone. (I did this a few times when I was working in the back room- I literally just snuck discarded flowers into my backpack. a rose with a 5” stem would get thrown out normally, but if you save it it still looks adorable in a mason jar). I’m just saying, “florist gives crush a little bouquet nearly every day” is something we need a lot more of, and it’s totally feasible.
a list of things a person might do while working in a flower shop (if you need to just have ambient activity or whatever):
arrangement, including assembling dozens of identical arrangements assembly-line style
taking orders (on the phone and in person), usually from people who know fuck all about flowers. requires the patience of a saint and/or a take-no-shit attitude.
general cashier/sales work. a lot of flower shops will also sell potted plants, small gifts/trinkets, greeting cards, chocolate, etc. so there’s the usual maintenance, stocking, etc associated with retail.
opening and processing shipments (flowers have to be unpacked and have the ends of the stems sliced off with one of those guillotine-ish paper cutting things, then stuck in buckets of water. a single shipment can take hours, especially if the flowers are delicate or individually wrapped)
clean-up, which involves sweeping pounds of plant matter into two-foot-tall mountains, then shoveling the mountains into garbage cans. “shoveling” is not a hyperbole there, you literally use a snow shovel as a dust pan. it’s a full-body workout.
clean-up in the cool room/walk-in (the giant refrigerator where the flowers are kept). same as normal clean-up, but there are more shelves and corners to get packed with leaves and shit. also it’s about two degrees above freezing. this is an excellent opportunity for sharing sweatshirts, coats, etc.
organizing orders by zip code and date of delivery. during a busy period, this is a one or two person job that involves being stuck in the walk-in for hours. great potential for “begrudgingly realizing I like this person’s company” moments.
delivering arrangements! door-to-door is a one person job usually, but delivering to a single location (ie taking flowers to a wedding or graduation) takes two or more people taking an often-very-long drive in a truck/van. (I’m not saying “road trip games” but that’s exactly what I’m saying).
little details (idk maybe for someone to notice about the florist character?):
when you work in a flower shop, you will smell like flowers until you wash it off in the shower. the smell lingers like you wouldn’t believe.
calluses!! a florist might have calluses on the outside of their thumb and the backs of their fingers from holding scissors and clippers (the location’s hard to explain but if you hold a pair of scissors, all the places where the scissors touch your skin), on the bases of their fingers on the palm side (from carrying buckets, etc), and possibly on their fingertips (especially the tip of the thumb) from snapping stems and generally working with their hands all day.
also, your hands are a little damp nearly all day, so a florist is likely to have some really chapped skin, in the winter especially.
lilies are normally sold with the stamen removed, so they don’t get pollen stains on the petals. lily pollen stains everything it touches, so when your job is to remove the stamens of a hundred or so lilies, your fingers will be stained yellow for a while.
also, green-stained fingertips and nails are common. (snapping stems with your thumbnail will turn it green, stripping leaves off stems will stain the space between your forefinger and thumb)
scraped-up hands and arms. it just happens- it’s physical work with a lot of sharp tools, nicks and scratches are going to happen.
it’s pretty physically taxing work, especially if your boss has a “no sitting on the job” rule (mine did.) after an especially busy day of work, your character will probably be exhausted and sore. massages? massages.
If you use any of this/if this is helpful, feel free to let me know/tag me! I’m @navigatrix on AO3 :))
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
stormborns
jacobvanloon
jbbartram-illu
yousharknotpass
prguitarman
dailybridgerton
