Cultivate’20 will be held July 111-14, 2020 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
For more information about this event, please visit OAF’s Website.
With the converging popularity of reality TV, competition shows, and streaming services, should the art of floral design join the trend? Well in 2020, there will be two flower competition shows hitting streaming platforms HBO Max and Netflix.
As a florist, would you compete in one of these shows?
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Full Bloom is an eight-episode floral competition show that will be streamed on HBO Max starting in 2020. This hour-long floral competition show will feature 10 of America’s top florists vying to be crowned America’s best in floral design.
During the floral competition, it will allow audiences to escape into the floral world as candidates design and execute some of the most wondrous floral creations ever seen.
Each episode features a themed challenge focused on a unique area of the floristry world including fashion, art, events, and weddings. Contestants’ designs and creations will be mentored and judged by legendary floral artists Maurice Harris and Elizabeth Cronin with celebrity florist Simon Lycett serving as host. At the end of each episode, the arrangements made will be given away to remind us to stop and enjoy the beauty of flowers.
No announcement has been made yet in regards to signing up to compete in the second season.
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Meanwhile, Netflix has ordered a series of their own titled The Big Flower Fight based out of the UK, like the popular Great British Bake Off series.
This eight-part series will be a little different—this series will see ten duos made up of florists, sculptors and garden designers put to the test as they compete in a series of themed challenges to create very large-scale flower installations. Each episode will test a different set of creative and practical skills, from floristry to woodworking and landscaping.
The materials each team can use to create their installation will vary week-by-week, and participants will be encouraged to think about plants that give back to the environment. Each week one team will be eliminated, leaving just three teams to battle in the finale for the champion’s crown.
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Floral design has a history as a secretive trade: in the 1700s flowers became a common way to send coded messages. But in recent years, floristry has received a great deal of attention thanks to royal weddings and major films. Will this new mainstream showcase of floristry and floral designs on streaming services boost the demand for flowers? We sure hope so!
Florists, what are your thoughts on these floral competition shows? Would you compete in a floral design show like this? Please share your comments below!
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Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.
BloomsBy supports floral designers every step of their floral event planning. You can create professional wedding/event proposals, increase profits, create floral contracts, stem counts, and collect payments all with BloomsBy’s floral wedding management software available on PC/Mac and iPad app.
With BloomsBy Proposals, floral designers can create beautiful and professional proposals in a matter of seconds. No more lost and cluttered information, keep track of your clients requests in one location.
With the new BloomsBy Proposal user interface, BloomsBy proposals are easy to create, organize and manage. Floral designers are able to build a floral arrangement from the bottom up with flowers and supplies.
Add your business’ personal touch by adding a personalized message to each proposal with a customizable email template. Each client is different and adding that personal touch matters.
Add your customer’s inspirational photos to the proposal as a guide for creating the flowers for their special event.
Track, schedule, and take customer credit cards for deposits and payments.
Add markup, labor and then easily check to make sure you are pricing your flowers correctly. Making sure your weddings and events are fairly priced yet profitable.
With the BloomsBy Proposals flower catalog, it gives you the opportunity to record your pricing for your flowers and use these to help build your beautiful and professional proposals.
Build components like bridal bouquets, boutonnieres and more by adding the specified number of flowers for every arrangement.
Flowers and supplies composed to build your proposals can help generate a shopping list to order flowers and supplies.
Use BloomsBy proposals on your own computers, choose the best platform for you. Available on PC/MAC and iPad App.
BloomsBy understands that florist wedding and events are a core part of a floral business and creating beautiful proposals can be challenging.
We’ve all been there before: notes, images, spreadsheets, word documents and countless emails sent back and forth between your clients can be a nightmare. So why not use one program to make professional proposals and keep everything organized?
Get rid of the multiple programs and keep everything organized with BlooomsBy Wedding Floral Management Software.
Start giving your wedding and event proposals more impact with BlooomsBy Wedding Floral Management Software today and focus on what’s really important, your floral business!
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Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.
2019 CONVENTION
July 26 – 28, 2019
Holiday Inn Louisville East Hurstbourne
More details TBA
For more information, please visit the Kentucky Florist Association website.
The Texas Floral Expo will offer two courses of study rather than an exclusive focus on design.
The Design Course of Study and the Business Course of Study relate to the needs of the individual offering the best possible education whether your passion is design or whether you feel the need to expand your business skills.
If design is your focus then you will be able to register for presentations that cover a multitude of design topics presented by the best in the industry.
If you are all about business there will be two and half days of specific programming covering a range of topics! Additional information can be found at the Texas State Floral Association website.
OAF Cultivate’19 will be held July 13-16, 2019 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
For more information about this year’s event, please visit OFA Website.
2019 – AIFD Conference – Awaken – Las Vegas
More information TBA
For more information on this event, please visit the AFID website.
Sending flowers to anyone you know that is sick or sad might be the go-to gift, but the sending of flowers is actually more helpful than you think. It might surprise you, but there are more to flowers than just the look and smell—they can have some really positive effects on your health as well.
A few years ago the American Society for Horticulture Science performed a study seeing if plants have any influence on patients, and the results were outstanding. A group of patients was split into rooms with plants and flowers and the other half with no plants or flowers. The patients who had plants in their room had better results than those who did not have plants.
According to the study, those exposed to flowers and plants needed less pain medication, had lower blood pressure and heart rates, were less anxious and tired, and generally were in a more positive psychological state than patients in rooms without plants. The results of this research actually show that flowers should be offered to recovering patients.
Another study published in Contemporary Therapies in Medicine records that bouquets of flowers can also reduce our stress levels. The study gave women in college a fresh bouquet of roses for their dorm room. Results showed that each woman felt more relaxed and stress-free.
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They say home is where the heart is, and you should feel good being at home. Like patients in recent studies, a room with plants or flowers help overall well being, so why not add flowers in your home?
Keep flowers in your bedroom, like gerbera daisies. Gerberas emit oxygen and absorb toxins and carbon monoxide at night instead of during the day like most flowers, and some say they sleep better.
Having flowers on a dining room table is a must. Studies have shown that people who have flowers on their tables while eating are in a better mood—as long as you don’t bring up politics!
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Seem like you are in a rut and cannot focus at work? Why not add flowers and plants to your working space! Plants placed in a room help rejuvenate the oxygen in the room helping us think more clearly and keep the focus on the task at hand. Seeing green plants also helps with creativity as evidence has been shown in a case study by Shibata and Suzuki.
Flowers placed in the office not only helps our mood visually but also the smell of the flowers can help. Smelling floral scents seems to put us in a good mood and make us feel less anxious. Floral smells can help take the edge off during exams or before any major presentation you have before a group of people. So as they say, stop and smell the roses!
Floral colors can also attribute to our well being and mental state. Flowers that are less saturated and brighter are generally more relaxing, while bold saturated colors will help energize you. Colors near each other on the color wheel will be more calming than those opposite on the color wheel.
Think of the meaning of colors for certain flowers, like red roses, which means love or romance. don’t be afraid to do some research.
So in conclusion, it’s always best to be surrounded by flowers and plants as its a great way to keep in a great state of mind and why not be surrounded by beauty?
Florists, what are your thoughts? Do you keep yourself surrounded by plants and flowers at home? Please share your comments below!
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Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.
Google is not only helpful for consumers, but it’s also good for businesses. As long as you can use that to your advantage by strengthening your business’s online presence, your floral e-commerce website can succeed.
Google My Business is Google’s one-stop shop for all things online for your business. It is an online platform that contains tools where you can manage how your business will look like in Google and Google Search.
Google My Business (GMB) improves your local SEO by:
* Giving you the options to add your business and the relevant details to Search and Maps
* Viewing and replying to customer reviews
* Adding photos
Google My Business’s Local guides allow people to contribute to the following:
*Adding information to Maps
*Adding photos
*Updating information on businesses they are familiar with or local to them
*Adding new places to the platform.
The program differentiates individuals into tiers, depending on how much they have contributed to Maps. The goal for them is to keep Maps updated and help other people be fully informed about the businesses and places around them.
Aside from adding data, Local Guides can also add reviews to business listings. However, they are considered to be more reliable users, thus their reviews appear more frequently and on top of the reviews list.
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Customers who come across your business, those who make a purchase or require service can be a Local Guide. It can be hard to tell Local Guides apart from normal customers. Local Guides reviews are trusted more by people just with the sheer fact that their reviews are given priority when displaying reviews on your listing.
You cannot just pick out Local Guides from your customers and give them the best service you can. The key here is to treat all your customers the same and give the best service as much as you can to everyone.
Encourage customers to leave reviews for your business listing in Google Maps.
When receiving Positive Reviews:
*Reply to reviews in your listing
*Make sure to thank the reviewer
*Offer them to return
*Try out a new service that you might have started on your business.
When receiving Negative Reviews:
*Be polite and courteous
*State the status of the concern or issue the review was having problems with.
*Apologize for the issue or concern
*Offer to replace or fix the issue
Doing this will give people the impression that you are very mindful of the concerns that your business has and responsive to your customer base.
Image via Shutterstock
The tools that GMB provides are beneficial in boosting your online presence, and most especially in the local setting. Taking advantage of these tools is thus invaluable in helping out your business grow.
Florists, have you been using Google my Business: Local Guides? Please share your thoughts and comments below!
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Floranext offers great florist software, florist POS, florist websites and florist wedding proposal software. Our florist technology products are built by florists, for florists. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.
Let’s celebrate the season with the lei and flower crown, a Hawaiian tradition with thousands of years of history. Flower artist and lei maker Ocean Dreamer (ocean_dreamerr on Instagram) has a feed full of gorgeous lei and flower crown designs for weddings and all occasions we’d like to spotlight today.
Leis have been constructed of various materials including flowers, shells, leaves, nuts, feathers, and bone, but a braid of green Maile vine has been at the center of the lei all along.
The lei was introduced to Hawaii by the ancient Polynesian voyagers who first settled the islands. For centuries leis have been worn as garments to beautify the wearer, exchanged by leaders to seal peace agreements, and served a ceremonial purpose in religious rites and celebrations.
In the colonial era and later on as tourism to the islands expanded, lei vendors sold their wares to British and American visitors, and the lei took on another meaning as a form of greeting. It became tradition to throw one’s lei into the waters if departing Hawaii by ship.
Today there are few hard rules about when and where to don a lei—it is an all-occasion garment, but because of their great beauty and use of fresh flowers, leis are most often worn during celebrations.
Ocean Dreamer herself is a designer in Hawaii with a strong social media presence. That alone is something to admire these days, but her designs are all spectacular and if you check out her feed you can find them adorning wedding chuppahs and arches as well as being worn for everyday use and celebrations. She even includes some process pictures as she works to get just the right look.
Florists, have you received any requests for leis or Hawaiian style flower crowns? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
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Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.
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