While you’re sipping mimosas with Mom on her special day, your local florist’s fingers are being worked to the bone fulfilling 200 orders before opening. “Our hands fall off at the end of it, but it’s worth it,” says Justine Melnychuk of Swish and Co., a flower and design shop on Rabbit Hill Road.
For flower shops, Mother’s Day isn’t just busy, it’s an all-out marathon with a line out the door, a cooler bursting with orders, and more traffic than the Henday under construction at rush hour.
“Valentine’s Day is primarily men (buying)” Melnychuk explains, “but Mother’s Day is every age, every demographic.” And rather than just buying flowers for one partner, customers are looking to treat their mothers, mothers-in-law, wives, sisters, and other women that play a key role in their life. Altogether, it makes Valentine’s Day look like amateur hour.
That got us thinking: What’s it really like for the unsung heroes of every second Sunday of May? While the rest of us are scrambling to make plans for Mom, they’re thinking about all the moms — and months in advance.
The chaos doesn’t materialize overnight. Planning starts early in the year with considerations for the perishable blooms. Every stem has to be prepped for arrangement. “It’s a little bit of a science and an art blended together,” Melnychuk says. “You want to have lots of beautiful options, but not too much and not too little.”
They’ve carefully choreographed shipments to arrive in waves: “The Saturday before, the greenery and really long-lasting stuff comes, and then three days before, all the fresh stuff comes. It’s a lot to have it all at once.”
Despite meticulous planning, every Mother’s Day brings its floral emergencies. “People forget, of course they forget — it’s morning of, usually it’s hour of,” Melnychuk says. On any other day, the team has a VIP emergency email, but Mother’s Day is the one time on-the-spot arrangements become impossible.
If you really want to be a good son or daughter, plan ahead, trust the florist and know your budget. “You can get something beautiful for both $50 or $500.” And if you are one of those 11th hour shoppers, any available pre-arranged or single stem options may be your best bet. After all, it’s better than coming to mom empty handed.
“It’s not about budget or showiness, it’s truly the thought that counts.”
Remember this: while helping you celebrate your mom, florists are postponing their own plans.
“We all kind of (rain) check our own celebrations,” says Melnychuk. “We get to celebrate with each other, help everyone else, and then in the evening we have our day.”
When asked what she’d want for her own Mother’s Day, Melnychuk laughs: “Designer’s choice: bright and colourful… a rainbow of everything.”
