Flowers insolita Blog

As in many other traditions, Easter has lost much of its meaning.  People used to be all dressed up going to the church on Easter Sunday, many wearing corsages.  We had zero corsage orders for Easter in the last three years.  People used to enjoy Easter dinner with a nice centerpiece.  Not anymore.

I came across a beautiful story of Easter flowers tradition that I would like to share:

“Hello Mioux Florist.”
“Joe, this is Ed.”
“Hi Ed, do you need a Easter bouquet?”
“Yes, I can’t come up to the shop and drop off of my Easter container this year. Could you fix something up and deliver it to my house?”
“Sure, we will take good care of it for you, bye.”

Ten minutes later, I call Ed back and say “Hey Ed, can I come up and get that container from you and we will fix it up.” He says ‘yes.’

Twenty minutes later I deliver the little Easter bouquet back to Ed and his wife Margie.

This little ceramic Easter Bunny container has been brought to our shop at Easter every year for 60 years. Ed is in his 90’s and he doesn’t drive anymore.

You read that correctly. We have been making flower arrangements in this little container for over 60 years.

I couldn’t let the tradition cease.

There is nothing particularly unique about the flowers or the design. The special thing is the history of this customer and my family.

This florist, Joe Mioux of Mioux Florist and Greenhouses in Carlysle IL, is a fourth generation florist whose business has been in operation since 1876.

According to a Washington Post article, National Funeral Directors Association is trying to get a chunk of the federal bailout money.  From the same article, I quote:

“We recognized that there may be a situation where a lot of folks who were displaced or unemployed might need some help in paying for their funerals,” John Fitch Jr., lobbyist for the National Funeral Directors Association, explained yesterday at the group’s annual gathering, at the Mayflower Hotel. “We had some preliminary discussions about providing some stimulus payments to the states” for funerals, he added.

Interesting.  Florists know that non-essential items like flowers and jewelry are the first to cut when money is tight.  All the florists are having a hard time now, no doubt.  But funerals?

I always thought the funeral industry is recession-proof.  It’s not like people stop dying in recession.  If anything, the death rate would increase, because people can’t afford health care these days.

Apparently, people no longer spend as much money on funerals as they used to.  From the same article, I quote:

Lynch, of Michigan, spoke about the “huge bowl of Bazooka bubble gum” displayed at one visitation. “Didn’t cost a lot of money,” he said. “That’s what we see people doing.”

“Instead of feeding everybody dinner or lunch, we’ve been throwing little, for lack of a better word, cocktail-party type things, cheese and crackers,” added James Olson of Wisconsin. “Also,” he said, “my cremation rate has gone up in the last two years. . . . I’m at 42 percent.”

Lynch turned to the “merchandise” of the funeral. “People, rather than selecting a copper or a bronze casket, may choose a 20-gauge steel casket painted in a copper color,” he said.

Fascinating.  We florists keep complaining that people no longer spend money on funeral flowers.  We thought part of the reason was the ubiquitous use of ‘in lieu of flowers’ phrase in obituary.  Many of us have been lobbying funeral directors to change the wording to a more positive phrase such as “The family suggests memorial contributions be sent to….”

Perhaps we were all wrong.  The reason we are seeing the decline of funeral flowers is because people just don’t want to spend money on funerals any more.

I don’t know… it’s kind of sad…  Instead of spending money on funerals, funeral flowers,  where are they spending money on?