Blooming Hearts: A Valentine's Day Special
With Valentine's Day around the corner, Lori flips the script and puts the two flower people on the team in the hot seat: Vonda and her daughter Ellie. What follows is part getting-to-know-you interview, part masterclass, and part small-town scandal — covering personal design styles, favorite stems, where they hunt for inspiration, and the advice they'd give anyone walking into their very first Valentine's Day in a flower shop.
Two designers, two totally different styles
Asked to describe her personal style, Vonda surprises even Lori. For Flower Clique work she leans toward mass designs — they photograph well and look good on websites — but what she actually loves is line design, which almost never makes the website because the larger the design, the smaller it reads in a photo. Her signature is interpretive design: a composition in which the elements are organized to suggest a theme, idea, occasion, mood, or atmosphere. And more than any one style, she loves techniques — grouping identical materials together, collaring foliage around the lip of a vase, basing flowers along the edge of a line design. The style is the vehicle; the techniques are the craft.
Ellie, who wouldn't call herself a designer (the room disagrees), goes the other direction: wild, a little chaotic, monochromatic or monofloral — ideally both — built for fast visual impact. She also likes to let the vessel tell her what the design should be. Lori has watched it happen at photo shoots: Ellie studying a row of containers, looking at the buckets, looking at the camera, building the whole arrangement in her head before touching a stem. Vonda notes plenty of designers visualize first; she herself tends to start placing flowers and see where it goes — and sometimes yanks the whole bouquet out and starts over.
Favorite flowers? Vonda's list is pure line-designer: liatris (famously tricky — ask Julie), roses, variegated pittosporum, and lily grass. Ellie — who jokes those are all her least favorites, probably from a childhood spent learning them — goes with hydrangea: a great base, great texture, and with proper prep it lasts forever.
Where the inspiration comes from
Years ago, Vonda's trend pipeline was simple: AIFD Symposium would fuel her for the entire year, and the SAF convention showed her the new flower varieties. Today the firehose of social media shows you the good, the bad, and the ugly — and plenty of misinformation dressed up as trend forecasting — so she still anchors on Symposium and SAF. Ellie agrees that virality isn't the same thing as a trend worth following, and rounds out her list with Pinterest, international trend sites like Trendland for a more global perspective than your own algorithm, and happy accidents: a recent Architectural Digest cover featuring a striking design in a cool vessel that turned out to be entirely carnations, perfectly fluffed. Sparks are everywhere if you're looking.
The most memorable Valentine's Day (and the bathrobes)
Every florist has stories, and Vonda's best one comes from her Ames shop. A regular customer — we'll call him Alan, because that was his name — ordered Valentine's flowers every year for his wife and his girlfriend, always with the warning not to mix up the cards. The flowers went out flawlessly. The bathrobes he'd bought elsewhere did not: the wife got the very sexy robe with the girlfriend's card, and the girlfriend got the fluffy one meant for the wife. He came in the week after Valentine's to report he'd been caught. As the hosts put it: florists are like priests — people come to confession, and you can't say anything.
What do outsiders not understand about Valentine's in a flower shop? Ellie names the rose-price trope — customers assuming florists jack up prices for fun rather than supply and demand — and, borrowing a point from Tyler, how few recipients know basic flower care: fresh cuts, clean water, away from sunlight and the fireplace. Both, she notes, are ready-made educational content for your customers, especially the once-a-year recipients who don't know why their roses faded and told their husband never to order again. Vonda adds the sheer volume — and Ellie the physical labor — that outsiders never see, plus the fact that the holiday isn't one day: it's two weeks of prep, run off a checklist.
Advice for your first Valentine's Day
Vonda's three rules for a new employee: have fun and bring a good attitude — it's a lot of work, so decide it'll be fun; be flexible, because you might be waiting on customers, wrapping flowers, or sweeping the floor; and communicate with everyone, not just the boss. Ellie's are more tactical: watch the floors — they get slippery and messy, so mind your footing; when February 13th hits and you're exhausted, remember it's all over in 24 hours, so do what you have to do (caffeine, cinnamon hearts, whatever gets you there); and treat the shop like a theater — back of house and front of house never overlap. Scowls, venting, and chaos stay in the back. When you step into the front room, it's showtime, and the customer gets your best self.
The verdict on Valentine's Day itself was unanimous. Vonda loved it — has said so many times. Ellie loved it too, partly because it got her out of school, but mostly because of the environment: happy, pink, red, romantic. It's a ton of work and chaos, but you're playing a big part in people showing their love — and that's the reason for the season.
Key takeaways
- Know your design identity — Vonda's interpretive line work and Ellie's wild monofloral drama are both valid; techniques like grouping, collaring, and basing elevate any style.
- Chase trends from trusted sources (AIFD Symposium, SAF, global trend sites) — viral isn't the same as good.
- Customer education is a marketing angle: explain rose pricing and flower care to the once-a-year recipients.
- Valentine's is two weeks of physical, checklist-driven prep — not one busy day.
- Run the shop like a theater: whatever happens in back of house, the front room is showtime.