A Vanity Fair is a Favorite Place on Google

We're so pleased to get a packet from Google declaring and congratulating us for being a favorite place that people searched for and requested driving directions and other information about us - a real local Sacramento florist.

We have a window decal with a special bar code that any customer can scan with their phone cameras, i.e., iphone or Droid to get more information about our flower shop. Better yet, after scanning our bar code, come on in and get a free gift from us. This offer is good beginning now 12/16/2009 until 12/31/2009.
We worked hard to get recognized, and we thank our customers and those who found us on Google. Our heartfelt thanks to Google for this recognition. This is truly an early Merry Christmas!

Flowers, Food and Celebrations

Holidays are special occasions for friends and family - our loved ones to get together and catch up. It seems, during these special occasion of family and close friends gathering, flowers, food and celebrations have always been old companions as well. Creative centerpieces adorning dining tables make the gathering more festive, lively and very inviting. You can pick up beautifully and professionally designed centerpiece at your local florist. In Sacramento, if you want to stay indoors during the cold and dreary rainy day, call your local Sacramento florist to deliver your flowers.

During the hustle and bustle of the holiday preparations, we wish you all peace, joy, and love. And remember, for last minute gifts, call your local florist who can artistically put together a gift for a host or a loved one.

Flowers brighten, lengthen, life

A small arrangement was sent to a "seasoned" lady, a mixture of lavender stock that gave the display a very sweet scent, purple iris, purple lisianthus, novii belgii, a touch of yellow with the solidaster and bupleurum. Her fellow residents shared in her joy of receiving the gift of flowers, and in their awe of the beauty of the gift. This joy was really appreciated that she was compelled to give us a call to express her thanks for a beautiful gift of flowers.

I can imagine how these seasoned residents reacted, just like in a favorite children's mother goose rhyme "ring a ring o' roses", in their wheelchair, surrounded the recipient to look at the gift of flowers she received. The visual is funny, and gives us joy, the rewards of our work as a florist.

The Little Way

The Little Way

To scatter flowers! -- that means sacrifice:
My lightest sighs and pains, my heaviest, saddest hours,
My hopes, my joys, my prayers -- I will not count the price,
Behold my flowers!
To scatter flowers! --behold my chosen sword
for saving sinners' souls and filling Heaven's bowers:
The victory is mine - yes, I disarm Thee, Lord,
With these, my flowers!
- St. Therese of Lisieux

Funerals - When Someone You Know Dies

The floral business for everyday occasion has slowed down because of the economy, but lately, there has been a lot of last minute orders for sympathy flowers. Some of the customers that ordered flowers were relatives who were unable to attend the service. Some of our customers after taking care of the funeral arrangements realize the very last minute that they did not take care of flowers; so they order flowers at 10 a.m. for the 12 noon service. We've dealt with a lot of funerals lately where people order on the last minute because they see that there are very few flowers. On these occasions, we do not feel very sympathetic and are very removed of any feeling except the thought of making the floral arrangement very attractive for the service in the amount of time we have to work with.

But when someone you know dies, it is very different. The initial shock and the feeling of sympathy for the loved one left behind is hard to express. Someone I barely knew died and circumstances around his death is something I can't fathom how his loved ones must have felt. The distance could have created a barrier in helping out the loved ones left behind cope with their grief and the burden of making the final funeral arrangements. One friend, a fraternity brother, volunteered to collect contributions and with his sister took care of facilitating financial help from the mainland US to the Philippines. Technology has bridged the gap, and I really appreciate that it took fraternity/sorority brothers and sisters share in the grief of the loss of a big brother, the founder of the fraternity.

The death has brought together long lost frat brothers and sisters. Thank you Manong Glen!

Sacramento Florist - Change with the Economy

The last few months have become very challenging for small businesses like florists. Driving to work, it is very discomforting to see empty commercial spaces and large 'For Lease' signs on windows, and on the side of roads. Next to our shop, there used to be no parking space to be had; trucks and cars used to park on the street. In March, a large construction painting company just closed their shop and now there's a lot of empty parking spaces.

Our flower business is down by at least 20% for the first quarter of the year and it looks like it would be the same for the second quarter. Brides have become very cost conscious - those that came to us ordered only the basic flowers they needed - bridal bouquet, small bridesmaids bouquets, small corsages and boutonnieres, and loose flowers or rose petals that they will use for table decorations. We've had a few nice wedding business, but a lot fewer this year than last. We particularly loved the wedding we did last month where we did centerpieces including the guest sign-in table, food table and the ladies' bathroom. The chuppah was a challenge to make but in a good way.

The funeral business has also slowed down. Families have also become more cost conscious in their flower purchases. We had one family order loose flowers and materials for a relative to arrange the flowers for the service. Fortunately, there are still a few that we were able to do, a recent one were tropical arrangements for a funeral.

We have hunkered down, downsized as much as we are able to, and still continue to operate the business without going into debt. We are still able to pay our bills, mortgage for the shop and our residence. Still, the economy does not look good. In Sacramento, our economy depend so much on the government - it is the biggest employer, and with Friday furloughs, not only are the government employees affected, a lot of businesses are affected - restaurants, gift shops, etc.

We are hoping the economy improves, but if not, we will continue to watch our expenses, market our business the most economical way and hopefully find ways to do it for free, and find additional corporate accounts. We look for best pricing in flowers so that we can offer the best price to our customers. Our best asset will still be our customer service and our same day delivery service.

Local Florist in Sacramento, CA

We are in a challenging economic environment. A Vanity Fair Florist used to be located in a leased space in a strip mall in Citrus Heights on the corner of Auburn and Greenback Lane. During those years we were there, we were burglarized several times, along with cash, our cash register was stolen, door lock broken and had to be repaired, windows needed to be replaced. Any plant or item left outside the shop would disappear and after our lease was up, our lease was about to go up. Burglary on other businesses nearby was occurring quite often.

The bad economy also discouraged people to walk into a flower shop. Because of all these problems, we decided to buy our own commercial property - a little old house in a commercial lot situated between an office building and an auto repair shop and facing the FBI and the Sacramento Sheriff's department. Unfortunately, we bought it at the height of the real estate boom. We are now upside down on the property and cannot find financing to update the property as of yet. However, we are still a running business because we are able to operate with lower overhead. There used to be a very nice shop called Conroy's located not too far from us on Madison Ave. Another shop rented a nice location not too far from us on Auburn Blvd. is also shut down.And yet another flower shop located on Garfield Ave. is also long gone. The economy forced us to move to our humble location, still serving our old customers and people sending flowers to funerals at East Lawn Sierra Hills Cemetery and to Calvary Catholic Cemetery. We also deliver to Reichert's Funeral and Price Funeral Home in Citrus Heights. We service Merrill Gardens in Citrus Heights, CA, the Carmichael Oaks Retirement Home in Carmichael, CA, the Atria El Camino Gardens also in Carmichael, and others. We provide weekly flowers and flowers for special occasions. Aside from flowers, we have balloons, plush toys, silk flowers, candles, greeting cards, plants, baskets, and floral supplies.

There is a real bad looking building that used to be a florist on the corner of Orange Grove and Auburn Blvd. It used to house a flower shop called Flower Station. It was abandoned in 2002 but remained listed in directories as Love N Touch until 2008. It has hand painted signs now faded that says - Roses, Valentines Flowers. I wonder if that is the building that Dina saw driving by and became passionate to write a review about A Vanity Fair Florist.

Sacramento Florist Helps you Celebrate your Secretary

Secretary is not the politically correct term anymore, but Administrative Assistant
or Administrative Professional is such a long term and the job entails basically the same skills and duties, that's why I used the short term for the title of this piece.

For every successful manager, success depends on the skillful and adept Administrative Assistant or Administrative Support Team.

Success starts with your Administrative Assistant. Share your success with your Assistant - Send Flowers, or plants!

Administrative Professional Week is celebrated the last week of April. This year it falls on the week of April 20th to the 26th. This holiday celebrates secretaries, administrative assistants, executive secretaries, receptionists, and all other administrative support staff. This holiday was started in 1952 to recognize those in the administrative support field, (in the old days were called secretarial staff) and encourage others to follow in that career path.

Show your support team how much they mean to you. Send them flowers to let them know you appreciate them. Flowers and balloons, and small plants are a great way to show your appreciation for that special person who supports you or your office. Your administrative professional would love to receive a beautiful floral arrangement to show your appreciation and give their busy desk a beautiful display.

Let them know how much you appreciate your support staff by sending them your gift of appreciation early in the week. If you decide to send flowers or plants, place your order on Monday for delivery on Monday or Tuesday. What ever you decide, use the services of local Sacramento businesses. If you need a florist, please give us a call and we'll take good care of your order and we will deliver promptly.

Local Sacramento Florist prepares for Easter

One of the holidays that florists await for, plan and prepare for is Easter. When times were better, relatives who live out of town send flowers, gift baskets or the traditional Easter lily plant to their loved ones in Sacramento. Nowadays, most florists just plan for a nice full week. For those of us who have corporate customers like churches, we have Easter lilies to prepare and church arrangements to work on for delivery for the Easter service and for retirement homes for their dining rooms.
In other countries like the Philippines, they celebrate Easter which starts with Palm Sunday and the rest of the week is called Holy Week. Students would be given the whole week off to go back home and celebrate the holiday with their family.
So, before we all get busy with our Easter work, I send you my wish for a peaceful week - Happy Easter to you all.

Send a Smile, Send Flowers

We received 2 orders for tulips today, one was for an arrangement of hot pink tulip, another was for lavender tulips. However, we only had pink tulips available, so that's what we delivered. One recipient (in Citrus Heights, CA) said, it couldn't be for valentine's, because it's long been over, and it's not her birthday either. But she was happy to get one anyway, it was a nice surprise.  The other delivery was made for a ladyin Carmichael, CA who just lost a loved one. She was very happy to get the flowers and even gave the driver a tip. The flowers not only gave a smile to her face, it also gave the driver a real big smile for the tip. Now, if only more people order direct from a local Sacramento florist, not only will they have a smile for the affordability, but also give them more satisfaction when they hear the "thank you" from the recipient. See our Spring Tulips

Valentines Day - Express your Feelings with Flowers

Often times finding the right words to express feelings and emotions is difficult. This Valentines Day, how can you best say what is in your heart and on your mind? Flowers can help. Considered the universal language by many, flowers transcend emotional, racial, and national barriers to express a wide variety of feelings.

The following is a list of contemporary meaning commonly associated with the color of roses:

• Red - true love, passion, I love you

• Yellow - happiness, friendship, freedom

• Pink - sweetness, gentleness, grace, joy

• Bright pink - thankfulness

• Peach - sincerity

• Orange - fascination, enthusiasm

• White - purity and innocence
• Lavender - enchantment, love at first sight

Valentine's Day is a very busy time for flower shops, so be sure to give your local florist plenty of advance notice, most especially if you want to send a specific color or variety of rose. It's also a good idea to have a second choice in mind. And remember that your local florist can arrange for roses to be delivered out of town, too. Consider having the flowers delivered a day or two early. It will make easier for your florist to give you the best selection and service, and it will let your Valentine know that you just couldn't wait to get your message across.