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Who (really) loves Valentine’s Day?
Whatever opinion one might have of Valentine’s Day, it is a keenly anticipated day of the year for one particular business.
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A Korean-style floral arrangement by Kiko Florist (Courtesy of @kiko.florist/Courtesy of @Rosyposy.florist)
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alentine’s Day is big business for florists the world over, including in Indonesia. “Valentine’s day is our busiest time of the year,” said Della Lasher, a Jakarta florist who has been arranging flowers with her partner, Emelina, since 2016 and selling via their @Vandelinaflorist Instagram account. “Other important dates include Mother’s Day, Christmas, Chinese New Year as well as graduation days.” During this peak period, florists must also answer their customer’s personalization requests. “Some of our customers request an exact number of flowers in a bouquet, such as seven red roses, 12 white roses, etc,” said florist Renny Roren, who sells flowers via the @rosyposy.florist Instagram account, serving customers in Jakarta and Tangerang. Renny also states that Valentine’s Day is their busiest season. “Quite memorable was when a customer sent us morse code to be printed on the greeting card.”
To go even further in personalization, there are also artisanal florists serving a particular style. One such example is a florist with the Instagram account @kiko.florist and its Korean-style floral arrangement. K-style floral arrangement is called Kothkoji, and characterized by fewer greens and more cleaner and well-defined lines using branches, stalks and flowers. “It’s more flowery, cute and styled with pastel tones,” said Yukiko Aga, owner of @kiko.florist. She also operates a flower studio, where she has students come in and learn more about flowers and flower arranging. “I have a regular client from London that requests different models and only wants the prettiest and most expensive blooms—his arrangement usually takes longer to create.”
Not limiting themselves to just beautiful flowers, florists are now creatively developing their offerings. Instagram florist @Flowers.Secret based in Bandung offers customers a bell-shaped glass dome filled with personalized items. “When we first started making glass dome products, we only offered a handmade crocheted doll,” said Sherin Natania, co-owner of @Flowers.Secret. “Now the glass dome can be filled with flowers, lights, a couple of dolls and even a music box”.
Sending flowers to loved ones starts from Rp 25,000, and can go up to millions of rupiah. “We made a flower arrangement in the form of a large rose bear worth Rp 3.5 million,” said Elise Santoso, co-founder of @ballooney.id, which sells a variety of personalized balloons and flower arrangements. “The rose bear arrangement is specifically made with 1,314 flowers, numbers which when read in Chinese mean ‘‘forever’”. As their strong suit is in balloons, @ballooney.id has offerings mixing both balloons and flowers for Valentine’s day.
Florists also get requests to create flower arrangements mixed with money. “We made a Rp 10 million money bouquet,” said Renny Roren. “What was mainly challenging about this was that the customer ordered just hours ahead of delivery time.”
