We've been meaning to post a few wedding photos for a while now so here we go
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| the beautiful bride |
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| the beautiful flowers! |
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| the marquee at Glencorse |
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| our fav cake of 2011 |
Monday 10 October 2011
Wedding Flowers
Hi,
We've been meaning to post a few wedding photos for a while now so here we go
These photos were from Emma and Simons wedding earlier in the year at Glencorse House which is one of our favourite venues. Emma very graciously passed on some of her shots for us to use on our website and her mother gave us one of the nicest thank you letters we have ever received.
We've been meaning to post a few wedding photos for a while now so here we go
Wednesday 5 October 2011
Fame - for all the wrong reasons!
About a week ago I was listening to Victoria Derbyshire on 5 live when they started to do a story on online dating fraud. Basically guys were meeting women on dating sites, making them believe it was a genuine romance and then trying to get money out of them.
My ears pricked up because we were, unwittingly, part of that same scam. A guy called 'Jake' had started ordering flowers from the website and sending them to various women that he was involved with through dating sites. We only noticed after about the 3rd order when he placed a double order going to two seperate woman, both with romantic(ish) messages. We thought he was some kind of jack the lad/international playboy and although we felt a little grubby taking the money were also glad of the business - it is a recession after all!
This continued for a few weeks and at this point we were definitely feeling more and more uneasy about the whole business. It came to a head when one of the recipients of the flowers got in touch to say that she believed she was being conned by this guy and if that was the case she thought we were probably being done too.
Lo and behold, Jakes many romantic purchases had all been made with stolen credit cards and all his potential love targets were merely marks waiting to be fleeced. We soon discovered to our dismay that we bore full responsibility for all of the transactions and had been taken for a £400 ride.
Anyhoo - when I heard the story I got in touch with Victoria via twitter and told her our angle on the story. She got back asking for more details and before I knew it I was sitting, shaking, in a radio car with head phones on, a host of different voices in my ear and a bloke called Ewan sitting opposite me.
I heard the show start, George do the sport and then there was a bit of weather and then Victoria mentioned my name. I gulped, told myself it would be just like having a gossip with one of our customers and jumped into our story. It was a little hairy and I was fairly nervous at first but it got easier as time went on. One of the other retailers that was on had been hit for a lot more than my paltry £400 so that made me feel better in a weird sort of way :)
They had a guy on from World Pay who I think did a pretty poor job of justifying his companies stance, or lack thereof, on fraud prevention. I definitely felt a lot better grilling him than I did recalling our own story.
I name dropped our company once by accident but Victoria was good enough to do that for us a couple more times through the course of the show. I listen to 5 live pretty much every day so it was an interesting, and ultimately satisfying experience being directly involved. The staff there all made it as easy as they could for me and I had a little more chat with them via email afterwards which was nice.
If nothing else good came of the whole fraud saga at least i got to go on national radio!
My ears pricked up because we were, unwittingly, part of that same scam. A guy called 'Jake' had started ordering flowers from the website and sending them to various women that he was involved with through dating sites. We only noticed after about the 3rd order when he placed a double order going to two seperate woman, both with romantic(ish) messages. We thought he was some kind of jack the lad/international playboy and although we felt a little grubby taking the money were also glad of the business - it is a recession after all!
This continued for a few weeks and at this point we were definitely feeling more and more uneasy about the whole business. It came to a head when one of the recipients of the flowers got in touch to say that she believed she was being conned by this guy and if that was the case she thought we were probably being done too.
Lo and behold, Jakes many romantic purchases had all been made with stolen credit cards and all his potential love targets were merely marks waiting to be fleeced. We soon discovered to our dismay that we bore full responsibility for all of the transactions and had been taken for a £400 ride.
Anyhoo - when I heard the story I got in touch with Victoria via twitter and told her our angle on the story. She got back asking for more details and before I knew it I was sitting, shaking, in a radio car with head phones on, a host of different voices in my ear and a bloke called Ewan sitting opposite me.
I heard the show start, George do the sport and then there was a bit of weather and then Victoria mentioned my name. I gulped, told myself it would be just like having a gossip with one of our customers and jumped into our story. It was a little hairy and I was fairly nervous at first but it got easier as time went on. One of the other retailers that was on had been hit for a lot more than my paltry £400 so that made me feel better in a weird sort of way :)
They had a guy on from World Pay who I think did a pretty poor job of justifying his companies stance, or lack thereof, on fraud prevention. I definitely felt a lot better grilling him than I did recalling our own story.
I name dropped our company once by accident but Victoria was good enough to do that for us a couple more times through the course of the show. I listen to 5 live pretty much every day so it was an interesting, and ultimately satisfying experience being directly involved. The staff there all made it as easy as they could for me and I had a little more chat with them via email afterwards which was nice.
If nothing else good came of the whole fraud saga at least i got to go on national radio!
Monday 19 September 2011
Wedding season is slowing down but only just. We're now more than half way through september and we 3 to do this weekend, 3 to do next weekend and then a further clutch in October. For good or bad though there are a couple of weekends that are wedding free on the horizon, which will be strange. LAst saturday was also the first in over 4 months when I didn't have a bride in for a consultation!
Lots of flower pics to show but I'll save them for the next entry. I'll just leave you with this....
Lots of flower pics to show but I'll save them for the next entry. I'll just leave you with this....
Saturday 20 August 2011
so it's been a while......
I just haven't been able to get my blog on of late and I'd like to blame the baby or the jet set life style we're living or even the stress of being self employed, but none of these would be true. I think it's just general inertia creeping in. I miss one week and then two which becomes three and then four and then it's become a 'thing' which makes it even harder to get into to.
But no more, the Blog must return and this one will be worth the wait I promise.
We have provided flowers for lots of weddings this year, more than any year before in fact. But this is the first time we have ever seen our flowers in a 'Marryoke'! I never met the bride, Lindsay, or had any contact with her at all, until the day of the wedding itself. All of our correspondence and decision making was done through Lily, one of her 7 bridesmaids. This isn't because Lindsay was incredibly lazy, she lives in Malaysia with her fiance, now husband, Taylor.
We don't have any pictures of the wedding to show you exactly, but thanks to an email from Lily we do have THIS
It was a great idea and amazing how everyone threw themselves into it. I'm sure Lindsay and Taylor were very pleased with the finished result, as were we with a musical display of our flowers - thanks!
But no more, the Blog must return and this one will be worth the wait I promise.
We have provided flowers for lots of weddings this year, more than any year before in fact. But this is the first time we have ever seen our flowers in a 'Marryoke'! I never met the bride, Lindsay, or had any contact with her at all, until the day of the wedding itself. All of our correspondence and decision making was done through Lily, one of her 7 bridesmaids. This isn't because Lindsay was incredibly lazy, she lives in Malaysia with her fiance, now husband, Taylor.
We don't have any pictures of the wedding to show you exactly, but thanks to an email from Lily we do have THIS
It was a great idea and amazing how everyone threw themselves into it. I'm sure Lindsay and Taylor were very pleased with the finished result, as were we with a musical display of our flowers - thanks!
Tuesday 19 April 2011
Our latest employee!!
It's been a little bit too long since our last post but not without good reason. Shortly after valentines day our son, Daniel, was born. As Gill has been off being a full time Mum and I've been skiving a lot being a part time dad, a lot of the little things we try to keep on top of have been gathering dust. This is terrible on our part but what can we do, he is super cute and very time consuming!
However, as we now have an heir to our throne we should really get back to the business at hand; selling more flowers!! Valentines was ok for us, not the busiest but still decent. From asking around it seems that most florists were in the same boat.
Mothers Day however was a lot better this year. I don't know if thats a sign the recession is receding or just that we all have more time for our Mums than we do our wives and girlfriends!! Maybe it's a little of both.
Our wedding season is now in full swing with6 bookings though April and only one free Saturday between now and mid October. Our online shop continues to go from strength to strength which is also a very positive sign. Our google rankings have improved greatly over the last year and our international business is soaring.
Talking of weddings there is one fairly major one coming up in less than a couple of weeks. We were asked about providing the flowers but we don't go south of the river round here. Apparently 3 florists are working together to transform the venues with a colour scheme of whites and greens using lots of scented blooms. So, in honour of the royal wedding we will offer a 10% discount on all online orders placed between now and the end of the month. All you have to do is enter 'Wills and Kate' in the discount box and you will save a few sovereigns! Please pass it on to anyone you feel may be able to use it.
Talking of weddings there is one fairly major one coming up in less than a couple of weeks. We were asked about providing the flowers but we don't go south of the river round here. Apparently 3 florists are working together to transform the venues with a colour scheme of whites and greens using lots of scented blooms. So, in honour of the royal wedding we will offer a 10% discount on all online orders placed between now and the end of the month. All you have to do is enter 'Wills and Kate' in the discount box and you will save a few sovereigns! Please pass it on to anyone you feel may be able to use it.
Thursday 10 February 2011
and the winner is......
After much debate and discussion we have decided that the winner is.......
AIMEE!!
Well done to you and thanks to everyone for taking part.
Aimee, if you can send us an email to info@pollination.co.uk we will get your prize organized.
AIMEE!!
Well done to you and thanks to everyone for taking part.
Aimee, if you can send us an email to info@pollination.co.uk we will get your prize organized.
Tuesday 1 February 2011
Flowers for your Thoughts
Hello, they say the mind is the most romantic part of the body so we thought we would give you all a chance to exercise yours for Valentines.
Simply compose a small poem or ditty and post it in the comments field of the blog. It must be original and it would help if it's funny or romantic or, ideally both!
On the 9th of February we will judge which poem we deem to be the best and the winner will receive a £30 bouquet of flowers for themselves or a lucky someone else.
Get thinking/writing and best of luck to you!
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| The Mr Darcy |
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| The George Clooney |
Get thinking/writing and best of luck to you!
Monday 24 January 2011
Fame at Last!!
It's always nice to have lots of people appreciating your work and thats exactly what happened to us last week. One of the brides we provided flowers for last year, Amy, was featured in the Love My Dress blog. We only found out when we got a wedding inquiry on the back of it, less than 12 hours after it had been posted!!
As well as lovely flowers the blog also contains some great pictures of her and Chris's day so feel free to check it out.
As well as lovely flowers the blog also contains some great pictures of her and Chris's day so feel free to check it out.
Monday 17 January 2011
(Un)Happy New Year?
Apparently it's the most miserable day of the year today....I'm not so sure.
I feel pretty good myself, the shop has been busy, most of our orders have been for happy occasions, most people I've met are good and the dog seems pretty chuffed too.
Maybe it's being surrounded by spring flowers thats the key. So if you are feeling a bit mopey then get out and buy yourself some tulips, gerbera and hyacinths!! And not just today either :)
I feel pretty good myself, the shop has been busy, most of our orders have been for happy occasions, most people I've met are good and the dog seems pretty chuffed too.
Maybe it's being surrounded by spring flowers thats the key. So if you are feeling a bit mopey then get out and buy yourself some tulips, gerbera and hyacinths!! And not just today either :)
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