Saying ‘I love you’ with flowers

HARLAN — Bursting at the seams with floral arrangements of all shapes and sizes, Floral Elegance prepared a week in advance, preparing thousands of flowers, for an onslaught of customer requests in the name of Valentine’s Day.
    The day was rainy, but anything but slow for the flower and gift shop in Harlan. The employees and owner Andrea Miller put in hours and days of preparation, ordering just the right flowers, accessories and gifts for those special somenones.
    Miller said the store was busy and steady until around 5:30 p.m.
    “There were very few arrangements left in the cooler,” she said.
    Valentines Day is the busiest day of the year for them, with Mother’s Day also a big contender. Miller said some order floral arrangements ahead of time, but it’s more of a last minute thing.
    Roger Andersen has been delivering for Floral Elegance for five years. His day started by filling the van with flower arrangements meant for Hy-Vee shelves. Then he went back to the store for more flowers and drove to his next delivery sites. It was repeated several times until the last flowers were delivered.
    At each site, the flowers were met with smiles and ahs over the beauty of the arrangements. Some were left to deliver by customer service employees. Some employees picked up their own bouquets. There were many deliveries to businesses, retirement communities and homes.
    The flowers are lined up inside according to what area of town they go, a list is made to make a loop for deliveries.
    “When you ring the doorbell you never know what the people are doing inside. A card is left to call if they don’t answer the door,” Andersen said. “Most of the time we call from the flower shop to make sure the recipients are going to be there, especially if the deliveries are out of town.”