Enter our Christmas photo competition & win an amazing Christmas gift set worth £80!

If you’re stuck for present ideas then you could always win some with our very special Christmas competition.  With a chance to win a bouquet, some Champagne and Prestat chocolates, the finishing touches to your Christmas shopping could be done with one (very) imaginative photograph.

How to enter?

1. Download our Christmas logo from here
2. Take and imaginitive picture of yourself (or anybody else) with a print out of our Christmas logo or display it on your mobile phone, computer…
3. Upload your picture on our Christmas Competition page on Facebook.  (Please note it can take up to 24 hours for your photo to be approved.).
4. Get friends to ‘like’ your photo.  More likes means more of a chance to make it to the final selection that will be hosted on this very page from the 12th of December.
5. Make it to the final selection, get the maximum public votes and win an amazing luxury Christmas gift set worth £80.

Terms and conditions apply, please visit our competition page to view.

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If you think your partner may be worried about getting you something you actually want for Valentine’s day, we’ve created a handy little tool on our Valentine’s Wishes page to help you give them a little bit of a nudge in the right direction.

We’ve taken our favourite Valentine’s flowers and put them onto one Valentine’s Wishes page.

It’s very simple; click the facebook ‘like’ button underneath your favourite bouquet and it will appear in your facebook feed for all your potential Valentines to see (provided you’re already friends with them on facebook).

I’ve done one to show you below (and perhaps I’ll be lucky enough to receive some!).

Let’s hope that your loved one or suitors get the hint.

If you think this hint may be a bit too subtle, we have a more direct approach. Choose a bouquet from our Valentine’s flowers range and click the ‘Send a hint’ button.  This sends an email with the wording of your choice to your Valentine.

With luck (and some hint dropping) you may get the flowers you would most like this Valentine’s day.

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Yay! It’s our Birthday!  Arena Flowers is 4 years old and as is becoming tradition, we have asked the florists  to create a Birthday flower arrangement to celebrate the occasion (see our 2nd Birthday arrangement and 3rd Birthday arrangement)

What a knock-out!

Judith has made this incredible Birthday flower arrangement. The boxing ring is covered with grasses and the stand bursting with roses, gerbera, nutans and hypericum berries.

So to celebrate our 4th Birthday, we thought we’d look back over some of the fun – and the hard work – that has been keeping us busy over the last 12 months.
 
New launch
 
In Autumn 2009, we launched the newest member of the Arena Flowers family – en France –  Arena Fleurs.  Arena Fleurs was particularly busy over Mothers’ Day this year. We were featured on French style website My Best Addressbook; Terrafemina, an online style magazine and we partnered with cosmetic company, Cosmaterra.
 
The feedback about Arena Fleurs in its first year has so far been really good; one particularly romantic customer sent a very lucky recipient 1,000 long-stemmed red roses.
 
New Staff
 
We have welcomed some great new people to the Arena Flowers team over the year.  New florists, including Agatha and Timothy; new customer service staff, Zak; new marketing people Freddie, Maina, Raj and myself.

Remco has also joined this year.  He had a busy first few weeks, joining just prior to Mother’s Day.  Remco works closely with the Dutch flower auctions in Holland, developing our product range, bringing new flower types and bouquets, and ensuring that our buying is as efficient as possible so we get the freshest flowers to you at great value.

 Come on, Remco – give us a smile!
 
 

Awards

We were thrilled to win a Smarta 100 award earlier in the year.  This awarded our innovative approach to marketing, development and our personal touch, with social  media apps and other gadgets, such as our event calendar and photo upload service.
 
 

Fun things

We’ve been busy keeping you busy with some fun competitions and gadgets on the website.  In February, Flowers & Fun launched – a service to send virtual flowers and messages to your family and friends via Twitter, Facebook and email.

We had a Mother’s Day competition, won by the very deserving Brenda.  We also held a Pol Roger competition to win £200 pounds worth of Vintage Pol Roger champagne, for which Evelyn was the lucky winner.

The Marketing execs also celebrated Holland reaching the World Cup final in a stop motion video.

Development

Development on the site hasn’t all been creating fun tools and gadgets, we have spent a lot of time making the payment system more secure for you.

Our ordering systems have also seen a lot of development to ensure that orders are received by the florists and sent out for delivery as quickly as possible and allowing us to track orders as they go.

Charity Flowers

This time last year saw our very own Carole run in the race for life for Cancer Research UK.  We have had a partnership with Cancer Research UK since January 2009 and were proud of Carole to have run the race for life to raise money for them.  We are looking forward to Breast Cancer Awareness month and have some exciting product development underway for that.

We also started a partnership with charity, Global Giving, who support many grass-root charity projects around the world.  Find out more about our Global Giving partnership.

Weddings  

Wedding season is upon us and the florists have been busy creating beautiful wedding bouquets and arrangements and being on-hand on the day to help ensure the flowers are at their best.  Have a look at some photos from Arena Flowers Weddings in our photo gallery.

Not only do we arrange flowers for weddings – but we seem quite good at encouraging weddings within the Arena Flowers team too.  Arena florists, Paulina and driver Darek, got married this summer. Steve, one of the company’s founders and Elsa, who worked on the Dutch website also tied the knot in Holland in May.

We wish both couples long, happy and flower-filled lives together!

Last but most importantly, our customers

Throughout the year, we have had a newsletter competition winner each month. Contacting the winner and letting them know they’ve won is one of our favourite things to do each month.  If you would like to be in with a chance each month to win a £50 bouquet, all you need to do is sign up to our newsletter.  To have a peak at some of the past newsletter winners see here, and here.

We would never have reached the grand old age of 4 without our customers, so our Birthdays are really a celebration of you.

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Brenda was our very deserving Arena Flowers Mum of the Year.  Brenda was nominated by her daughter Lisa and received her bouquet as a surprise on Mother’s Day.  Lisa wanted to thank Brenda for all her support and high spirits during a difficult time for the whole family.

Lisa sent in this picture of Brenda enjoying her flowers and wine.

Thanks for nominating her, Lisa. We are glad she enjoyed her flowers!

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**UPDATE: We are pleased to announce that Brenda is the winner of the Arena Flowers Mum of the Year competition**

Thank you for all the entries and for all who voted.

Happy Mother’s Day.

We have had many wonderful entries for the 2010 Arena Flowers Mum of the Year competition.  We’d like to thank everyone who nominated their Mum or Mums they know – there were some very inspiring stories.  Mother’s Day is a lovely time of the year and it’s wonderful to celebrate Mums and guardians everywhere.

We have narrowed down the nominations to 15 finalists (no easy task considering the fantastic entries):

Adele
Adele has been nominated by Jane, who wants to thank Adele for being a source of strength through trying times, and for treating Jane and her partner so well.

Ann

Brenda

Christine

Jane

Margaret

Margaret M

Marion

Rachel

Sara

Sarah

Sue

Susan

Sylvie

Tina

If you didn’t manage to nominate your mum but still want to send her some flowers, please see our Mother’s Day flowers range.

(P.S. People are reporting difficulties voting from Safari for Mac browsers – if this applies to you,  I’m afraid you’ll have to use a different browser to place your vote.)

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Do you know a mum who would love to receive a free luxury Arena hand-tied bouquet plus a selection box of scrummy luxury handmade chocolate, all worth £100?

We’re searching the length and breadth of Great Britain to find Arena Mum of the Year 2010.

Nominate your mum (or someone else’s!) by simply submitting a (nice!) picture and supporting statement in the form below and you could make a mum’s day this Mothering Sunday with our gorgeous Mother’s Day flowers! But hurry: nominations end mid-day Monday 8th March! Public voting begins soon after with the winner announced Friday 12th March.

Having problems with this form? Email your nominations to customer@arenaflowers.com
See our full range of Mother’s Day Flowers & Gifts.

1. This competition is open to all nationals (over the age of 16), however delivery restricted to the UK, Belgium, France, Germany and Holland only.
2. Period of promotion: Nominations must be entered between Tuesday 2 March 2010 and Monday 8th 2010 12:00:00, inclusive, UK time.  Arena Online Ltd reserves the right to revise this date and extend the period.  Voting closes on Friday 12 March 2010 17:00:00.  The winner will be announced on Friday 12 March 2010.
3. The winner will be awarded a £100 to spend on ArenaFlowers.com.  The prize can be redeemed across the flower and chocolate range, in one order only and can only be for UK delivery.
4. The lucky nominees will have the pictures submitted used and published on this site for purposes related to the competition, so please be happy with this before entering the competition.
5. If you have any questions or queries relating to this promotion, please contact our team via customer@arenaflowers.com.
6. If we believe anyone is abusing the promotion or seeking to defraud Arena Online Ltd we reserve the right, at our absolute discretion, to rescind this or any other offer without notice. We believe in fairness.
7. The competition is as stated and there will be no alternative offer or cash substitute.
8. By entering the competition, customers will be deemed to be bound by and have accepted these terms and conditions. Entrants must read and accept the website terms and conditions and privacy statement to be eligible.
9. English law applies and the English courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any proceedings in connection with this competition.
10. Arena Flowers reserves the right to vary these terms and conditions in the event of circumstances arising beyond its reasonable control.

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A few months back, Will wrote a first post about previous newsletter winners and had promised to frequently update the winners on our blog. Since Will’s last post in March, we have sent out Seven more newsletters and we have seven new winners (Some are already updated on Will’s Post) who need a grand mention on our blog for believing in Arena Flowers and for winning £50 worth of free flowers. Of course you could catch all the previous winners from our archived newsletters here, but here’s a quick look at the most recent winners.

June 2009 – Simon D – No Picture Received :0(
Simon likes to send tulips and in the past he has sent our 30 Red Tulips Gift Wrap, Tulip Sensation (a lot!), Spring Sunshine, Summer Surprise and Autumn Orange. Simon asked our florists to makes something nice using.. you guessed it ‘tulips’ with his £50 winnings.
Congratulations, Simon!

July 2009 – Kirsten – No Picture Received :0(
A loyal Arena Flowers fan since autumn 2007, Kirsten has previous sent our 35 Magnificent Orange, Red & Yellow Roses Bouquet, Sunset cube, Luxury Romance, Red Sky at Night, Mass of Pink Roses, and Lovely in Lilac. Congratulations, Kirsten!

August 2009 – Helen
A big fan of Arena Flowers since February 2008, Helen has previously sent our Pink Orchid, Bright & Cheery, Summer Surprise, Lovely in Lilac, A Dozen Yellow Roses, Pink Gift Wrap, and Big Balloon Birthday Gift Set. On being told of her win, Helen took the opportunity to tell us that Arena is always her first choice and that she never hesitates to recommend Arena Flowers to her friends and family. She has chosen the deluxe Strelitzia Tropical Arrangement with her winnings to send to her mum and dad, a flower connoisseur’s choice. Ps thanks for the kind words, Helen!

September 2009 – Brian
A frequent customer of Arena Flowers since 2007, Brian has previously sent our Two Dozen Red Roses, Pretty & Elegant,  Autumn Golds Bouquet, Autumn Orange, Tulip Sensation, Black Magic, Sunflowers Bouquet, Red Sky at Night, Mass of Red Roses, Mass of Fifty Red Roses, 35 Magnificent Orange, Red & Yellow Roses, Winter Tulips, Winter Roses, Freesias Cube, The One, Spring Sunshine, and 100 Tulips Special – phew! Brian will be sending a special deluxe version of our gorgeous new African Queen bouquet to a special lady in his life, and as he recently celebrated his birthday, it’s double congratulations to you, Brian!

October 2009 – Heidi Marie
A fan of Arena Flowers since April 2007, Heidi has previously sent our Pink Gift Wrap, Summer Surprise, and 35 Magnificent Orange, Red & Yellow Roses. Heidi has decided to send a special deluxe version of our traditional favourite Country Garden for Grandparents’ Day on behalf of her son Mitchell (pictured left with Heidi). Congratulations Heidi Marie!

Sending out newsletters to our customer base forms an essential part of our efforts to build storng relationships with our customers. We believe that it gives us an opportunity to thank our customers for the support and appreciation they have given us through the years. Our newsletters contain useful information for our customers including reminders of key dates (in case you miss any), exclusive discount codes and special offers on a whole range of flowers, chocolates, wines and other gifts. If you are not subscribed to our newsletter yet, you know what you are missing. Not to mention the opportunity of winning £50 worth of free flowers! Subscribe to our newsletter today!

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A quick ‘Pop Quiz’ for you: What do Jon Bon Jovi, Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Steffi Graf, Jodie Foster and Tiger Woods (pictured, right) all have in common? Apart from probably having a few bob to their names, they are all reported to be famous hay fever sufferers and/or allergic to flowers.

With an estimated 20% of the UK population suffering from hay fever this summer, watch any weather report from now through to September and you’ll see the emphasis increasing on the ‘Pollen Count’ as the allergy season progresses and airborne allergens attack their hypersensitive victims. We all know somebody who suffers from hay fever, and you may even have thought twice about buying flowers for them over the years.

But why should a seasonal dose of rhinitis stop you from receiving or indeed sending flowers? Truth is, if their allergies are particularly severe, many flowers are going to affect the recipient negatively but, in general, the more dangerous flowers are the ones with the most pollen. So a good guideline for sending flowers to a someone who may potentially explode into an itching, weeping, snotty mess is to avoid choosing flowers that have visible pollen.

Flower No-No’s(e)

Asiatic and Longiflorum Lilies are some of the most dangerous flowers for allergy sufferers, as parts of them are covered in powdery pollen. Songstresses Tina Arena and Britney Spears (pictured, left) are both alleged to have a lily allergy.  As the story goes, knowing of her allergy,  chart rival Pink once sent Britney a bouquet of lilies when they were feuding.

However, Lilies can be a good choice for allergy sufferers, as it is easy to simply remove the stems of pollen from each flower. Just try to find a non-allergic chum to do this particular job, as it will probably have the most robust nose and eyes and running at the earliest opportunity!

Another type of flower that is particularly bad for allergy sufferers is tree flowers / blossom. When choosing a spring flower arrangement, be careful not to include almond, cherry, apple, or any other kind of tree blossom.

Top Flowers for Allergy Sufferers

Andrew, our Head Florist here at Flowers HQ recommends chrysanthemums and gerberas, with new hybrids coming onto the market bred so that the parts of the flower that used to produce pollen now produce extra petals. But watch out for regular chrysanthemums and daisies as they can be highly allergic.

Another great choice for the allergy sufferer is roses. Not only are roses the most popular cut flower to send, modern roses used in floristry don’t have much of a negative effect on allergies. The reason for this is that their pollen is too large in size to be able to become airborne and truly infiltrate the respiratory system. To allergy-proof your bouquet arrangement, choose roses with little or no smell as these will contain the least pollen.

One of the best kinds of flowers for allergy sufferers are orchids and exotic flowers. Very few types of orchids cause any pollen-related allergies, and so are quite safe for those allergic to most flowers. It is important to note, though, that some orchids may cause a slight skin rash on sensitive individuals.

If in doubt, do contact us first before placing our order.

Hypo-Allergic Wedding Flower Tips

Traditional bridal gowns don’t normally include pockets for hankies, so the last thing a bride needs are snail trails up her lace sleeves from a runny nose. If the bride or groom is known to suffer pollen allergies, here are some simple tips to keep in mind when choosing wedding flowers which will help minimise hay fever symptoms:

1. Wedding Venues
   The best strategy is to avoid airborne allergens completely by holding your wedding ceremony indoors during the peak allergy season, especially if the main culprits are tree and grass pollen. So, no posing around in country meadows for those arty post-ceremony wedding photos, then!
2. Wedding Flowers
   Allergies to flowers are mainly due to their pollen count rather than fragrance.  Flowers begin to release pollen due to the aging process, so using Arena Flowers, the freshest flowers available, will prevent this problem. As for bridal bouquets, buttonholes, and other wedding flower arrangements, there are many flowers that don’t trigger severe allergies (see above for some suggestions).
3. Other Wedding Day Triggers
   Although many people may not realise it, hay fever symptoms do not always come from allergic reactions, but instead can be caused by everyday non-allergic triggers — and not just during the allergy seasons but at any time of the year.  So beware of perfumes and hairspray, sudden changes in temperature and even cooking odours.

Allergy-Free Artificial Flowers

If you want an absolutely 100% allergy-proof alternative for hay fever sufferers, then artificial flowers are the product of choice. No-nonsense and low maintenance, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new Artificial Flowers section added to ArenaFlowers.com — due to popular demand.

We will be adding more flowers to this section throughout the year, so let us know which artificial flowers you would like to see in the future.

Click to see our full range of allergy-free artificial flowers.

By following some of these simple guidelines, we hope you enjoy a pain-free summer this year, and don’t forget to consult a GP or pharmacist if symptoms persist!

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We quite often get asked “So, does anyone ever win that free newsletter competition or is it just a fake?”.  The answers are “Yes, every month!” and “Absolutely not!”.  We typically send one “postcard” email and one full newsletter every month (Mother’s Day flowers edition going out tomorrow).  In the newsletter we announce the winner of that month’s free order up to the value of £50.  We think this is the right mix of driving business without being pushy (previous newsletters and postcards can be seen here).

Of course, some people aren’t subscribed to our newsletters so don’t ever get to see the winners . As a result, in future we’ll be putting the winner on the blog too.  But in the meantime, we thought we’d show all of our previous lucky newsletter winners.  So here we go:

May 2009 – Paul M from Coatbridge, Scotland

No picture received. Boo!

April 2009 – Kalsoom from Birmingham

“My first order with Arena Flowers was back in December for some Grand Prix roses for my partner’s birthday,” Kalsoom told us on learning of her win.
“He absolutely loved them, and surprisingly they are still standing – albeit dark and crinkly – two months on. It’s a fantastic service I recommend to anyone in the world.”

March 2009 – Pippa who lives in Antigua, West Indies

On being told of her win, Pippa tells us “I find the Arena flower service an excellent way of keeping in touch with my mother, who sadly had a stroke over ten years ago, and has not been able to speak since, so no chance of chats on the phone unfortunately. She loves flowers, and this is a wonderful way of brightening up her life.”

February 2009 – Doreen from Guernsey

January 2009 – Linda W from Leeds

December 2008 – Sharon from Plymouth

November 2008 – William A from Surrey

On being told of his win, William sent this message: “Arena Flowers provides a first-class service. Completely reliable, you always deliver that WOW factor with your amazing bouquets, and I’m a big fan of the easy-to-use web site too. Thank you, Arena Flowers!”

Oooh, you’ll make us, blush, William. Thanks for the great feedback. We appreciate it!

October 2008 – Andrew W from Surrey

September 2008 – Carlos M from Northumberland

No picture received. Boo!

August 2008 -Trish N from Sheffield

July 2008 – Melanie S from Haywards Heath

June, May & April 2008 – Kirsten L from Surrey, William N from Essex & Mark S from Worcestershire

Photo FAIL! Actually, this was our fault as we only picked winners really close to the deadline so no time to get a picture!

March 2008 – Jacqui M from Blackpool

February 2008, January 2008 & November 2007 – Siobhan M from Edinburgh, Kathleen from London & Michael B from Canada

No photo.  Sometimes customers don’t want to be in the newsletter, out of shyness…or maybe their partner might want to know who they’ve been sending flowers to! (NB not suggesting that that was the case with these two anonymous winners, but it does happen! Don’t worry, our lips are sealed!)

December 2007 – Mo from London

October 2007 – Philip O from oops, we forgot to ask.

Philip also apologised that he only had this rather serious work photo to hand!

September 2007 – Steve U from oops, we forgot to ask again!

August 2007 – Mark H from hmmm. Again we didn’t ask. Maybe we only started asking in December 2007

Mark was kind enough to write back as soon as the flowers were delivered, saying:

“The flowers you delivered to Alicia yesterday were simply breathtaking (Alicia’s own words) and so thank you once again for a fantastic job.”

Thanks, Mark!

July 2007 – Jennifer H

Jennifer said this: “I’m really thrilled to have won – all of the flowers I’ve ordered in the past have been absolutely fantastic, I’m just so excited that I actually won!   It’s my parents’ wedding anniversary next month and I was planning on ordering them some flowers anyway so it’s perfect timing too! My Mom really loves roses and gerberas so I’ll probably get something bright and cheery along those lines! Thanks again!

Thanks, Jennifer!

June 2007 – Claire D

April 2007 – Estanis M from London

March 2007 – Danuta R

January 2007 – Matt H

And finally, from our first ever newsletter, we had the following:

Christmas Winners
Every time we send a newsletter, one of our subscribers gets a free order worth up to £50. As it’s Christmas, we got a bit carried away and decided to choose three winners this time round, just for the fun of it. Congratulations to this month’s winners:

So that’s the lot!  They really exist and they’re always very happy to win the prize.

If you want to sign up for the newsletter, click here (it’s free and there’s no obligation to buy).  You never know, you could be the next lucky winner; and if you’re not, you’ll just get exclusive discounts and other offers and news direct from Flowers HQ.  Right.  Enough of the sales talk.

Thanks for reading and thanks to all our winner for sending in their pictures!  Next stop: Mother’s Day!

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The Arena Weddings arm of Arena Flowers has been around for just over a year now, and what a better way to celebrate our first twelve months than to take some examples of our beautiful fresh wedding flowers on the road.

The enquiry from Marika, organiser of the Think Pink Wedding Show came late in the day last week to see whether Arena Flowers may be interested in exhibiting last minute. Apparently, a couple of other London florists had let her down at the eleventh hour, and the show was left conspicuously missing wedding flowers from the burgeoning list of exhibitors for the show in Raynes Park, south west London.

Our florists were more than happy to rise to the challenge, and Judith got her thinking cap on while I started knocking together some promotional literature. With the flowers arriving freshly picked from Holland very early Saturday morning; our wedding florists Judith, Andrzej and Paulina got to work at the crack of dawn to create not one but four beautiful wedding bouquets for the show, as well as three coordinating buttonholes, two table arrangements and a gorgeous cascading tall vase display.

Once completed, the next challenge was to very carefully pack the wedding flowers so they weren’t damaged in delivery. With two drivers and an anxious florist overseeing the operation, it was a real eye-opener to see that as much care and strategic planning go into the delivery as do with the actual creation of wedding flowers!

Leaving just after 9am, it was straight to Raynes Park in the van with our rather lovely driver Jacek who put up with me in the passenger seat as I tried to prepare best I could for the unknown! On the way through Barnes I spotted a heron stalking the Barn Elms football pitches, just a few feet from the busy thoroughfare – wasn’t expecting that…but it kind of reminded me of my mission – a lone stalker, drawing in those brides to my lair of sumptuous wedding flowers!

Met with a huge bottleneck queue of cars and vans outside the venue, we made the decision to quit the extraordinary wait and frantically carry our booty the final 100 yards, heave them up the vast stairs (no lift!!!) and set up our pitch for the day with just an hour to spare before the doors opened to the public.

As soon as the show started, the event was packed with excited brides-to-be, mums, fiancées, bridesmaids and other womenfolk eagerly sourcing wedding garb and accoutrements from start to finish. Located right next to the entertainment, we found ourselves in a prime spot and, although a little deafened by the steel band (!!), the Arena Weddings stand was kept populated by interested parties and potential clients throughout the day. There was also the odd glass of plonk to entice visitors to my side of the ‘pond’…later polished off by me and a few other dry-of-mouth wedding suppliers located nearby.

The event seemed to go quickly and I was particularly pleased with the interest our wedding flowers arrangements generated, especially as this was pretty much new territory for us and a few miles out from the comfort zone of Flowers HQ! With online enquiries already coming in off the back of our first event, I am confident that we may be returning to the London Wedding Show circuit again soon – but perhaps with a bit more advance notice next time!

Interestingly, there were two common questions asked by visitors to the show: ‘Are they real flowers?’ and ‘How can I keep my wedding flowers budget down?’. To answer the first question, yes – all our flowers are real (maybe some of our flowers look just too perfect!), fresh and – wherever possible – ethically sourced. As regards budgeting for your wedding flowers, that’s for my next blog post – coming soon!

The wedding flowers on display at the Think Pink Wedding show last Saturday were: Amnesia roses, Cool water roses, Schwarzwalder calla lilies bridal bouquet (from £65), guest table arrangement (from £50) and buttonhole (from £7.50); Cool water roses, Limbo roses, Sea holly / thistles bridal bouquet (from £65); Sweet Avalanche and Sea holly bridal bouquet (from £65) and buttonhole (£7.50); Orchid cascade bridal bouquet (from £120), vase arrangement (from £26) and buttonhole (£7.50); and large mixed vase display including while lilies, pink mini gerberas, sea holly, sweet avalanche roses, limbo roses, carnations, and completed with soft ruscus and bear grass (from £80 plus vase hire).

Click here for a quick movie of the Arena Flowers stand at the Think Pink Wedding Show

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to check out our recent blog post on Winter Wedding Flowers, or learn more about our team of dedicated Wedding Florists or perhaps see how Arena Weddings began, with Jackie’s original blog post!

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Just three good reasons to mosey on down to the David Lloyd Health & Fitness Club in Raynes Park, South West London today (Saturday 24 January) where yours truly will be exhibiting the floral fineries of our rapidly growing wedding flowers arm Arena Weddings at the Wear It Pink Wedding Show.

On display will be some of Judith (one of our award-winning florists)’s beautiful floral work especially created for this very special wedding fair in aid of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. The arrangements have also been designed with seasonal, ethically sourced flowers and take into consideration today’s tough economic climate, which has had an impact on wedding budgets up and down the country this year.

We at Arena Flowers want to make sure every bride feels like a princess without breaking the bank on their wedding flowers, making us the first choice for wedding planners throughout London and the South East. So it’s no wonder we’re fast becoming one of Cosmo Bride’s favourite stockists!

And talking of princesses and the glossies, come along to the event and you will also get the chance to view a stunning private collection of vintage wedding dresses dating from Victorian times, including a sample from Princess Diana’s iconic wedding gown.

Come join the fun from 11am-4pm. Entry fee is just £1 – which goes direct to Breakthrough Breast Cancer – and kids go free, so no excuses if you’re in town!

Wear It Pink Wedding Show
David Lloyd Health & Fitness Club
Bushey Road,
Raynes Park
London SW20 8TE
Click for directions

Full report with piccies to be posted next week – but if you need an immediate wedding flower fix, check out this post, this post or even this post about sourcing flowers for gothic wedding bouquets. Bride-tastic!

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• Fancy a Twitter with Britney?

- The Sun, 10th January 2009

• How boring: Celebrities sign up to Twitter to reveal the most mundane aspect of their lives

- Daily Mail, 3rd January 2009

• Twitter set for its mainstream telly moment on Jonathan Ross’s comeback show

- Guardian, 7th January 2009

What started as a trickle at the end of last year has become a deluge in the New Year, with headlines in the most popular newspapers in the UK showing incontrovertibly that Twitter has moved into the UK mainstream this year and established itself as the papers’ latest web darling.  Their interest is doubtless due, at least in part, to celebrity “tweeters” – celebs sell newspapers, so the papers are going where the celebs are and trying to grab some “Twitter scoops”.

Recently Jemima Kiss, a prominent blogger and journalist, revealed Jonathan Ross’s intention to discuss the service with keen Twitterer and web aficionado Stephen Fry on his first show back from suspension.   Yesterday, the Times Online made a story out of another of Ross’s “tweets”, publishing an article about his “announcement” that he would be hosting this year’s Bafta Awards.  There’s no end of celeb twittering going on, so if you’ve always wanted to know what John Cleese had for breakfast or are desperate to learn how Lance Armstrong’s comeback is going then here’s your chance.

There have been a few “bah humbug” articles too (hey, this is the British media after all) – work place concerns focus on how Twitter may hinder productivity, whilst some media sources simply complain about the lack of juicy gossip from celebrity tweeters.

We twitter too.  So we figured we’d share some of our thoughts on Twitter and Web 2.0.  In 2007 we launched our blog with a post explaining why we would be blogging.  Basically, as a new business in the impersonal online world we felt the blog would help give us a more human a voice, would enable us to communicate more personally with our customers, and would allow us to share interesting or fun insights or snippets on flowers and the online world more generally.

Since we started blogging, the “Web 2.0” movement and the social web have expanded significantly, offering additional channels and tempos of communication to complement the “older” channels.  The most obvious change is that the flow of communication is no longer as one directional or contrived as it once was. New media, to differing extents, encourage a balanced and more frequent communication between businesses and customers / visitors.

The most important difference though, in our opinion, is that new media channels enable real time, easy going contact between parties in a way that has never been possible before.  Historically, interactions between a business and a customer have been about hard nosed selling by the business and the making of informed purchasing decisions by the customer.  Social media communications are, in most cases, far more laid back.  If old media channels are like a full on business meeting in the office, then Web 2.0 channels are more like the “getting to know you” drink in the pub afterwards.  Consequently, the conversations are sometimes utterly inane and pointless but it doesn’t really matter as there’s not so much pressure on the communication to deliver immediately or at all (at least not as far as we’re concerned).

Many prominent brands have embraced Web 2.0 channels, with varying degrees of success.  Some examples of doing it right:

• Last year the web world was abuzz with the news that Top Shop, one of the UK’s leading high street fashion retailers, was getting 5% of its online visitors from MySpace. (“But is it good traffic?”, mutters my inner marketeer);
• One famously early adopter of Twitter was the popular US-based shoe retailer Zappos. Of their 1600 odd employees, 453 of them are actively on Twitter listening, engaging and responding to customer concerns;
• US-based low cost carrier JetBlue is on Twitter and has earned kudos from customers as their Twitter responses are often faster than those their customer service team;
• More recently, Dell reported $1 million worth of sales from Twitter alone. Although this number is miniscule in comparison to Dell’s overall revenue, it does offer plenty of brand exposure (eg us writing about them here).

The intangible value social media can add to a business is thought to be high. Guy Kawasaki, an early exponent of evangelism marketing who, in his capacity as chief evangelist for Apple, was responsible for creating a number of passionate user-advocates for the Apple brand, describes Twitter as one of the best new marketing tools of the century.  Of course, PR departments of big companies always produce a lot of hot air about such trendy initiatives, trying to push how cutting edge and down with the kids their brand is, so any such figures or self-congratulatory back-slapping press releases should always be taken with a pinch of salt.

Speaking for Arena, we have seen real benefits from our blog, our Facebook application (Flowers & Fun) and from our Twitter feed, and all at low cost.  However, anyone who tells you these channels will change your business overnight is talking rubbish (and may be trying to sell you something you don’t need – caveat emptor!).  There may also be a danger that with more and more people engaging with such channels, that the value will drowned out by the additional noise.

Nonetheless, we think it’s clear that Web 2.0 and new media channels can undoubtedly add value in many ways to any sized business.  As well as being informative, engaging with social media can also be just plain fun, and even eye opening on occasion.  A lot of the things we’ve found out or leads that we’ve picked were totally unexpected or from left field, and that’s one of the most rewarding aspects of Twitter; such serendipity can’t, by definition, be planned or manufactured.  On which note, here’s a final example of the unpredictable path that twittering can take: Let’s all ‘sue Telegraph’, say Twitterers.

UPDATE: For those that live on the other side of the world, the point about Twitter having arrived was made a million times better than this post by the first pic of the Hudson River plane landing appearing first on Twitterpic.

Some Useful Twitter Resources:

• 10 ways to use Twitter to Promote you Business
• 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners
• Guardian list of Celebrities on Twitter (constantly updated)
• How companies use Twitter to bolster their brands
• How to use Twitter to grow your business
• List of Businesses on Twitter
• List of UK Businesses on Twitter
• Why Twitter should matter to you: Twustomer service edition

If you liked this post, you may enjoy reading our other posts on Social Media: Flowers in the Social Networking Arena & Send Free Flowers on Facebook.

Post from: Arena Flowers - Flower Delivery London & UK

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Getting hitched in the chilly months of winter doesn’t mean that you need to compromise on your winter wedding flowers.  Although relatively rare compared to summer weddings, winter ceremonies can indeed benefit from all the sparkle and glamour of the party season, with family and friends close to hand for the festive period. Wedding planners will normally recommend against sourcing for the low season as flowers can be much more expensive, and less available. However, if you’re all set for marriage in December, January or February – Arena is here to guide you in making the most of your winter wedding.

If you look out into the garden, it may seem that the selection of winter flowers is limited, but many varieties are available all year round. For instance, roses, lilies and carnations – the nation’s favourite wedding flowers – may traditionally be known as summer flowers but they can be found in virtually any colour throughout the year. Winter weddings may also be brightened by using lilies or chrysanthemums. Again both of these are a popular choice and are available all year round so you will not have to worry about breaking the bank when it comes to choosing your wedding flowers.

While the prices for winter wedding flower bouquets may run a bit on the high side, there are some great seasonal bargains to be found. For a real festive touch, what better than red or white amaryllis for an extra showy effect (as illustrated by our bridal bouquets above), or perhaps even poinsettia, holly or winter berries – mixing with winter evergreens such as firs and spruce.

Alternatively, there are also many varieties of lilies or orchids that make beautifully exotic winter wedding flower arrangements (as illustrated by our bridal bouquets below) and won’t necessarily cost you an arm and a leg. An exotic or tropical themed wedding in the bleak midwinter can make a lovely break from the cold.

Fire & Ice – Decorating Your Winter Wedding Flowers

Winter Bridal Bouquets
Winter white or very light ivory flatter any bride’s skin tone, and make the perfect canvas for bright, bold colours – bringing life to an otherwise monochromatic winter hues. When selecting a theme for your winter wedding flowers, a favourite choice is to opt for shades of white, rich greens and tones of copper or red and burgundy.

Buttonholes, Boutonnieres & Corsages
Continue a seasonal theme with spray roses coupled with holly and/or berries, or alternatively take the low season as an opportunity to experiment with exotic flowers such as orchids or asiatic lilies.

Flowers for the Ceremony & Reception
If opting for a ceremony in December or early January, it is likely that the wedding or reception venue will already be decorated in red and green for seasonal events however you do not need to feel constricted by these colour schemes. Metallics and whites will complement your festive setting, while extra colour can be added by lightly spraying petals with glitter to add that little extra winter sparkle.

Candles are highly recommended for adding warmth and glow to any venue, and decorating your winter wedding flowers with light or crystal embellishments also brightening your scheme. Mirrors, glass pebbles and baubles will add a glamorous touch to table decorations for your wedding reception. Wax apples, pine cones or cinnamon sticks will also add an extra festive feel to your centrepiece arrangements. For more ideas and inspiration for your wedding flowers visit our online portfolio.

Seasonal Availability & Christmas Flower Prices

In this day and age of under soil heating and imports from as far afield as Africa and Asia, most flowers are available to buy in the UK all seasons. However, the more ethically aware bride may have issues with the perceived carbon emissions associated with their availability – as well as inflated marketed prices over the Christmas period! Sadly, it is likely that wholesale prices for some flowers are set at a much higher market price then at other times of the year because of the increased demand for them for festive flower arrangements – something florists cannot control.

However, here’s a list of winter and all-year-round availability without the need for vastly inflated prices or air miles: Agapanthus, Alstromeria, Amaryllis, Anemone, Anthurium, Aster, Bouvardia, Calla Lily, Carnation, Chrysanthemum, Craspedia, Cymbidium Orchid, Euphorbia, Freesia, Gerbera, Gloriosa, Gypsophila, Heliconia, Hyacinth, Iris, Leucospermum, Lily (Asiatic & Oriental), Lisianthus, Muscari, Narcissus (Daffodil), Nymphaea, Ornithogalum, Phalaenopsis Orchid, Phlox, Poinsettia, Ranunculus, Rose, Sunflower, Strelitzia, Tulip, Veronica.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy this one about about our family summer wedding, or perhaps this post about spring wedding flowers or even this one about getting the best from your wedding photography.

Post from: Arena Flowers - Flower Delivery London & UK

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Happy New Year to everyone!

We’ve been a bit quiet on the blog of late, what with having to get all our Christmas flower deliveries sorted and having to do some very very last minute Christmas shopping of our own too. We’re back in the saddle now, looking forward to 2009 and will be posting more regularly going forward. Meantime, here are five random New Year’s resolutions (in no particular order):

1. More charitable initiatives: We’ve supported a number of charitable initiatives in the past, but haven’t been that organised in our approach.  Hopefully in the next week or two, we’ll go live with a very cool new initiative.  Watch this space.
2. Focus Focus Focus for Valentine’s Day: Everyone thinks florists make a fortune selling Valentine’s flowers.  Sadly not; it’s the flower growers that really rake it in, as flower prices can quadruple (or more) for the big day.   Getting Valentine’s right is a real head ache for florists as so much can go wrong and cause disaster.  All rather stressful.  Still, Valentine’s Day is on a Saturday this year so it should be quieter, with less traffic on the roads.  Hooray!
3. Keep building our international businesses: The team also runs Arena Bloemen and Arena Blumen, fulfilling from our base in Holland and delivering the same experience for Benelux and German flower lovers as we do for UK flower lovers.  This year, we’ll focus on building up our international businesses and optimising the operating model to deliver great value and quality across Europe.
4. Green initiatives and FFP: We were the first florists to sell Fair Flowers Fair Plants flowers and we want to expand our FFP range as it’s not broad enough.  We also want to be more transparent about improvements in the green areas of our business, like recycling and green waste.  Adarsh has done some great work here recently, but just hasn’t had time to write up what he’s been up to.
5. The customer is king: Last but not least! We’ve got no business without happy customers, so our top resolution for this year, as with every other, is to keep making sure we do the best job we possibly can and delight our customers.  If you have any suggestions of how we can improve, please send them to feedback(at)arenaflowers.com or leave a comment below.
6. Fun!: A bonus 6th resolution is to remember life is fun and not to be taken too seriously.  In that vein, and for those that didn’t see it in our Arena Flowers Twitter feed, here’s an alternative take on the phrase “Arena Flowers” that we found on the web through our Google Alerts. The artist named the piece “Arena Flowers” entirely coincidentally and described it thus:

Batch of for-fun character designs! The concept is a group of young ladies with no predisposition towards this activity for various reasons find themselves involved in wizardly pit fights.

See his Arena Flowers in full here.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Post from: Arena Flowers - Flower Delivery London & UK

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We love our customers – we really do – and absolutely nothing gives us more pleasure than to make someone’s day by delivering our flowers. But sometimes customers can make life very interesting for us here at Flowers HQ, and they sometimes think we have almost magical powers of divination!

Here, in a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek way, are some of our favourite customer interactions over the last two years…

To speed up your order, always have your recipient’s full address to hand:

♥ Arena CS: “I’m afraid the order to Mrs X will be delayed, as you indicated that the delivery address, in Columbia, South America, is within Greater London, UK.”

♥ Customer: “I don’t have the full address of where he lives, can I send you an aerial image of the house, taken from space?”

♥ Customer: “I know he lives in Bromley but I’m not too sure where; your driver can ask a local shopkeeper, he’s very popular in the area.”

International enquiries are sometimes a challenge:

♥ Customer: “I’m trying to find out the price of the flowers, but I can’t see it. They all have a funny looking L by the side of them.”
Arena CS: “That is a pound sign, madam.”

♥ Arena CS: “And what is the delivery instruction, madam?”
Belgian Customer: “No!!!!!!!!!!”

When it comes to the goodies to send, we can be quite flexible with the delivery of our service, one of our favourite orders has included:

24 pink lilies
24 balloons
Prestat Banoffee truffles
Bailey’s Irish cream
A Mohican chicken
Plus a request from the sender that Arena’s driver sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the lucky recipient on delivering the flowers!
Pure genius.

Although we’ll cross hot coals to get your order delivered within the time frame published, sometimes – especially on our ‘Mega Days’ – you can’t always expect the moon on a stick:

♥ Customer for Valentine’s Day: “My girlfriend is going to be in lectures from 11am-12pm. Can your driver deliver them at 11.59 and give them to her in her class?”
Arena CS: “On the busiest day of the year!! I’m afraid not, sir!”

When our beautiful fresh flowers are delivered to the safety of the recipient, the fun doesn’t always end there…

♥ Customer: “I have received no message card with my order”.
Arena CS: “I’m so sorry about that, there should be a card in with the flowers.”
Customer: “No. All there is is an orange card with your logo on it.”
Arena CS: “If you open it, you’ll find that the card message is inside the card…”

♥ Alarmed Elderly Lady: “I’ve received a large box with a clear lid, sent by a florist. I didn’t order anything! Can I ask what’s inside the box, my dear?”
Arena CS: “They are flowers, madam.”
Elderly lady: “Really? What a lovely surprise!”

And it’s a hard life being a Customer Service Team professional – what with all the amorous advances, Vanessa spills the beans:

I received a call from a customer who wished to send flowers to a girl he had just met in a restaurant. Whilst he was giving me the address and message, which stated how much he wanted to get to know her, he was flirting shamelessly with me. At the end of the phone call, he said that he enjoyed speaking to me so much that he was going to send me some flowers too. I thought nothing of it as I’ve heard this before and it had never happened. But lo and behold, a couple hours later, a bewildered looking lady walked in carrying some pink roses and asked for me. I was so happy having received some flowers that I didn’t initially care that they were delivered by another company (Interflora no less).

He called the next day to ask if I liked them and why hadn’t I called to arrange ‘something’. I answered, that I liked them very much but could not be possibly entertain the idea ‘getting to know him’ whilst he was sending other women flowers. He then said that if it didn’t work out with her he’d give me a call. So I’ll just be waiting by the phone then shall I..?!

Similarly, a customer called up wishing to have an arrangement of flowers made up in the shape of boat and then said that he found talking to Josephine such a pleasure that he proposed! (Prank call??…We think so!)

For more on our adventures at Flowers HQ, check out the following blog posts: The Mother of All Orders, Everlasting Orchids, and Our Lips Are Sealed.

Post from: Arena Flowers - Flower Delivery London & UK

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