As you’ll know from our announcement earlier this year, we’ve been working very closely with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to get their branded charity flowers website off the ground. But our association with the nation’s heart health charity goes back to the early days of Arena Flowers, as we’ve always been happy to help [...]
Filed under: Ethics & Environment, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Mega Days, Valentine's Day on December 29th, 2009 | No Comments »
This is my third post on Flowers…uncut, but my first as an Arena Flowers employee. I’ve been a friend of the company since the early days and have written some guest posts on brand reputation and making the most of off-line advertising.
The temperature in London has dropped; it’s started snowing, however things are definitely hotting-up at Flowers [...]
Filed under: Christmas Flowers, Flowers, General on December 17th, 2009 | No Comments »
Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday Arena Flowers, Happy Birthday to us! Yes, believe it or not but Arena Flowers turns 3 years young today – and to celebrate, our Head Florist Andrew has created us this super-dooper birthday cake made from flowers!
Consisting of our ethically sourced Grand Prix roses, our [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Operations, Setting up on July 28th, 2009 | No Comments »
With our Wedding Flowers hotline ringing off the hook, Judith up to her chin in raffia, and our drivers up at the crack of dawn for early morning Saturday deliveries, the wedding season is now truly upon us at Flowers HQ. With the bustles of brides visiting our wedding team in Park Royal for advice [...]
Filed under: Finance & Investment, Flowers, General, Weddings on June 30th, 2009 | No Comments »
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% [...]
Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Matters Webby, Operations, Weddings on May 26th, 2009 | No Comments »
It’s nearly a week since Valentine’s Day and like previous years, this year too was manic with customers rushing to send flowers to their loved ones. Despite all the economic gloom and the discomforting worries about how we would compare our sales to previous years, sales were surprisingly strong adding to the notion that love [...]
Filed under: Distribution, Floristry, Flowers, Mega Days, Operations, Valentine's Day on February 19th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The big day is just round the corner and, given the “interesting” economic environment we find ourselves in, we thought we’d share a few top tips to help Valentine’s Day lovers get the most out of their money and avoid some obvious pitfalls.
What does she actually want? A survey by a US florist found [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, Mega Days, Valentine's Day on February 4th, 2009 | 5 Comments »
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 [...]
Filed under: Customers, Distribution, Floristry, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Marketing, Operations, Weddings on January 29th, 2009 | No Comments »
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 [...]
Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Marketing, Weddings on January 24th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
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 [...]
Filed under: Christmas Flowers, Customers, Ethics & Environment, Floristry, Flowers, Setting up, Weddings on January 9th, 2009 | 11 Comments »
We always have such fun organising wedding flowers – what could give anyone more pleasure than organising beautiful flowers to make a bride’s day even more perfect? Well that is what I thought until it came to organising flowers for my own daughter’s wedding in July!
To be fair to her, she wasn’t really being difficult [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Weddings on November 6th, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Unless you’ve been living in a cave on a remote island, in the outer regions of civilisation with nothing more than smoke signals to communicate to your neighbouring hermits, you’ll be fully aware that today is indeed polling day over the other side of the pond, with two political heavyweights slogging it out for the [...]
Filed under: Flowers, General, Matters Webby on November 4th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
You might have noticed that I have been quite conspicuous by my absence from the Arena Flowers Blog for the last month or so. No, I’m not planning a wedding myself (!!) but have been beavering away with our all-new Arena Weddings microsite which, in itself, has become quite a labour of love!
If you’re lucky [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Operations, Weddings on October 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
Over the last few days there has been plenty of uncertainty in the global economy. Banks have failed, shares have plunged and deposits have disappeared. Even a nation has gone bust as Iceland attempts to keep the country from free falling into a recession. Not just that, the Icelandic troubles have caused ripples across Europe [...]
Filed under: Finance & Investment, Flowers, General on October 9th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Since time immemorial, flowers have been seen as an ideal way to express emotions. From birthdays to funerals, engagement to anniversaries, romance to wedding etc., people have been saying it with flowers. There are few better ways to emote than with flowers. And researchers have now proved that floral emotions can be taken to much [...]
Filed under: Flowers, General on September 22nd, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Imitation, they say is the sincerest form of flattery. They also say success breeds imitation. Every now and then we find our competitors ordering flower arrangements from us, which makes us wonder if our bouquets are being copied and sold by other florists. We have regularly battled image and content thievery, where we have had [...]
Filed under: Ethics & Environment, Flowers, General, Marketing, Matters Webby on September 2nd, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Some businesses like to wind-down or even close-down over the summer, but not us workaholics at Arena Flowers! Recently, Will, Steve and Elsa headed to what has now become our second home at Noordwijkerhout, on the west coast of the Netherlands for an extended stay to oversee some of the operational stuff going on [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, International Flowers, Operations, Weddings on August 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
Quick intro from Will: We often get asked “So why is Arena Flowers so much better than John Lewis, Marks & Spencers or Interflora then? After all, you only sell a set of standard bouquets, just like them.” Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Unlike the bigger players, we do numerous bespoke and [...]
Filed under: Christmas Flowers, Customers, Distribution, Floristry, Flowers, General, Mega Days, Mother's Day, Operations, Valentine's Day, Weddings on August 6th, 2008 | No Comments »
We were surprised and delighted a couple of weeks ago to learn via email that we’d been nominated for the IMRG’s Online Green Awards (affectionately known as the OLGAs), in the small retailers category. So surprised in fact that my first response to the email was to ask Sam if he thought this might be [...]
Filed under: Customers, Ethics & Environment, Floristry, Flowers, General, Mega Days on July 28th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Regular ‘Flowers …uncut’ readers will be aware of the good causes that ArenaFlowers.com occasionally works with by providing assistance and beautiful blooms and flower arrangements.
So when Help for Heroes, a new charity which aims to help wounded Servicemen and Women, contacted us, we were more than happy to oblige (and we’ve had a fun idea [...]
Filed under: Customers, Ethics & Environment, Floristry, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Operations on July 25th, 2008 | No Comments »
Sarah Holland is part of the crack team at the Flowers & Plants Association plus she also pops by every now and again to fill us in on the latest flower fashion trends, arrangement tips and to answer any questions you may have about flowers or plants. Our ‘Bouquets of Emotion‘ helped the FPA to [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Guest Posts, Marketing, Operations on July 21st, 2008 | No Comments »
It’s two years since our little flower company was born. To celebrate our birthday, Judith made an amazing birthday cake made out of flowers. If you’re signed up to receive our free newsletters, you’ll have seen it already, but if not, see below. If you get our newsletters, you’ll also have the secret [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Mega Days on July 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
You always know when summer’s truly here:
Monsoon rains across the UK (not again!)
Tornadoes in the north (eh?)
The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show opens (yay!)
It may be soggy on the grounds of Hampton Court Palace but inside the International Language of Flowers marquee, something bright and warm is emerging from the Flowers & Plants Association [...]
Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Marketing on July 7th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Despite being a rampant Chelsea supporter, black is my colour, rather than blue. Look in my wardrobe and you’ll soon get lost. Not because it’s as big as the Flowers HQ fridge but because, apart from the odd red or white Adam Ant t-shirt (!), I just don’t do patterns or colours. [...]
Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Operations, Valentine's Day, Weddings on July 4th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Flowers and plants not only help us communicate our feelings, but they also fulfill important human needs such as providing a rich source of chemicals high in medicinal values. One of the foremost examples of this is the Hoodia plant, a cactus like plant grown in the Kalahari desert, which has grown in prominence recently [...]
Filed under: Flowers, General on June 26th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
