Guides ·
Valentine's Day Flower Delivery in Tampa: Order Early
Valentine's Day is the single hardest delivery day of the florist year. Here is what is actually true about it, including the parts that are not in our interest to tell you.
Why roses cost more in February
Not price gouging by your local shop. The rose market is global, and demand for red roses in the first two weeks of February exceeds what growers can supply. Wholesale prices for red roses routinely double or triple in that window, and everyone downstream pays it.
Every florist in Tampa is buying in the same market at the same inflated price. A shop advertising normal-price dozen roses on February 14th is either using lower-grade stems or making nothing, and one of those is more likely than the other.
The case for not buying red roses
Here is the thing we would rather tell you than sell you: the same money spent on almost anything other than red roses in February buys a dramatically better arrangement.
Tulips, ranunculus and anemone are at their absolute peak in Florida in February — it is their best month of the year. They are not inflated because nobody has trained the culture to demand them on the 14th. A ranunculus and tulip arrangement at the price of a dozen mediocre February roses will be the better-looking thing by a wide margin.
If the person you are sending to specifically loves red roses, send red roses. That is a real reason. But if you are sending them because that is what one sends, consider the alternative.
What a local shop can promise on the 14th
We are one van. On February 14th we are one van on the busiest delivery day of the year, in Tampa traffic.
What we can promise: if you order by around the 10th, you get a delivery window you can count on. What we cannot promise: a two-hour window on a same-day order placed at 11 AM on the 14th. We will still try, and we are open 24 hours so we start early, but we are not going to tell you a comfortable lie on the phone and then miss it.
The argument for the 13th
Send them on the 13th. Genuinely.
Delivery windows are wide open, the flowers are the same flowers, the recipient gets an extra day of vase life, and — the part that matters — flowers arriving on the 13th read as thought rather than obligation. Everyone gets flowers on the 14th. A bouquet a day early looks like someone planned it.
The 15th works too, for what it is worth, and is the single cheapest good idea in this article.
If you have left it to the last minute
Call us. We are open 24 hours, including through the night before Valentine's Day, which is when we are building. There is often something we can do, and if there is not, you will hear that immediately rather than after you have paid.