From flowers to decor, stores gear up for Valentine’s Day

Stores around St. Joseph are shifting from one holiday to the next, as they make room for Valentine’s Day. According to Stacey Fisher, owner of Garden Gate Flowers, Valentine’s Day is considered the “Super Bowl” of the floral industry. She explained that florists often debate which holiday is their biggest, with the title usually going back and forth between Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.

“For us, it’s definitely Valentine’s Day, so we start planning Valentine’s Day months in advance. We use flower wholesalers, and my pre-sale orders I had were around Halloween and Thanksgiving,” Fisher said.

Fisher said the first step in preparation is deciding the overall look for the holiday. The team meets to choose color schemes, which then determines the types of flowers they order. She emphasized that extensive planning happens behind the scenes to manage costs and to ensure customers are not overcharged.

“We try to make things look flawless, and we always try to do all the work behind the scenes so things for the customers look easy and simple because we don’t want people to stress out while buying flowers,” Fisher said.