A Walk Down Memory Lane : Part 2

As the spring of 2020 crept along and the vast majority of our days were spent quarantining with tiny people, I started to notice a significant uptick in the demand for flowers. Looking back, it makes total sense now. As a society, we were being made to stay physically apart from our loved ones, so naturally sending or receiving flowers was a beautiful way to stay connected to each other. I loved being that avenue for people and I appreciated the support for our little family business so much. And then Mother's Day 2020 rolled around, and it came at me like a freight train. 

At the time, it was still just me, myself and I running this flower show and it was for the most part completely manageable. But, when 270 orders came in for Mother's Day, I about had a nervous breakdown. I was completely stunned and didn't even know where to begin, but I knew exactly who to call - my wholesaler! His name is Bo, and if you're in the flower industry then you know that he and his team are the absolute BEST at what they do. I vaguely remember hysterically crying to him on the phone and explaining that I didn't pre-order enough product for the amount of orders that had come in and with there being a massive flower shortage I didn't know what to do. But, in classic Bo style, he reassured me that we were going to figure it out and he was there to help. And so began the longest, most exciting, and most exhausting 4 days of my life. 

After a panic filled phone conversation begging my parents to come into town to help watch Annie and Ben, and enlisting the help of 2 brave friends (shout out to Jess and Virginia!), we got to work. Keep in mind we were in the middle of a highly contagious pandemic and I felt HORRIBLE even asking anyone to come and help me. What if they got sick? But help they did! During the day, my parents wrangled the kiddos, my friends and Jeff processed flowers, and I sent hundreds of order invoices through Quickbooks because I didn't have an automated point of sales system at the time (woof). And at night, my parents and Jeff would continue processing even more flowers while I designed every single order. Wash, Rinse, Repeat for 96 hours straight. Orders were picked up directly from the front porch of our house around the clock each day. I'm pretty sure our neighbors thought I was insane or running some kind of underground flower cartel. And when Mother's Day Sunday rolled around, we had 3 cars loaded up with flowers and kids in carseats going in all directions making deliveries throughout Lake Norman. It was by no means a well oiled machine, and it was very much a grass roots operation, but dang it, we got it done!

Here's a few behind the scenes shots from those sleep deprived days. Make note of Jeff bundled up like it's winter. Remember how I said I didn't have a cooler at the time? Well, our house had to become the cooler and our AC was working overtime! Don't even ask what our electricity bill was. 

At the end of those 4 grueling days, we learned an incredible amount of lessons, we were able to donate over $2,500 back into our community from Mother's Day sales alone, and we were able to show and teach our kiddos one of the most important lessons of all: the real value and beauty of hard work. Our sweet little town showed up for us BIG TIME and I truly can never say thank you enough for that level of support. 

Ben's little voice in that video always gets me and it floors me when I remember just how little our kids were when this whole thing started. They've been by my side since the beginning and I love when they ask to make flowers with me...even when it turns into flower murder on their end 😂

Like I said in Part 1 of this story, I consider Mother's Day 2019 to be the official birthday of The Davidson Flower Co. But, without a doubt, Mother's Day 2020 was the real catapult that pushed us onto the flower scene. Business picked up exponentially from then on and our adventures only got more exciting....especially when it came to weddings. Which is where I will take you for Part 3 later this week. Stay tuned, friends ❤️