Snow puts a chill on Valentine floral sales

GAINESVILLE - The snow storm this week has put a bit of a chill on Valentine's Day sales, at least for some local florists.

Corinila Hutson, along with her husband Danny, owns Alene's Flower Cottage in Gainesville, and she said Valentine's Day is typically one of the busiest weeks of the year. She started to worry about this year's celebration, though, as she watched the weather forecast at the start of the week.

"We were picking flowers up on Monday morning and having flowers delivered here Monday, so we had to process flowers on Monday, get them in water," said Hutson. "We're thinking, 'Is this really gonna happen?' and praying that it's not gonna happen!"

Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn't pay attention to the calendar and delivered several inches of snow throughout the day Tuesday into Wednesday. Hutson said she and her staff members were all trapped at home Wednesday, knowing they had lots of work to do, and realizing they were missing orders, too.

"The business is really, quite drastically, off from normal business. I assume people are thinking about the weather and not flowers for Valentine's," said Hutson.

Still, she said the staff traveled to the shop on Riverside Drive Thursday and spent about six hours filling the orders they did have, as well as pre-making arrangements, hoping that they would have plenty of business during the day Friday.

"[People] tend to wait until the last minute to order stuff, so we're just hoping to be prepared around the lunch hour and after 5:00 for people to be walking in here...and [we'll] just have an assortment of things made up from roses to the mixed spring arrangements."