Glide through the red-canopied doors into the zen-calm of Japanese emporium, Takashimaya, on New York’s Fifth Avenue, and one of the first of many delights to thrill your senses will be its florist. I’ve always found it enchanting, often stopping in to stroll, smell and admire, if not buy.
But on Friday, 26 May, with my mom and brother in tow, I was on a mission to exercise my buying power, whatever the cost. The reason? Two months before, after an extensive search of protea sources (these are the highly diverse national flower of South Africa, and a theme for the weding), I placed an order for a box of proteas with company in princeton NJ. I have to diss them. Because SendProteas.com, never did.
Thursday came and went, and no box of flowers arrived. Increasingly impolite phone calls were made to the company, their e-commerce vendors.. and still nothing was resolved. So there was only one thing to do: head directly to the one place in the city I had spotted proteas on a regular basis, Takashimaya.
As I rounded the central display of stems, a jar ful of pincushion proteas eyeballed me and I knew we’d be fine. Just a brief conversation with the talented Sandra and she sourced a few other flowers that would complement my districtively coloured wedding dress. We had tea in the Tea Box and came back to a fabulously constructed piece of floral art.
Sculputral, architectural, multi-faceted. It was everything we’d discussed made real in stems, leaves and blooms. And it won countless compliments.
(Oh yes, I’m sure we’re all relieved to know that I finally got a response and multiple apologies from Send.com…more than a week after the fact. If you want to send, we suggest you find another way.) (Photo: Chris Ramirez.)
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