Gifts to Go With Bouquets in Chicago

Gifts to go with bouquets in Chicago: balloons, a card and scent

Gifts to go with bouquets in Chicago include reed diffusers: rattan reeds draw scented oil up through their channels, and a bottle lasts weeks or months, against about a week for a rose in a vase. A balloon lasts a few hours or a few days, and a diffuser or a candle stays behind long after it has gone. The right gift to add to a bouquet in Chicago depends on how long it needs to last: one evening, one working day, or months in a flat.

Balloons for the dinner, foil for the days after it

A helium-filled latex balloon stays afloat for about half a day, which suits a party that ends the same evening it starts. A foil star or heart holds its shape for several days, so it keeps catching someone's eye well after the dinner is over.

For a birthday in a flat in Uptown or Edgewater, on the north side by the lake, latex suits the evening itself, and foil suits a recipient who will see the gift for several more days.

A restaurant dinner adds one more step. The time is agreed with the host or manager beforehand, and the bouquet with its balloon is brought in to meet the dessert or the toast, not left waiting at the door. Where the gift is sweet rather than bright, a marshmallow bouquet is added to the same order and handed over with the flowers.

Administrative Professionals Day falls on the Wednesday of the last full week of April in the United States and Canada. The custom around it is a fixed set: a card, flowers, chocolate and often a lunch invitation. A bouquet with one gift added can cover the first three in a single delivery.

For a Loop office the courier needs the company name and the floor, and where visitors need a pass the bouquet is left at reception; see hotels, offices and Chicago's flower calendar.

The card can carry the sender's own message, free of charge. Alongside that sit printed greeting cards, and toppers, a short printed message on a stick that stands among the stems. Belgian chocolate rounds the gift out for a colleague at the next desk.

Rattan reeds and a candle for the flat the roses go to

The reeds are turned every few days, so a fresh end sits in the oil and releases scent again. An 8-ounce bottle runs for roughly eight to twelve weeks, long after the rose in the vase beside it has had its one week.

Candles and vases suit the same flat as a diffuser. A vase added to the same order gives the flowers somewhere to stand as soon as the box is opened, instead of waiting on a draining board while someone finds one.

In November, when families gather around the table for Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of the month, a candle suits the hosts as well as the flowers do.

Balloons, something sweet, a printed card and something for the home all go into the same cart as the bouquet, and the courier hands everything over together. A photo of the finished bouquet is sent to the sender before the courier sets off; details are on the delivery across the city page. A first order might start with reed diffusers for a flat that will keep the scent for weeks, or with marshmallow bouquets for something sweet to open straight away.