One thousand and one roses: what happens once the evening ends
Orders of this size are discussed right up to the moment they are delivered, and then nobody talks about them again. Yet a thousand stems do not disappear when the guests go home, and the days that follow are the part most people have not thought about at all.
It is worth deciding in advance who deals with them.
The realistic working life
Roses cut and delivered fresh hold for one to two weeks in a vase, but a piece of this size is not in a vase. Stems set in foam get less water than stems standing free, the outer rows dry first, and a large built piece looks its best on the first two days rather than the tenth.
Warm rooms full of people shorten that further. Body heat, lighting and closed windows put an evening's worth of wear on flowers in a few hours, which is why an arrangement that looked immaculate at the start of a party can look tired by the end of it.
None of this is a fault in the flowers.
Breaking it down
Somebody has to take the piece apart, and it takes longer than it took to admire. Stems come out of the foam or the buckets in armfuls, the still-firm ones are separated from the spent ones, and the frame or basket underneath is emptied and carried out.
An hour is a reasonable expectation for one person, less for two. Doing it the same night is easier than doing it the next morning, because by then the water has fouled and the whole job smells.
Sending the flowers on
The best ending for an order like this is that most of it leaves in other people's hands. Guests take an armful each, wrapped in whatever paper is left over, and a thousand roses turn into thirty small bouquets in thirty homes.
What stays behind is recut at a slant and put into ordinary vessels around the house. Buckets, jugs, a stockpot: presentation stops mattering at this stage, and getting the stems into deep water within the hour matters a great deal.
Stems that are past saving still have a use. Heads with firm centres can be cut short and floated in bowls, and petals from spent outer rows dry flat between sheets of paper if anyone wants to keep some.
Agreeing it beforehand
The florist can be asked to come back for the frame, the containers and the structural parts, and most will, since those items are reusable and worth collecting. Settle that when the order is placed rather than at midnight.
If the venue is not somebody's home, its own rules apply. Many will not remove floral waste, and a pile of stems left in a corridor becomes the host's problem rather than the caterer's, so a bin bag and ten minutes should be part of the plan.
An order of one thousand and one roses is bought for a single moment, and it delivers that moment well. Deciding in advance who unwraps it, who waters it and who carries it out is not administration for its own sake, and for a host in Cuba it is the difference between remembering the evening and remembering the clean-up.
