Gifts to Go With Bouquets in Paris

Gifts to go with bouquets in Paris: candles, cards and something sweet

Gifts to go with bouquets in Paris can arrive in one order with a decorative candle and a vase, so the flowers come with something to stand in and something to light beside them. The gift chosen to go with it decides what the person will read, eat or still have in the flat once the stems themselves are gone. All of it goes into the same basket as the bouquet and leaves the shop together with it.

When Parisians give flowers and the manners around it are covered in the dates and manners of a Paris bouquet.

A card, a topper or a foil balloon: how the words arrive

A greeting card with text costs nothing extra, and it can carry a signature or go out unsigned. The courier hands the bouquet over in person together with the card and keeps to exactly what the sender asked, nothing more. A topper tucks just a few words among the stems, and a card suits better when you want a ready-made picture instead. A balloon on a ribbon carries words too, but latex and foil behave quite differently: a latex balloon stays afloat for about half a day, while a foil one holds for several days. Latex suits the day itself, and foil suits a celebration that falls later in the week.

A marshmallow bouquet is a second bouquet, one that gets eaten rather than kept in water. The marshmallow itself is whipped from fruit purée, apple more often than anything else, with sugar and egg white, so the outside sets while the centre stays soft. Chocolates and a plush bear suit the same handover: both sit well at the door and need no water or vase once they are through it. A performer is a different kind of gift again, a short show rather than an object: a soap-bubble or rabbit show that turns up at a set time and leaves nothing behind. In a restaurant that moment is arranged with the venue beforehand, so the performer reaches the table for dessert, for a toast, or just as someone is called up to speak.

A rose in a vase lasts about a week. A vase, a candle or a diffuser stays once the stems are gone. Reed diffusers carry rattan reeds that pull the scented oil up through their own channels; turned round every few days, one bottle runs for weeks or months after the bouquet itself has long faded. A vase ordered together with the flowers gives the stems somewhere to stand the moment they come through the door, instead of waiting on a counter still wrapped in paper. A decorative candle stays in the flat once the flowers have gone.

Choosing by recipient: gifts with flower delivery in Paris

Gifts by Type suits a sender who already has an object in mind, a candle or a balloon decided before they even open the bouquet list. Gifts chosen by recipient work the other way round, for someone who knows the person well but has no fixed idea what to add, sorting the choice by who the flowers are for rather than by what sits beside them. However the gift is picked, it travels in the same basket as the bouquet and reaches the door in one delivery, not two. A photograph of the finished bouquet goes out before the courier leaves, and most orders are handed over on the day they are placed. Delivery is free in the centre of Paris, and delivery zones cover the rest of the city.

A card in your own words suits any occasion. Decorative candles and vases suit a flat where something should stay once the flowers fade, and a marshmallow bouquet works for anyone who would rather eat the gift than water it.