Date Night in Tokyo

Date night flowers: a bouquet nobody has to carry all evening

On a date, flowers usually get in the way. They are handed over at the door and then spend the evening on a chair, on the table or in a cloakroom, and the last hour is spent working out how to get them home. This is the one occasion where size works against the person giving them.

A first date

Three to five stems, no cone of cellophane, nothing red. A small hand-tied bouquet in kraft paper reads as attention and asks for nothing in return but a thank you.

Red roses on a first date say more than most people want to say that evening, and they leave the other person having to respond somehow. Pastels, white, peach and lilac are safer and look more expensive at the same price.

Give them at the start rather than at the end. Flowers handed over on the way out read as a conclusion.

Later on

After that you can be specific, and specificity beats volume. A favourite flower, the same variety as last time, or deliberately the opposite — peonies, ranunculus, lisianthus, spray roses all feel chosen rather than picked up on the way.

Restaurants

If the evening starts at a restaurant, the strongest move is a delivery to the home address a couple of hours earlier. The flowers go in water, the evening runs without a prop, and the recipient has actually had time to look at them.

If the bouquet does travel with you, ask the restaurant when you book. Most will find water and something to stand it in, but that has to be arranged before you sit down rather than after.

Surprise deliveries

Sending flowers to a home address before a date is far stronger than arriving with them, and sending them to a workplace before an evening date is the weakest option of the three: the recipient then has to carry a bouquet across the city.

The card

One line. On a date the card is read in front of you, and a long message creates a pause with nothing to fill it. If the delivery is going to Tokyo ahead of the evening, book a window rather than an exact minute — couriers arrive inside an interval.