DENVER — Flower shops in the Denver metro area have been preparing for one of their busiest days of the year, Valentine's Day.
For businesses like Lehrer's Flowers, owned by Kevin McCarthy, the days leading up to Valentine's Day require long hours and months of planning.
"Valentine’s Day that’s like our Super Bowl. We spent months preparing, so it really does take a village. We try to encourage people to order early because it’s just a crazy time for florists," said Jane Avila, general manager at Lehrer's Flowers.
The flower shop has been in business for four generations, since 1920. It started as a small grocery store, and over the years has expanded to a 30,000 square-foot retail facility.
“We built a garage, so we can take care of our own vehicles, we built a greenhouse, so we can have our own green plants. It’s definitely spread out and it’s taking up a whole city block. It’s definitely changed overtime," said Avila.
Valentine's Day along with Mother's Day, Lehrer's Flowers delivers over a thousand flowers a day. The shop has part time, full time, seasonal employees, and hundreds of drivers to help create the flower arrangements and deliveries.
“We have all these flower artisans making flower arrangements getting ready for the big day, so there’s s ton of prep work that goes into it," said Avila.
Each driver has between 25-35 deliveries on Valentine's Day, and their day can take them all the way up to Louisville or down south to Parker to deliver flowers.
“We love hearing your love stories. We love to follow that through and deliver that. It means a lot to all of us. It's a sense of gratitude and accomplishment. It’s very rewarding in the flower business," said Avila.
Looking ahead, Avila offers advice for future Valentine's Day shoppers.
"Definitely order early. If people can order early that would be great because we deliver thousands of orders in one day and we always sell out," said Avila.
For those in need of last-minute gifts and missed the deadline to place an order for bouquets, there's pre-made gifts at the store and chocolates that can still be found inside.
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