Sometimes a client delivers an accent to be incorporated into the wreath. In this instance, a length of faux jewels had to be cut apart and, due to relative inflexibility, bent forcibly into place by the very talented designer, who ended up taking the wreath home overnight to wrestle with it. We understand she was up until three in the morning and deserves her own award of distinction for the beautiful result.
We are always seeking ways to clarify the ordering process, and we received feedback this year from two separate clients that their deliveries did not match up to some of our pictured wreaths. Their wreaths lacked a certain “bling” factor. We have quite a few decorators, all with different approaches. Some are masters using glittery accents, fruit, and paint, while others specialize in a quiet, natural style. We’ve decided, starting next year, to reduce the “accent” options on our order forms to three: All Natural, Designer’s Choice, and Festive Bling. There is always space to write in extra instructions (“no flowers, gold accents, traditional Christmas, winter wonderland, etc.”) but this change may help give our customers what they want, and allow our assignment desk to direct certain orders to decorators who are especially facile in one style or another. Below is an example of Festive Bling.
We have a system, and part of that system is quality control. The front desk reads the print out of the order and makes sure the wreath and the wreath tag represent the same request. Every now and then we have a glitch – customer wanted silver bow with red accents, and we see a red bow with silver accents. If the wreath is as pretty as this one, we improvise and switch out the bow. Sometimes we exchange tags, substituting one that actually matches the wreath. We hope all our supporters get what they order.
The Garden Club of the Back Bay wishes you all the merriest day with family, friends and neighbors. May peace prevail on Earth.
We do a number of Hanukkah wreaths, as well as winter themed wreaths not specifically tied to Christmas, and the work below is an example. Shabbat Shalom!
The matched pair of outdoor wreaths below took a long time to create. They were in our outdoor staging area, on the bricks, ready to be picked up, when a volunteer stumbled and fell on one of them. First thought – oh no, the wreath is crushed! Not a chance. The beauty of having the decorations attached firmly is that mishaps can occur without consequence. We emphasize to our decorators that every piece of greenery or embellishment must be picked or wired into the wreath firmly, and we go around testing to make sure our instructions are followed. This decorator gets a gold star.
The Garden Club of the Back Bay is an affiliate member of The Boston Committee of the GCA, and each fall we prepare gift certificates for each of the fifteen Boston Committee member clubs for raffling in support of The Blossom Fund, which gives periodic grants of seed money to public horticultural projects in the Boston metropolitan area. This year Boston Committee President Peggy Reiser stopped by the First Lutheran Church of Boston to view our workshop and thank us for our contribution, which over the years has raised thousands of dollars for The Blossom Fund. Below is one winner’s wreath – she requested all natural accents with no bow. We have a couple of designers who do a beautiful job with that type of order.
The wreath pictured below was so well received that the recipient joined The Garden Club of the Back Bay the day after it was delivered. That is what we call customer satisfaction.
The strangest incident of Wreath Week 2016 was the moment a very irate management company, ignoring our confirmatory postcards, their own past experience picking up wreaths, and the detailed message on our wreath phone, came to the private home of a member to pick up two wreaths, and when no one answered declared the house “abandoned” and proceeded to demand that we make ourselves available to them on a date well after Wreath Week was over. To top things off, they had ordered the wrong wreath size (for the second year in a row) and out of the goodness of our hearts we corrected their order so we wouldn’t have to run back to our supplier and special order larger wreaths at the last minute. There are times when our patience runs thin, and this was one of them. We hope all condominium owners are aware that their management companies are their public face in the community. The wreaths below were done for a very nice management company, one we are always delighted to serve.
Not everyone wants red and green, holly and pine cones. For those customers, we create unusual fantasies in a host of color schemes. In this instance, the client requested a chartreuse ribbon, and we went from there. This is not a wreath which would be sent out to someone we didn’t know. You may trust us to send something more traditional if you leave all decisions to us. But if you decide to let your freak flag fly, we are happy to oblige.
