It’s New Year’s Eve and we’re reflecting on our top 10 favorite moments of 2015. It may sounds cliche, but 2015 was an amazing year for us at our local Cambridge, MA flower shop. Below is a round up of the top 10 moments. Here’s to 2016!
10. Holiday decor at Central Square Florist. Each holiday season we are so caught up in focusing on our customers that we forget to focus on a bit of decorating of our shop. This year we started early (the weekend after Thanksgiving) and hung up three wreaths outside the shop (pictured below). We got a mini Christmas tree (no space for a full-size one in a city shop like ours!) and decorated it. We hung lights in the windows too. The shop looked just beautiful each night in Central Square a people passed by on their way to the MBTA Red Line (located right in front of our shop).
9. Expansion of succulents & cacti in the shop. Succulents and cacti are the hot + trendy plants of 2015 and they aren’t going away in 2016. This year we’ve had a huge demand for these guys. We’ve listened to this demand and totally increased our selection. Between everyday sales in the shop and events that use these plants as centerpieces and decor it’s been quite the year.
Planters from West Elm. Mixed succulents potted in them for SRV, a new restaurant in Boston’s South End.
8. Involvement in the Cambridge, MA community. In 2015, we made it a major priority to attend as many local, community events as possible. We are proud members of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, Cambridge Local First & the Central Square Business Association. If you attended any of these organization’s events this year you may have saw us or our flowers (or both!). We are looking forward to high attendance at 2016 events as well.
This year, we also took pride in donating to local charities, non-profits and kickstarters. A shout out to Scoopsights and Gather Here — both local, Cambridge small businesses here in Cambridge who had/have kickstarters.
Jackie with Mayor David Maher at the Cambridge Chamber Holiday BAHsh 2015
7. Taza Chocolate. In 2015, we phased out a big box company and started carrying a local brand of chocolate, Taza Chocolate. Taza is a local, Somerville based company. Their factory in Somerville is under 10 minutes away from our shop! We love local and it just makes sense to bring more local into our shop for our customers to enjoy.
Taza Chocolate in the shop
6. We had the privilege of being the Boston florist for Garance Doré’s book tour with Club Monaco. The event was at Club Monaco in the Prudential Center. We provided 100 beautiful all white bouquets wrapped in kraft paper, twine and with a little Club Monaco tag. The tag read what their values are — flowers was one of them! They bouquets were a huge hit at the event.
5. Instagram. In 2015, Instagram easily become our #1 social media platform. At the start of the year we had under 500 followers and on the very last day of the year, New Years Eve, we surpassed 8,000 followers. We may be a bit bias, but we think our Instagram account is pretty awesome (and 8,000+ others think so too) 🙂
Below is our 2015 Best Nine on Instagram.
4. 2015 brought some wonderful, sweet brides. We had the privilage of working at both venue’s we’ve previously worked at and new venues. One of our favorite new venues to work at this year was the Oceanview Nahant in Nahant, Massachusetts. It is a beautiful banquet hall right on the water. Below are a few photos from Claudia and Steve’s wedding there (great couple!).
3. Collaborations. The power of local is a beautiful thing. We take such pride in not only our local small business but in other small businesses in Cambridge, Boston & beyond. Towards the end of 2015, we collaborated with some amazing people. To name some: Holly Nichols of Holly Nichols Illustration (see some of her AMAZING illustrations below) and Juliette Laura with Union Square Donuts (they’re located in Union Square, Somerville, and the Boston Public Market) in a photo shoot. Juliette is a local college student, and photographer, and works for Free People Cambridge (they have a location in Harvard Square). She photographed our flowers with Union Square Donut’s delicious donuts! We also partnered with A Mix of Min & Bead Kreative in giveaways. Stay tuned — we have some awesome collaborations in-store for 2016. We can’t wait to share them with you all!
Our next collaboration is coming up in just a few weeks with The Paint Bar on Newbury Street. It is taking place on January, 19th — make your own floral arrangement and then paint it!
2. The name game! It seems everyone we meet knows about our free rose name game! In August 2015 we got a sandwich board, put it outside our shop on Mass Ave in Central Square and started the game. Each day the sign reads: “Come in and get a FREE rose is your name is ______”. We change the name everyday (we do the name name Saturday & Sunday’s). The name is completely random and we mix it up between male & female names. The name game has been ever successful with the help of the Twitter account @OnlyInBOS! Each day the account posts a photo of the sign to its 120K+ followers. Haven’t seen your name yet? Stay tuned for it in 2016!
1. Cambridge Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year 2015! Central Square Florist was nominated and later named Cambridge Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the year! We are so grateful for this amazing honor. We were presented with this honor at the Excellence in Business awards held at the Royal Sonesta Boston in East Cambridge back in May.
Jackie accepting the award
Jackie & David
Here’s to a fabulous 2015 and an even better 2016!
Love your local florist,
Central Square Florist
David (3rd generation) + Jackie (4th generation)
