Birthdays are the reason most delivered bouquets in Ireland are bought, and the
one occasion with no rules attached at all. Nobody is offended by the wrong
flower, nothing is a faux pas, and the only real problem is logistical: getting
them to a person who is not standing at home waiting for a van.
The money
Delivered gift bouquets in Ireland mostly sit between 40 and 70 euro before
delivery. That is the band the market has settled on, and it is where the
photographs on every website are taken.
Below about 35 euro, a delivered bouquet has a problem: after the courier and the
packaging there is not much flower left, and it arrives looking noticeably
smaller than the picture. If your budget is under that, you have two better
options than a thin bouquet. Letterbox flowers cost less because there is no van
and no doorstep, and a supermarket bunch at 5 to 20 euro handed over by you
beats anything couriered at the same price.
Above about 90 euro you are buying size and a florist's arrangement rather than a
gift bouquet, which is worth doing for a milestone and hard to justify twice a
year.
Getting them to the person
This is where birthday orders go wrong, because unlike a funeral or a wedding
there is no fixed place where somebody is definitely standing.
Nobody home. Most Irish services will leave flowers with a neighbour or in a
safe place if you say so in the delivery notes, and some will simply return to
the depot and try again tomorrow, which for a birthday is a failure. Ask before
you order, or send letterbox flowers, which go through the door and remove the
question entirely.
The office. Effective and risky. Plenty of people love an office delivery.
Plenty do not want the whole floor knowing it is their birthday, or who sent
them flowers, and then have to carry a wrapped bouquet home on a packed bus at
six o'clock. If you are not sure which kind of person you are dealing with, the
house is the safe answer.
The wrong day. A birthday is a fixed date, so order two or three days ahead
and pick the date rather than relying on a same-day slot. Same-day is available
across most of the country if you order early, and the cutoffs are earlier
outside Dublin than people expect.
Milestones
For an eighteenth or a twenty-first, flowers are rarely the main event and a
bouquet delivered to the house on the morning of it is a nice supporting act.
For a fortieth, fiftieth or sixtieth, a larger arrangement or a hand-tied bouquet
from a florist at 80 to 120 euro is the normal step up, and it is one of the few
times a vase arrangement is worth the extra: it arrives ready, and the person
whose birthday it is does not have to go looking for something to put it in
during their own party.
For an eightieth or ninetieth, size is often the wrong instinct. A large
arrangement in a small flat is a nuisance to water, move and eventually throw
out. Something low, in a container, in a colour they actually like.
When to send a plant instead
Flowers are a week. A plant is years, and for some people that is the better
gift and for others it is an obligation.
Send a plant when the person likes plants, gardens, or has a sunny windowsill and
the temperament for it. Send flowers when they travel, live in a rented flat, or
have said out loud at some point that they kill everything. An orchid is the
middle ground and lasts months with almost no attention.
The related point nobody mentions on a florist's website: for a person who lives
alone and is away a lot, a bouquet can be a small chore. It needs a vase, water,
stems recut, and then it needs disposing of. That is not a reason never to send
flowers. It is a reason to think about the person rather than the occasion.
Practical filters
- No lilies to a house with a cat. Every part of a lily is toxic to cats,
pollen included, and this is the single most common serious mistake made with
gift flowers.
- Nothing heavily scented for a small office, or for anyone who has
mentioned migraines.
- Short and sturdy for a house with toddlers, meaning a low arrangement in a
container rather than a tall vase on a table edge.
- In season is fresher and cheaper. A birthday in March gets tulips and
narcissi at their best; a birthday in July gets sweet pea, sweet william and
Irish-grown roses. Buying what the month is doing is the easiest way to get
better flowers for less money.
The card
The card is the part people rush and the part that gets kept. Write something
only you would write. A line about a shared memory beats "Happy birthday, love
from" by a distance, and it costs nothing.
