Flowers for the People
Gifting flowers to the people of New York City. It's a simple idea that I have been knocking around in my brain for years. I love my job and what we do at LMD. We have created many lavish and memorable events for our wonderful clients that not only stay with them and their guests for years to come but have also left a smile and an impression on us over the years. We are in the business of fantasy and flowers; transforming key life moments in our client's lives into magical, everlasting memories. My desire yesterday was to recreate just a sliver of that sentiment and offer it up to the city dwellers and tourists of this great city. So at 5:45 AM, my team and I filled the LMD van with 2,000 flowers and descended on the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park, a circular mosaic resembling a mandala with one word in the center: IMAGINE.
Quickly working in the dark, my team and I created a psychedelic halo of day-glo yellow, pink, purple and orange dahlias and carnations. So bright and joyful, John and Yoko and every Seventies loving hippie would have approved. By the time the flower installation was complete, dawn had begun to take shape and the curious Parks & Services crew appeared. We all held our breath and wondered if our "Flowers for the People" project was about to live and die in under an hour and the only audience that would have seen it was a squirrel and two early morning joggers. But that was not the case. Outfitted with leaf blowers and a broom, they began to gingerly sweep away the falling leaves around our flowers and gave us their approval and blessing with a quick thumbs up.
As we were packing up and leaving the park, I was amazed at how quickly a crowd had formed. We had hoped for smiles, the ones that happen when you witness a random act of kindness. That was my goal, my vision. Create an emotional response through flowers. And in this age of social media, we saw the fruits of our labor and were instantly rewarded via Instagram! We got to see how our idea translated in real time with hundreds of selflies and photographs documenting the flowers throughout the course of the day. It was one of the most rewarding and gratifying "events" I have produced and I can not wait to plan the next one. Keep your eyes peeled New York, these flowers are for you….
