Will my flowers survive an outdoor event in Florida?

What actually goes wrong

Flowers are held cool — somewhere around 36 to 46 degrees — right up until they're loaded. Move them straight into a 90-degree afternoon and they go into thermal shock: petals bruise, edges brown, and stems that looked perfect in the van look tired an hour later. It is not that the flowers were poor. It is that the temperature swing was too fast and there was nowhere for them to sit out of the sun.

Blooms that hold up in Tampa Bay heat

Roses and spray roses, carnations and mini carnations, alstroemeria, lisianthus, sunflowers, orchids, anthurium, calla lilies, delphinium and baby's breath. Structured greenery — Italian ruscus, leatherleaf, salal — outperforms the soft, feathery stuff. These are all beautiful, all bar-friendly, and all reliable in June.

Blooms to keep indoors or in deep shade

Hydrangeas need constant water and wilt visibly within the hour if they don't get it. Tulips keep growing after they're cut and bend towards heat in ways nobody can control. Peonies, ranunculus and dahlias are gorgeous and genuinely fragile in Florida summer. We'll happily use all of them — for an air-conditioned room, or between November and April.

Six things that make an outdoor bar work

Shade or tent the bar, always. Use opaque buckets so the water doesn't heat through the glass. Mist lightly during the event and top every vessel up more often than feels necessary. Keep replacement stems in reserve, in the cool, and swap tired ones out. Put the bar out of direct afternoon sun even if that means a less photogenic corner. And run it early — a bar at 5pm is a different proposition from a bar at 2pm.

And tell your guests one thing

Get the bouquet out of the car. Twenty minutes in a closed vehicle in a Florida parking lot will undo everything. Our care cards say it, but a word from the host works better.