Betty Franzen and daughter-in-law Melissa Franzen enjoy providing a personal touch while meeting needs for pressed and preserved flowers through their business, Waterford Past-Thymes. "One of the things we've noticed is we need to speak to people," she explained. "It has to be a one-on-one kind of thing, because we're dealing with something that's irreplaceable."
She received a wooden flower press from her sister-in-law 10 years ago. Franzen read the directions and learned to press and preserve flowers. Her son's girlfriend and later wife, Melissa, started helping with the flower pressing, though they continued to do it mainly for friends of the family. They eventually looked for a different method before they would consider doing it as a business. "Using the traditional flower press, beyond the fact it would take two to three months, the flowers would often be moldy or they would lose their color," she explained. "You can't say to someone, 'We're going to take this irreplaceable object of yours and MAYBE it will work out.". They eventually learned a reliable process that presses and preserves the flowers while destroying any organisms that could harm the color or integrity of the flower. They started out doing craft shows, where they pressed flowers to make floral art and pictures. Melissa Franzen said they generally preferred the idea of working with people and pressing the flowers to meet people's specific requests and needs. "Art is subjective, and something pretty to us may not be pretty to someone else," she said.
On their Web site, one thing they stipulate is for prospective customers to call them and leave their number so Betty or Melissa can call them back and discuss their order and their needs. "Our company phone is a mobile phone, and often we get teased for being like doctors -- being on call all the time," Betty said. "Very often we'll get a call on a Monday morning from a panicked mother whose daughter got married Saturday night and had these flowers. We're talking about a time sensitive thing." They also have their e-mail sound a loud tone the instant incoming messages have been received. "In today's world, an email is like a ringing telephone, it must be answered immediately, whenever possible", Melissa emphasized. "If someones's going to take the time and effort to do this, this is something they're going to have forever," she said. "It's not just a piece of art they're going to throw up on a wall or stick in a closet." While much of their business is local (for their local clients, they offer complimentary consultations at their Waterford Office) the Web site has enabled them to receive orders from anywhere. In one case they did a contract from Toronto, Canada arranged by a bridesmaid living in Japan. They arranged most of it via e-mail, though Betty did call and speak to her as well. "We say on our Web site that a design consultant will help you with this, but 90 percent of the time the design consultant's the customer and they don't even realize it," she said. "We can guide them towards a beautiful finished product, however, the bottom line is, it is their memory, not ours. They'll say things like 'I really like things kind of modern looking, or arranged around the invitation with the flowers showcased or with a different color fabric.' There it is -- that's the first key on how you design it." Frequently, they will lay out the client's flowers in the chosen frame, take a digital photo, and email the image to the client for "approval", before the final construction. Waterford Past-Thymes will also send a complimentary bridal bouquet box, to their bridal clients, with everything they need, including ice packs, plastic bags, names and labels, to ship the flowers in good condition, back to them, for pressing and preservation. They also offer a Pampered Bride service where they will arrange for the flowers to be picked up, for shipment, at the bride's home or office.
For local wedding bouquet orders, the ladies will go to a location to pick up the flowers as soon after the event as possible. They then deliver them when they're done, she said. "If we can, we much prefer to hand it to the person instead of mailing it," Betty said. In addition to wedding bouquets, they handle flower preservation and enhancements for all occasions. For enhancements, a customer will submit something such as a baby photograph, a poem or an award, and Waterford Past-Thymes will embellish it with flowers. In some cases, a mother who has just had a baby will use her hospital flowers as enhancements to her baby's announcement. The business offers gift certificates in order to give a flower preservation gift for occasions such as a baby/bridal shower or wedding/attendant gift. Calligraphy is a complimentary service provided with the gift certificates. They've also handled requests involving preservation of funeral flowers. In all honesty, we'll do anything," Melissa said. "Our company motto is 'The possibilities are limited only by your imagination' and we firmly endorse the concept". Betty noted that orders are customized to the customer's wishes. "Whatever people come up with we'll do," she said. "Nothing's in stone, and everything's custom to the nth degree. We also allow people to supply their own frame, if they wish, so if they have an antique frame or whatever, we can use that. That's what we feel most strongly about -- trying to make things easy for happy people."
The Franzens are from Vienna, Va. and moved to the Waterford area in 1985. Betty and Melissa have always enjoyed arranging flowers. "Weddings were our thing," she said. "We helped people at weddings do flowers and centerpieces and it evolved into this." Betty credited Melissa with being the true "green thumb" in the family. "Melissa could make sand grow," she said with a laugh. "She's in charge of planting the things we use for what we call enhancements. She figures out what to plant, as that's her expertise" Betty said she and Melissa both grew up in artistic environments and both love to decorate.
Their process requires that the flowers be received as soon as possible after the event. "It's a two-step process we devised, but the urgency is getting the flowers quickly," she said. "Then the bride, at her leisure, often weeks later, can pick out the frame and background and tell us what she wants to include." Often brides will want a bouquet replicated in terms of shape, she said. "Clearly you lose the depth because it's flat," she explained. They photograph the bouquet with a digital camera upon receiving them, print the picture and file the picture away on floppy disk. They take notes on how many of each kind of flowers the original bouquet had, as well as the colors. "Then, when you get ready to reassemble it, you have the picture beside you and you work from the picture," she explained. "You replicate almost the exact same shape. We make it look exactly as it did when it was a bouquet." Betty said that while they have looked into a freeze-drying process that allows flowers to keep their dimensions instead of being flat, it comes at the cost of durability, lasting only about five years. "Flower pressing has been around since Victorian times, and pressed flowers last forever," she said. "We had a client, recently, that has her great-grandmother's pressed, framed wedding bouquet! What wouldn't you give for something like that? That's the nice thing about the process. The flowers don't change once you put them in the frame. Once they're done, it lasts for generations. These are sealed unbelievably well so that no air can get to them." Melissa and Betty said they both most enjoy making people happy through their business, as they're often meeting people who have just been married or had a baby. "In most cases you're dealing with people, hopefully, at the happiest time in their lives and giving them something that's going to be a treasured memory they can have forever," Betty said. "It's just exciting to meet them and see they're bright eyed. I'm, beyond comprehension, happily married, so I have no cynicism about it."
Waterford Past-Thymes may be reached at 703-431-4095 and on the Web at www.flowerspressed.com.
By George Gill May 09, 2001ŠArcom Publishing Inc. - Loudoun Times-Mirror 2001