Nobody is home until seven. Can flowers arrive in the evening?
+
Ask for it explicitly and expect the answer to depend on which shop takes the order. The Aberdeen-Matawan park-and-ride fills before eight and clears in the evening, so this is the normal situation rather than an edge case, and the near benches have the flexibility for it: Blooms Andballoonsnj on Main Street at half a mile, Jacqueline's Florist in South Amboy at 4.1 miles, Keansburgnj Florist at 6 and Flower Power in Belford at 7.9. The shops out at ten to twelve miles, in Freehold, Woodbridge, Highland Park and Jamesburg, are building route sheets that do not stretch that far into the evening. If evening is impossible, send to a workplace at midday instead.
Is a delivery to the workplace a good idea?
+
It depends entirely on whether you want an audience. Bell Works on Crawfords Corner Road in Holmdel, the Vonage campus on Main Street there, Hovnanian Enterprises on Matawan Road and the Route 9 and Route 18 offices all take deliveries through a front desk or a lobby, which means the arrangement is carried past colleagues and set down in view of them. For some people that is the entire gift; for others it is an ambush. If you want it private, send to the house and time it for the evening. If you want it public, order the day before, put the company name and a mobile number on it, and aim for late morning rather than four-thirty on a Friday.
What does $32.49 to $38.99 buy, and what about a dozen red roses?
+
A piece cut and built that morning by a shop within a dozen miles of the recipient, rather than a stem count packed into a carton somewhere else — in the live catalogue, the Gardenia and Grace Bouquet, Pretty Please and the Gracious Lavender Basket Arrangement sit at that level. A dozen red roses in the second week of February is a market price rather than a catalogue one, here as everywhere, so ask the studio for the quote rather than assuming. If you want a specific colour or variety, or something larger than the shelf, write it into the order notes; the band describes the standing catalogue, not the ceiling of what these shops can make.
Can flowers be waiting in a hotel room for a night out?
+
Yes, with the guest surname and the arrival time on the order. The two water-side options an Aberdeen couple tends to book are on the Navesink in Red Bank, about eleven miles east: the Oyster Point Hotel down at Bodman Place, and the Molly Pitcher Inn further along Riverside Avenue. Boxwood Garden Florist at 807 River Rd in Fair Haven is two or three miles from either desk, which makes it the sensible bench. Note that on February 14 those desks are handling many deliveries at once, so a piece labelled only with a first name can sit in a back office all evening. Full surname, date, arrival hour.
I want to propose. What should I actually order?
+
Something you can hold in one hand. A proposal on the Cliffwood Beach seawall, with the Manhattan skyline across Raritan Bay on a clear afternoon, or out along the Bayshore towards Atlantic Highlands, is a walking occasion — a tall vase arrangement is an object you have to put down somewhere, and the bay wind will help you. Ask the studio for a hand-tied bunch, wrapped, weighted at the stems, and tell them what it is for so they build it to be carried. If the plan runs to a restaurant table afterwards, ring the restaurant first: plenty of small kitchens in Red Bank and Atlantic Highlands have nowhere to keep flowers through two services.
The address is a two-family on the Route 35 side. How do I make sure it lands?
+
Specify the dwelling and give a live phone number. On the Route 35 and Lower Main Street side of Aberdeen the door you want is frequently not the only door at that number, and the bells carry figures rather than names — upper, lower or rear is what separates a delivery from a doorstep. Put the mobile of whoever will actually be inside on the order, not the number of whoever is paying. Out on the 07721 blocks nothing should be left outdoors at all: those streets look straight over Raritan Bay and the wind there treats cellophane as a sail, in February and in August alike. Ask for a hand-over at an hour somebody is home.
Can I send to a student at Monmouth University or Brookdale?
+
Yes, both sit inside the eighteen-mile radius — Brookdale on Newman Springs Road in Lincroft at around ten miles, Monmouth University in West Long Branch at the outer edge. Neither is a doorstep delivery: the arrangement goes to a residence hall desk or a department office, so name the building as well as the person, and understand that the recipient collects it rather than receiving it. Boxwood Garden Florist in Fair Haven is the closest bench to the Monmouth end. On February 14 send it a day early if you can — campus mail rooms and hall desks are the most congested delivery points on the whole grid that week.