Sympathy flowers in Plantation

Two facts about South Florida shape almost every sympathy order that starts in Plantation. The first is that Broward County cremates far more of its dead than it buries, which means the arrangement you send is more often destined for a memorial service, a chapel visitation or a family's living room than for a graveside. The second is that a great many Broward families do not bury their people in Broward at all. This is a county built out of arrivals — from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Quebec, and from Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad and Brazil — and when someone dies here, the remains are frequently flown home while a memorial mass is held locally for the people who cannot travel. Both facts change what to order. A tall standing piece built for a casket has nowhere to stand at a cremation memorial in a community clubhouse. What works instead is a compact, dignified arrangement that reads well on a table beside an urn and a photograph, or a lasting plant that stays with the family after the service. Say which of the three situations you are sending into — chapel, memorial, or home — and the florist will build for that room rather than for a generic funeral photograph.

Religious convention matters more here than in most markets, because Plantation's congregations sit within a few miles of each other and each expects something different. Catholic families — the parish life around St. Gregory Catholic Church on North University Drive, and the large Haitian, Cuban, Colombian and Venezuelan Catholic communities across central Broward — typically hold a viewing, a rosary and a funeral mass, and flowers are welcome at all three; standing tributes and full arrangements are conventional, and a novena of nine evenings afterward often means a second, smaller delivery to the house. Jewish families following Reform, Conservative or Orthodox practice — the synagogue belt through Plantation, Sunrise, Tamarac and Coral Springs, including Temple Kol Ami Emanu-El on Peters Road in Plantation — generally do not have flowers at the chapel; the appropriate gesture is a donation in the deceased's memory and, if anything is sent, a plant or a fruit basket to the shiva home, never a display at the service. Protestant and non-denominational services, including the AME, Baptist and COGIC homegoing tradition in Fort Lauderdale, Lauderhill and Lauderdale Lakes, welcome flowers freely and often want them early, because the visitation can run for hours before the service begins. When you are not sure, call the funeral home and ask; every director on the list above will answer that question in thirty seconds.