Which Winnebago County funeral homes do you deliver to?
+
All of them, and the county's chapels are spread out rather than clustered. Fitzgerald Funeral Home & Crematory keeps chapels off Mulford Road on the southeast side and on North Main; Sunset Funeral Home & Cremation Center is on North Alpine Road; Honquest Family Funeral Home is up North Mulford in Loves Park; and the smaller township chapels serve Rockton, Roscoe, Winnebago, Pecatonica, Byron and Belvidere. Give the funeral home's name and the town on the order rather than just a street — several of these names carry more than one location, and the wrong chapel is a lost delivery rather than a late one.
What exactly do I need to tell you when the flowers are for a service?
+
Five things, and they take one line each: the funeral home or church name and its town, the date of the service, the hour of the service or the visitation, the name of the person who died as the family has published it, and whether the piece is for the chapel or for the graveside. That last one changes the build, because an easel spray standing outdoors on a windy Rockford afternoon is constructed differently from an arrangement sitting in a warm room. If a family has asked for donations instead of flowers, a plant sent later to their house is the gesture that respects both.
Can you deliver a piece to a cemetery for a graveside service?
+
Yes, and it is a normal part of the work here. Greenwood Cemetery on North Main and the Scandinavian Cemetery on Rural Street are both close to Cherry Blossom's bench, and the township grounds out through the county are reachable inside the radius. Cemetery deliveries have to be timed to the service rather than the day, so give the hour and, if you have it, the section — grounds staff will not hold an unlabelled easel piece indefinitely. Between November and March, say that it is going outdoors: an open Rockford burial ground in February is brutally exposed and a piece built for a warm chapel will not survive the hour.
What does a sympathy arrangement cost in Rockford?
+
The listed arrangements in this selection start at $58.49. Delivery charges, taxes and optional extras are confirmed for the selected florist and recipient before payment.
Should I send to the funeral home or to the family's house?
+
If you know the service details, the chapel is the right address, and the flowers should be standing before the family arrives. If you do not know them, or the service has already passed, send to the house — and consider sending later rather than sooner. In the first week a Rockford family's kitchen usually has more flowers than surfaces; two weeks on, when the visits have stopped and the casseroles are finished, a plant or a small arrangement arriving at the door is the one people still mention a year afterwards. Put a phone number on that order so the driver is not knocking blind.
The service is out in the county or over the state line. Can you reach it?
+
Usually, and it helps to think in counties rather than miles. Winnebago County is comfortable throughout — Loves Park, Machesney Park, Cherry Valley, New Milford, Winnebago, Pecatonica, Durand, Rockton, Roscoe and South Beloit. Boone County reaches Belvidere and Poplar Grove; Ogle County covers Byron, Oregon and Rochelle; Stephenson County reaches Freeport; DeKalb County takes DeKalb and Sycamore. Over the state line, Beloit and Janesville are inside the ring, and Nyrie's sits on that line, which makes the Wisconsin side easier than it looks. Madison and Chicago fall outside. Anything past a 40-minute drive should be ordered the day before the service.