Love Romance flowers in Springfield

Three to five days out, and earlier if a specific design matters to you. Four shops serve a metro near half a million, so February 14 is the single date when a late order meets a hard ceiling rather than a long queue. It also falls in the worst stretch of Ozarks weather: freezing rain can hold routes with a day's notice, and the shops will tell you rather than promise an afternoon they cannot drive. Accept a wide delivery window, and if the 14th is a workday, a workplace delivery beats a porch where the flowers sit unattended until evening.

The listed arrangements in this selection start at $71.50. Delivery charges, taxes and optional extras are confirmed for the selected florist and recipient before payment.

Tell us at checkout and give us a fallback contact, because our default is to call the recipient when a door goes unanswered — which is exactly the phone call you do not want made. A roommate, a neighbor, a coworker or a leasing-office attendant all work. For a workplace surprise, name the building and the floor: Springfield's large employers route deliveries through a central reception desk and then call the recipient down, so the arrangement is visible to the whole office by the time it reaches them, which is either the point or the problem depending on the relationship.

Yes, and a lot of this market is exactly that — students, new graduates and people who moved away and left someone here. Order from anywhere, enter the recipient's Springfield ZIP or street address, and the nearest of the four shops takes it. Watch the clock, because the cutoff is Central time: from the East Coast a lunch-break order is already close to the wire, and from the West Coast you are ordering before lunch. You get delivery confirmation by email and your card message is hand-written at no charge, which matters more than stem count when you are not in the room. If the recipient's schedule is unpredictable, give us a window and a phone number instead of guessing.