Ordering Funeral Flowers When You Can't Attend
from another city, another country, another continent.

The most common difficult enquiry

A close relative has died in London. You live in New York, Sydney, Lagos, Madrid. The flight is too expensive, the timing impossible, the children at school. You cannot be there for the service — but you must mark it. The card and the donation will go in the post. The flowers need a florist on the ground.

This is one of the most common briefs our florists handle: ordering funeral flowers from abroad, for a London service we will attend on the family's behalf. Below is what we tell first-time international clients, condensed.

What you need to know before you order

To compose and deliver a tribute, our florists need a small set of facts. Have these to hand when you write to us:

• The service venue. Funeral home, church, crematorium or cemetery — name and full address. The funeral director will know if you do not.
• The funeral director's name and contact. The florist coordinates timing and placement directly with them, not with you. This is by far the most reliable way to ensure the tribute arrives on time and is placed correctly.
• The date and time of the service. Tributes arrive 30–60 minutes before. We coordinate with the funeral director on the exact arrival window.
• The deceased's full name and any unusual spelling. So we hand-write the card correctly.
• Your relationship to the deceased. So we can advise on appropriate piece and palette.
• The card message and your sign-off. A short message — five to ten words — and the names of the senders.
• Any preferences from the family. If the family has asked for a specific palette, a particular bloom, "no flowers in the cortège", a charity in lieu — tell us.

What we do once we have the brief

Our florists treat international briefs as a single coordinated commission. Once you have placed the order, the workflow is:

1. We confirm the brief in writing within the hour, including a description of the proposed piece (size, palette, blooms) and the timing.
2. We contact the funeral director to confirm the placement protocol — particularly important for crematorium services where pieces are removed before the committal.
3. The piece is composed on the morning of the service, in our network's local studio nearest the venue.
4. It is delivered by hand by the florist who composed it, in unbranded packaging, 30–60 minutes before the service.
5. We send a discreet photograph from the venue within an hour of delivery, so you know the tribute arrived and is placed.
6. If you wish, we report back after the service with a brief note on how the tribute presented and where it was placed during the chapel arrangement.

Timing across time zones

If you are six or more hours behind London, the practical question is whether you can place the order in time. Our florists need a minimum of 24 hours for most pieces, 48 hours for casket work or letter tributes. For shorter notice — a same-day commission for a service later that day — we will say yes only if the venue is within central London and the piece is straightforward (a wreath in white roses, a hand-tied bouquet). For complex bespoke pieces composed at short notice, we usually have to decline.

The simplest workflow for international clients is to email us the brief in your evening — we receive it overnight, confirm by your morning, and the piece is composed and delivered while you sleep. By the time you wake, the photograph from the venue is in your inbox.

Languages and communication

Our florist team operates in English, French, Italian and Spanish, with translators available on request for ten further languages. If you prefer to brief in your own language, write to us; we will reply in kind. The card message itself can be in any language — we hand-write it in the script you specify, including non-Latin scripts (Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, Cyrillic) where the family is from a tradition that uses them.

If you are unsure which language the family will prefer the card in, write the card in two languages, one above the other on the front of the card. We have done this for many international families and it reads as natural.

Payment from abroad

We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay and Google Pay from any country. There is no surcharge for international cards. Bank transfers are available for trade accounts (funeral directors abroad organising for British families) but not necessary for individual orders.

Currencies: we charge in GBP. Your card issuer will convert at their standard rate. The amount on the website is the amount you pay; there are no hidden fees, no surcharges and no markup added at checkout.

What to do if you also want to send flowers to the family home

This is a common request from international family. The choreography is:

• One piece for the service — the principal tribute, placed at the venue.
• One hand-tied bouquet for the family home — sent in the days after the service, when the family has returned and the formal moment has passed.

We hold both pieces as a single brief and time the second delivery for two or three days after the funeral. The palette is coordinated; the cards are written together. This is the kind of multi-stage commission that benefits from a single point of contact, which is what our florists provide.

What to do if you cannot get hold of the funeral director

If the family has not yet appointed a funeral director, or you cannot reach them, our florists can hold the brief and coordinate later. Send us what you know — the deceased's name, the city, your relationship — and we will follow up with the family or with the obituary service to identify the funeral director once they are appointed. This adds a day or two to the workflow but is entirely common with sudden deaths.

The photograph from the venue

Of all the things we offer to international families, the photograph from the venue is the one most often mentioned in thank-you notes. It is a single discreet image of the tribute in place — the wreath beside the casket, the spray on the chapel altar, the basket at the chapel of rest — sent to your inbox within an hour of delivery. It is the small, unfussy proof that the gesture has arrived. For a family member half a world away, that photograph is sometimes the closest they will come to being there.

Ask for it when you place the order. We do not send it unless you do — it can feel intrusive without permission. But for an international family who cannot attend, it is almost always the right thing to ask for.

One last principle

The tribute matters. The card matters. The timing matters. But what matters most, for someone ordering from abroad, is having a single florist who holds the entire brief from first conversation to placement at the venue. We do this every week, for families in every corner of the world. A short exchange by email is almost always enough to settle the question of what to send and how. Write to us, and we will take it from there.