For Morisset florist Carmen Wells and her staff, that can mean tears in the shop one minute, and laughter the next.

Take the recent customer, an elderly gent, who walked into Ms Wells’ Bella Floral Boutique, on Dora Street, and ordered 50 red roses.

“He was celebrating his 50^th wedding anniversary and wanted the roses laid out on the back seat of the old car he’d driven when he took his now-wife on their very first date,” senior florist Joanne Roberts said.

“On that first date he could only afford to take her out for a pie and peas for dinner. But 50 years later he’d restored the car and was getting ready to take her out to dinner to celebrate and, of course, they were going to have pies and peas again, just like they did on that first date.”

Ms Wells said roses were often the flower of choice when people wanted to make big statements.

“I remember a man who came in to buy roses to spell out the message ‘Will you marry me?’ on the beach,” she said.

Florists are also the go-to shop for forgetful family members.

“It’s amazing how many people ring up at 10 minutes to 5 and say I’ve forgotten my mum’s birthday, can you deliver some flowers to her?” Ms Wells said.

There are sad moments, too. Take the family from Western Australia who occasionally phone the shop.

“There’s a family from WA who ring to ask us if we can take some flowers to their relative’s grave site at Martinsville,” Ms Wells said.

“So we went out there, cleaned up the grave, placed the flowers there and took a photo that we sent to the family to show them.”

It’s customer service like that which has led to Bella Floral Boutique being named as a finalist in the Service Excellence category for florists in the 2016 Fresh Awards, run by Sydney Markets.

It’s the third year the Morisset team has been nominated for the awards.

Ms Wells said her approach to customer service was simple: “It’s just about treating people the way you’d like to be treated if you were shopping.”

She said it helped having staff who loved their work, who had their own distinctive flower arranging styles, and who genuinely enjoyed helping customers.

“We sometimes end up in tears with our customers, but most of the time we’re laughing and having jokes.”

Ms Wells said the jovial mood told customers that the boutique was a relaxed and welcoming place.

Ms Robers said the reasons people buy flowers were many and varied.

“Every day is different and we never know what we’re going to get. We can get births, deaths and marriages,” she said.

And some customers just make everyone smile.

“We had a gentleman who was in hospital and he ordered some flowers to be sent home to his dog, who was also sick,” Ms Roberts said.

To cap it off, the customer asked the boutique staff to include a card with the flowers, and a message wishing the dog a speedy recovery.

Funerals can be especially challenging for a florist.

“We do funerals, and sometimes the customer will ask for the flowers to be in the colour of the person’s favourite football team,” Ms Roberts said.

That can be difficult when browns or blues are required.

So the innovative Morisset florists will resort to spray-painting the flowers to save the day.

“We often get very specific requests like that and we don’t mind fussing because we know it’s important to them that we get it right,” Ms Wells said.

Winners of the awards will be announced at the inaugural Fresh Awards event at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Sydney, on Wednesday, July 20.

Chris Bath will MC the night and 2016 Eurovision runner-up Dami Im will perform.

Ms Wells conceded Bella Floral Boutique was again up against three of the state’s best and biggest florists in their category.

But she isn’t fazed.

“We’re going in a limo to Sydney and we get to frock up!” she said.

Sydney Markets, by the way, receives fresh produce and flowers from about 20,000 growers Australia-wide, with the wholesale operations supplying fresh fruit and vegetables to more than two-thirds of the Australian population.