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Trites Flower Shop |
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Written by Rebecca Schwarz
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A Meeting Place for Locals
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| The staff and management at Trites Flower Shop, Fredericton, N.B. (clockwise from bottom): Lynda Lee Bryden and her Mom, Vera Bryden – The sales team. Barb Munn, Wade Bryden and Teresa Riley – The designers. |
Over 30 years of experience and three generations of the Bryden family are behind the success of Trites Flower Shop in Fredericton, N.B., where customers have become family, too. In a way, Trites Flower Shop resembles the local diner on a television show: a meeting place where generations of locals can catch up with the staff, or pop into the cold room to watch the designers in action.
“One lady, we did two weddings for her,” says Wade Bryden, head designer and general manager, and proud son of founder Duncan. “That’s what’s cool _ we do their proms, weddings, babies, the babies’ weddings.”
I ask Wade to sum up the Trites approach.
“We do things the old school way,” he says. Old school is a favourite saying of this graduate of the floral design program at Humber College in Toronto. He graduated at the top of his class and has a penchant for the cutting edge design.
His father, Duncan Bryden, bought the flower shop in downtown Fredericton in the early 1970s. Before Trites, Duncan sold candles and greeting cards, although he had studied floral design at agricultural college in Nova Scotia. Among Wade’s treasures is an old photo of his dad learning to arrange with fellow students.
Mr. Trites had been running Trites Flower Shop since after the Second World War when Duncan bought it. Of the store’s nine employees, one-quarter are Brydens. Wade’s mother Vera and his sister take the orders, then Wade and his three designers get to work. Wade says the emphasis is on “sympathy work,” and customers are often encouraged to visit the cold room while their order is in progress.
“We put a flower in their hand,” said Wade, who likes to show his customers just how he and his staff “throw a bouquet together.”
“It sets their mind at ease,” he adds.
Wade was 10 years old when he got his start as a runner in his father’s shop, but one decisive moment made him realize he wanted to be a designer:
“I was twelve. For my birthday my father was supposed to get me a football.” He had, but he had left it at the shop, so he brought Wade in after the store had closed to retrieve his present.
“It was Easter,” Wade remembers. “And the shop was brimming with colour. The designers and my father had set up a motorcycle with plants and flowers in the front window, as an elaborate floral design.”
The seed, Wade says, had been planted. From then on he wanted to help out wherever he could. Now Wade’s 18-year-old son is driving the Trites truck, while his brother provides back-up delivery.
 Wade, as head designer, has his own delivery truck, and a courier for emergencies. He is particularly proud of the store’s inventory mix.
“There’s a lot,” he says. “Fresh, permanent – we’re well-stocked and good to go.”
Wade and his staff treat walk-in and wire customers equally, treating wire orders “like our best customers. I know not everyone feels that way.” The store receives orders from FTD, Teleflora, and Bloomnet.
“You’re only as strong as your weakest link,” he adds, insisting that it is his staff and their attention to customer care that makes the difference. The Bryden family treats every order “like it’s going out to our family,” following up on wire orders with a phone call or e-mail, or sending a bud vase as a thank-you after a family funeral.
That also means the client, not the designer, is the final judge of any floral creation.
“If somebody wants something for a wedding that just doesn’t work, we show them other possibilities,” but the final choice rests with the client. Wade tries to accommodate all style preferences from traditional to contemporary, reflecting his belief that the “important aspect of the floral business is being a well-rounded designer, appreciating beauty in different styles. You’re only as good as your last order.”
Another important factor, Wade has never turned away a customer, no matter the hour. His father was known to open the shop in the middle of the night for late-night impulse buyers, according to Vera Bryden: “if a young gentleman, perhaps a bit intoxicated, needed a rose for a special lady, even in the middle of the night Duncan would get up and go down to the shop and get it for him.”
At other businesses, “you see the person running to put the “closed” sign and lock the door . . . boy, we never would do that,” says Wade, who carries on his dad’s open-door philosophy. Wade is often in the store until late, finishing the day’s arrangements – he’s not a fan of stockpiling orders.
Clients include the Red Cross and United Way, and the shop regularly donates floral arrangements. Readers of local paper The Daily Gleaner have awarded Trites the Reader’s Choice award five years in a row. In addition to his customers, Wade also values his “good, solid, trusting relationships” with wholesalers.
Wade credits his father’s hard work for the store’s success. Today, the Brydens own the 2,000-square-foot building.
“He built this business up from nothing, working 60-hour weeks, no retirement.”
Duncan Bryden recently passed away, and numerous customers attended the services for the man they called “the flower man.” His son Wade Bryden still sees himself as “a kid, trying to impress my father, making the prettiest arrangements.”
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