With the Pensacola Beach only 20 minutes away, its easy to see where this Florida flower shop gets it’s inspiration. The fantastic designers at Blooms A Million in Pensacola are passionate about involving local flavor in everything they do. “Oh My Gosh Yes!” was owner Rodney Canady’s reply when asked if he used influences of the ocean in his design work. “We use starfish, fishnet, canes, tiki torches — you name it, we do it!” Rodney says, “We have a different outlook than most other florists. We are not stuck in the more traditional aspects of our industry. Of course, we do traditional, but we don’t limit ourselves to that.”

Rodney is a Texas Master Florist, Florida Master Designer and a 3rd generation florist. He also employees another Florida Master Designer and 3rd generation florist in their shop. “We have a wealth of talent here.” Being located in a city with so many different styles and influences, diversity is this flower shops biggest asset. Rodney and his team can create fun and funky arrangements for a casual beach wedding, then turn around and design something magnificently formal for one of the very old churches in Pensacola.

Blooms A Million also encourages the arts in their city by supporting the local Pensacola Opera. They work hand-in-hand with the opera house on all of their biggest events! The most recent production was of Little Women. “For Little Women we did very traditional flowers and their colors were red and gold. I thought it would look like Christmas, but it didn’t. It really looked cool.” Rodney and his team at Blooms A Million do the flowers for the Meet The Artists parties, the presentation bouquets for the stage, and all of the centerpieces and flowers for the big dinners of the opera. “It’s always very exciting and usually happens when we have a big wedding weekend, which makes things really fun!” he jokes.

“The Pensacola Opera lets us do anything we want, but usually give us some type of criteria. For instance, when they first start up in September, they do a Jukebox Gala. We use those little jukebox accessories, and usually design in hot pink colors to go with the 50’s theme. We use a lot of Gerberas for that!”

“I think the one we designed for that was the most fun for us, was when they did a really short version of Showboat. We used a new mesh product to cover vases, funky ostrich feathers and lots and lots and lots of red roses — it was really showy. Showboat was a little bit more modern than you would think of as an opera, and it was really, really enjoyable.”

From traditional to modern, thinking outside the box is a way of life for this Pensacola florist. At Blooms A Million, “We try our best to accommodate folks and to work with them. We take ideas they see all over the place, but may not have a budget for and make it affordable to them.”

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