Flowers are the gift most of us reach for first, and a great deal of the time they are exactly right. But if you have sent three bouquets this year to three different people for three different reasons, you might be after something with a bit more of the person in it. If you are wondering what to send instead of flowers, you are usually looking for the same warmth a bouquet was meant to carry, in a form they will remember for longer.
Why so many of us look beyond the bouquet
A bouquet arriving on the doorstep says, roughly, "I am thinking of you." That is a lovely thing to say. It is also the same thing every bouquet says, from every sender, for every occasion, which is why a beautiful gesture can sometimes land more quietly than you hoped.
It was not always that way. In Victorian Britain, sending flowers was closer to sending a coded message. Floriography, the so-called language of flowers, gave individual blooms set meanings, and households kept little floral dictionaries to decode whatever turned up. The details carried real weight, right down to which hand you used to hand the bunch over. Most of us have long since lost the dictionary, so the meaning has broadened into something warm but general.
Plenty of people feel the same way, which is why so many of us go looking for something other than flowers in the first place. The complaint is rarely about the flowers themselves. It is that they are what everybody sends, which makes them easy to predict and easy to forget.
There is a useful rule of thumb buried in that, and it applies well beyond flowers: the best presents tend to be the ones the person would not have bought for themselves. A bouquet does not often pass that test, and nor does a box of chocolates. An afternoon tea, or a cake nobody has an excuse to order on an ordinary Tuesday, passes it comfortably.
When flowers are exactly the right choice
None of this is an argument against flowers. They are a beautiful gift, and for plenty of people nothing else comes close.
If the person you are sending to arranges their own stems for the pleasure of it, notices when peonies come into season, and has a proper shelf of vases rather than one dusty jug under the sink, send flowers and enjoy it. The same goes for a room that needs lifting, a partner who looks forward to the Friday bunch, or a house that is about to be full of people.
It is only really worth looking elsewhere when you are reaching for a bouquet because you cannot think what else to send. That is the moment a few minutes of thought pays off.
Three questions worth asking before you send
If you are weighing up an alternative to flowers, these three questions narrow it down quickly.
Will it be shared?
A bouquet is mostly enjoyed by one person, in one room. That is part of its charm, and sometimes it is precisely what you want.
Something edible works differently. A box on the kitchen table tends to pull people towards it. Housemates appear, children negotiate, and the gift becomes a small event rather than an object. If you are sending to a household rather than to one person, food does something flowers cannot.
It is why a box of brownies is such a dependable send. Not because brownies are better than flowers, but because a box of six gets passed around.
Does it need anything doing to it?
It is worth thinking about what the gift asks of the person receiving it. A bouquet needs scissors, a vase, fresh water every couple of days and a little tidying as the first stems go over. For someone who enjoys all that, it is a pleasure. For someone in the middle of a hectic fortnight, it is one more thing on the list.
Gifts that arrive finished ask nothing at all. A Biskie is a good example: two soft cookie-cake halves with a generous filling, ready the moment the lid comes off. A cake hamper does the same job on a larger scale, with a bit more occasion about it.
Will they be in to receive it?
Flowers need someone at home, or an obliging neighbour, or a porch that is not in full sun. If your recipient works shifts, travels a lot, or lives in a flat with a communal entrance, delivery day becomes a bit of a gamble.
Letterbox gifts and postable cakes sidestep that entirely. They go through the door and wait quite happily until somebody gets home.
Alternatives to flowers worth knowing about
People send all sorts of gifts instead of flowers. Here are the options that come up most often, and who each one tends to suit.
- Something edible. Brownies, cakes, biscuits, hampers, afternoon tea. Shareable, needs no upkeep, and leaves nothing behind to store. The most flexible option on this list, and the easiest to scale up or down.
- A plant rather than cut stems. A potted plant, herbs for a kitchen windowsill or a small olive tree gives the same green lift as a bouquet, but it is still there next year. Lovely for anyone with green fingers, and a nice way to mark a date.
- A candle or something for the home. Warmth, scent and a bit of atmosphere. A safe and generous choice when you do not know someone's taste especially well.
- A comfort box. Tea, cosy socks, bath things, a good hand cream, something sweet. Suits anyone going through it, whether that is illness, a bereavement or a bruising stretch at work.
- An experience. Afternoon tea, a supper club, tickets, a class they would never book for themselves. Turns the gift into time spent rather than an object owned.
- A keepsake. A framed photograph, something engraved, a piece of jewellery. The one option here that is still around in ten years' time.
- A donation in their name. For someone who genuinely wants nothing, giving to a cause they care about often says more than an object could.
- A subscription. Coffee, books, a magazine, flowers by the month if you would rather keep the theme. A gift that turns up again in a few weeks, once the first flush of attention has passed.
There is no single right answer here. It depends entirely on the person and the moment, which is what the next section is for.
What to send instead of flowers, occasion by occasion
The right alternative to flowers depends almost entirely on why you are sending. Here is what tends to work.
Birthdays
Flowers on a birthday are a slightly odd fit when you think about it, because the day is already built around a cake.
So the most natural swap is to send the cake itself, or a traybake, or a box of something sweet to share. Our birthday gifts collection is organised around exactly this, and we have written a fuller guide to birthday gift ideas if you would like help choosing between them.
If cake is not right for them, a birthday is also a good excuse for something with a bit of anticipation attached: tickets to something they have mentioned in passing, a class they would never book themselves, or a bottle of the thing they only drink on special occasions.
Thank you
This is where flowers are sent most often, and where a little specificity goes furthest. A thank you should make it obvious what it is for and roughly how grateful you are.
Something edible reads well because it gets shared and talked about. Our thank you gifts are put together for the neighbour who fed the cat, the colleague who covered a fortnight, and the friend who drove you to the airport at five in the morning.
If food does not suit, a potted herb for the kitchen or a bag of very good coffee works on the same principle: small, genuinely used, and clearly chosen for them.
Congratulations, new jobs and new homes
Congratulations gifts want a bit of occasion about them, and flowers on a promotion can read as oddly muted.
Something with a sense of ceremony lands better. Congratulation gifts or a proper celebration cake both say it clearly. One thing worth knowing about our cakes: the designs are exactly as shown on the site, and you can add a hand-piped message of up to 25 characters, so choosing is quicker than people expect.
Beyond that, a new job suits something for the desk, like a good notebook or a mug they will actually use. For a new home, a plant that will still be there in five years makes a lovely marker of the date.
When someone has had bad news
This is the occasion where a bouquet is most commonly sent and least often the most helpful thing. Someone dealing with illness, a bereavement or a very hard few weeks usually has more on their mind than finding a vase.
What helps here tends to be practical or comforting rather than decorative. A meal they do not have to cook. A box of small things that make the evenings easier, like tea, something soft to wear and something sweet. A donation to a cause connected to the person they have lost. Or your time, offered specifically rather than in general terms: an afternoon of childcare, a supermarket run, a lift to an appointment.
If you would like to send something, thinking of you gifts are made for exactly this. They arrive without anyone having to be at the door, and without asking the recipient to say anything they do not feel like saying.
Anniversaries and Valentine's
These are the two occasions where a bouquet is most expected, which is exactly why a little imagination goes further.
An afternoon tea shifts the gift from an object into a couple of hours spent together, which is usually the thing being celebrated anyway. Gifts for couples work on the same logic.
If you would rather mark it with something lasting, an anniversary is one of the few occasions where a keepsake really earns its place. Something engraved, or a framed print of somewhere that matters to you both, will outlive any number of bouquets.
Mother's Day
Mother's Day is probably the single occasion most worth breaking the habit on, if only because flowers are what she got last year, and the year before that.
The would-not-buy-it-for-herself test is the useful one here. Most people do not buy themselves a proper cake or an afternoon tea on an ordinary Tuesday, and our gifts for mum collection leans that way deliberately. Experiences work for the same reason, as does anything that hands her a couple of hours she was not expecting to have.
No occasion at all
Some of the best sends have no reason attached at all. No birthday, no apology, nothing to mark.
Flowers are lovely for this, and so is anything that turns up as a surprise on a Wednesday. A letterbox treat suits it particularly well, because it arrives quietly and asks nothing of anyone. The smaller the occasion, the more the gesture tends to mean.
Sending to someone who "doesn't do flowers"
A fair number of people search for what to send instead of flowers for a man, usually because they have decided a bouquet will not go down well and they are stuck for a plan B.
Plenty of men are delighted to receive flowers, so it is not a hard rule. But the instinct behind the search is a sound one: think about the actual person rather than the category they fall into. If you are stuck, food instead of flowers is a reliable answer in any direction. Gifts for him is a sensible starting point, and gifts for chocolate lovers narrows it further if you know that much.
Do not skip the message
Whatever you send, the card is the part that tends to get kept. The gift is eaten or used up. The card ends up in a drawer, sometimes for years.
Which makes the two minutes you spend on the wording well worth the effort. Be specific about why you are sending it, and mention the thing that actually happened. "Thank you for everything" is warm but general. "Thank you for sitting in that car park with me for an hour" is the one they will remember.
We have written a fuller guide to writing gift notes if you would like more on getting the wording right.
The short version
- Flowers are a lovely gift. It is only worth looking elsewhere when you are sending them because you cannot think of anything else.
- Send flowers when the person genuinely loves flowers, and send something else when you want the gift to be about them specifically.
- Ask three things: will it be shared, does it need anything doing to it, and will they be in to receive it?
- Edible gifts, plants, candles, comfort boxes, experiences, keepsakes and donations all do a job a bouquet does, in different ways.
- Match the gift to the occasion. Cake for birthdays, something practical or comforting after bad news, a bit of ceremony for congratulations.
- Mother's Day, anniversaries and Valentine's are where a bouquet is most predicted, so a little imagination goes furthest.
- Write a specific card. It outlasts everything else in the box.
Working out what to send instead of flowers really comes down to asking what the bouquet was meant to do, then choosing something that does it a little better for that particular person. If something sweet fits the moment, our cake gifts collection brings together cakes, brownies, hampers and afternoon teas for most of the occasions above, and there is a vegan cakes range if you are sending to someone who avoids dairy or eggs.