When Maree Piacente and Kevin Magrin canceled their wedding last May due to a COVID-19 lockdown, they hoped a year postponement would be a safe bet.
Important points:
- The Melbourne couple canceled their wedding twice, with events scheduled one year apart
- After the breaker lockout was announced, they sold their wedding flowers from their car
- Florists and other small businesses are struggling to adapt to a different COVID-19 lockdown
But two days before their second wedding, due that Saturday, the new breaker lockdown for Victoria was announced in response to a growing outbreak, which meant they had to cancel again.
Some things could be postponed, but the couple’s florist had already bought their flowers – an assortment of peonies, roses, carnations and snapdragons.
The couple bought the flowers at cost, and Maree’s car was packed with the fresh stems.
She decided they should try selling the grapes out of their trunk to passing cars before Victoria’s new restrictions went into effect.
“We didn’t want all these flowers to be wasted,” she said.
LIVE UPDATES: Check out our blog for the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemicMaree Piacente and Kevin Magrin have been engaged since June 2018 and hope to tie the knot by the end of 2021. (
Delivered: Pleasant tides
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Kind words from other Melburnians
Maree, 27, and Kevin, 29, kept a few bundles for home but sold the rest for $ 10 a bundle or whatever people had in their cars as loose change.
“I thought I was going to feel worse, but honestly I was delighted to see how many people love to buy flowers for their wives or girlfriends or partners,” said Maree.
“They have their second life and I am sure that they will sit in people’s homes and make people happy for the time being.”
Strangers stopped and took bouquets of flowers from the trunk of Maree Piacente and Kevin Magrin’s car after they had to cancel their wedding a second time due to COVID-19 restrictions. (
Delivered: Pleasant tides
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Kevin said the people who quit were very sympathetic to the couple’s situation.
“There were a lot of nice words,” he said.
The couple from Pascoe Vale, north Melbourne, said they knew they were in the same boat as many other people negatively affected by the lockdown.
But they said they understood why the restrictions were imposed on the advice of health experts.
“We have to do what we have to do to nip this COVID stuff in the bud,” Maree said.
The couple, who got engaged in June 2018, are hoping to tie the knot by the end of this year.
But this Saturday, instead of exchanging vows, Maree and Kevin plan to have a bottle of champagne and spend a quiet night on the couch together.
Event cancellations make florists restless
Jess Heinjus runs a florist named Ivy and Eve in Port Melbourne who mainly handles large events.
Jess Heinjus, who runs a separate florist in Port Melbourne called Ivy and Eve, quickly had to adjust to the cancellation of two major events after Victoria’s lockdown was announced. (
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Ms. Heinjus and her employees had already bought and prepared fresh flowers for two major events this weekend before the closure was announced.
One of the events was a grand wedding and the other was for an art event related to the National Gallery of Victoria.
“We had to go on as if they were going ahead before we knew what was happening,” she said.
“We went to the flower market early in the morning, we conditioned all the flowers.”
These flowers had been collected from the market and conditioned by staff at Ivy and Eve in preparation for a big wedding due to take place this weekend.
Delivered: ivy and eve
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Art event organizers continued to take orders in separate bouquets while the flowers are stored and cared for for the wedding, in the hopes that most of them will last until the wedding is postponed in a fortnight.
Ms. Heinjus said her company had lost up to 70 percent of its sales over the course of the pandemic, but was determined to hold onto her three employees.
The federal government’s JobKeeper payment was vital to the company while it was still available.
Ms. Heinjus said she was confident that support for businesses affected by Victoria’s new lockdown, which the state government is considering, will be announced to cushion the effects of the coming days and weeks.
“We don’t know if this will be a week or a few weeks, but we have also booked events for the next four to six weeks that the organizers are getting nervous about,” she said.
“It’s so daunting for customers too when they get this close to what’s going on,” she said.
