If the trailer for the upcoming movie, “Love Happens," mentioned in last week’s E-Brief,
has you wondering how actress Jennifer Aniston learned to insert a stem
of dendrobium orchid into an arrangement like a “real florist,” you can
rest assured she learned from a pro.

Floral industry veteran Marie Ackerman, AAF, AIFD, PFCI, was on hand
throughout the filming to ensure that Aniston and her co-star Judy
Greer depicted florists as authentically as possible, right down to how
they held their floral knives.


Universal Pictures approached Teleflora representatives, who tapped
Ackerman, vice president of education, to school the cast. She spent a
few hours in private training sessions with each actress “talking
through” what it’s like to be a florist, and then she put them to work.
“They cleaned a bunch of roses,” Ackerman said. (Yes, with thorns!)
“They used real florist tools … and we spent time talking about using
the right tool for the right job.” Each made a vase arrangement and,
Ackerman said, “walked their final arrangement around to the crew
proudly (saying), ‘See what I made?’”


Aniston and Greer were trained throughout the filming of the movie.
“Whenever there was something floral being done, I was there to watch
the details and offer advice,” Ackerman said.


To make sure the flower shop set was spot-on, Ackerman spent about
a week talking “floral things” with the producers by phone and another
eight days on set before filming, outfitting Eloise’s Garden with
counter materials, posters, signs, directories, and statements. During
that time she also consulted with the director, executive producers,
head visual artist, set designers and prop master, sourcing supplies
they couldn’t find and making suggestions for “floral improvements” to
the script. (“Some were taken, some were not,” she said.) And, of
course, she designed all of the flowers for the movie.


The hard work paid off for Ackerman — a rookie to movie set
consulting — when, after several days of working with the crew to stage
the flower shop set, Aniston entered “her shop” before filming began.
“(She) smiled and said, ‘Wow, beautiful. This looks like a shop I would
own,’” Ackerman recalled. “I think she really got the personal pride we
all have in our businesses and how they are an expression of our
creativity.”


Personal pride, minus the concerns about profitability for her
fictional flower shop: There’s a scene in the movie in which Aniston’s
character, Eloise, creates an arrangement while jamming on her iPod.
“The scene will end up being about 15 to 20 seconds,” Ackerman said,
“but it took about seven hours to film.”