53BloombergBusinessweek April 20, 2020
Aspeopleeverywherecanceltheirweddingsand
bigstemorders,theripplesarespreadingto
DutchauctionhallsandtherosefieldsofKenya
By Zeke Faux, David Herbling,
and Ruben MunstermanPhotographs by Sem Langendijk,
Brian Otieno, and Bryan Thomas
WHEN MEREDITH DEAN PICTURED HER MAY WEDDING,
she imagined her guests walking through a meadow of wild-
flowers. The bridesmaids would carry bouquets, the grooms-
men would wear boutonnieres, and a circle of flowers would
surround Dean and her beau as they exchanged vows. A wall
of flowers would serve as a backdrop for photos. Vases of
buds would run down the center of long dining tables in a
barn in New York’s Catskills. Still more flowers would hang
abovethedancefloor.
Deanhadchosenthedatesospringbloomswouldbeat
theirpeak:brightyellowdaffodils,fragrantpurplehyacinth,
puffypeonies,hydrangea, and, of course, roses. She hadn’t
set a budget yet, leaving it to her floral designer to decide how
many stems to order. “It would be a lot,” she says.
As reports of U.S. Covid-19 cases mounted in early March,
Dean, a 29-year-old who works in development at the Museum
of Modern Art in Manhattan, checked the news obsessively.
When authorities cautioned against holding events for more
than 250 guests, her colleagues told her not to worry—the wed-
ding was still months off. And then on March 15, the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said Americans should
avoid gathering in groups larger than 50 for the next eight
weeks. Dean’s wedding was seven weeks away, and she was
expecting about 100 guests.
There wasn’t much for her and her fiancé, David Bradley,
a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company, to dis-
cuss. Neither of them would put friends and family at risk.
The next day, her first working from home in New Jersey,
Dean called her wedding planners and told them she wanted
to postpone the celebration. She was calm on the call, but
when she hung up, she sobbed. “I’m not ashamed of having
feelings,” she says.
A delayed wedding is hardly a disaster during a pandemic
that’skillingthousandsofpeoplea day,asDeanisquickto
note.ButingreenhousesfromthehighlandsofEcuadorand
ColombiatotheshoresofKenya’sLakeNaivasha,growers
were already stacking roses in compost heaps. Within days
of the lockdown orders in the U.S. and Europe, as eventsLaura Clare at her shop
in Bernardsville, N.J.
KENYA: PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN OTIENO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK; NEW JERSEY: PHOTOGRAPH BY BRYAN THOMAS FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK