GAHANNA, Ohio – The 108e Rose Bowl was the best of both worlds for an Ohio florist who started working on parade floats and cheering on the Buckeyes in California.
Jody Brown-Spivey owns Expressions Floral Design Studio in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna, but spends a week a year creating in California.
“It’s kind of like the super bowl of the floral design,” Brown-Spivey said.
She’s been talking about the Rose Bowl Parade and she’s been designing the flowers that go on the floats since 2002.
“Most of the time what we do is soften or mask the places on the floats where the mechanics would show if we didn’t put bigger flowers on the float,” Brown-Spivey said.
She said that of all the factors involved, the weather plays the biggest role in the flowers on the floats. She said it goes down to the 40s at night in Pasadena which helps preserve them.
“They are covered. We do them in covered buildings… but the temperature really helps, ”Brown-Spivey said.
While working on this year’s floats, “The Bachelor,” “Wetzel’s Pretzels,” and “Reese’s University,” Brown-Spivey said helping to create these works of art had very special meaning.
“The company we worked for, we made the VFW tank and my dad was a veteran,” she said. “(We) stayed up all night with the floats, and then we went to the front row of the parade because that’s where the VFW float was… it had won an award.”
