Source: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

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With the wedding season around the corner, our fellow Bengalis are now on the lookout for the best deals available in terms of venue, food and most importantly, décor. Flowers are an essential part of the planning process as they symbolise the success of all festive occasions. The holud hall, wedding venue, the car, the bride and even the guests are decorated with the best flowers the season has to offer. While in past, we would make do with local blooms such as marigolds, roses and Rajanigandha, over the years, tastes and preferences have evolved with increasing global influence. Nowadays, a weddings isn't complete unless it looks like a Bollywood movie set and for that, even our flower market needs foreign back-up.
It is the common perception however that this automatically means a sky-high budget for décor at high-end places in Gulshan and Banani. Fortunately, the largest wholesale market in the country, located at the Shahbagh junction, has caught up with the modern trends, and is now able to provide similar services at lower rates.
This 25-year-old open air market is a wonderful mix of the Old and New Dhaka. The brightly lit flower stalls, that stay open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, are now importing foreign flowers and using the internet to copy newer designs of décor. “I have been running my shop for 14 years,” says Mohammad Aminul Islam, the proprietor of Shukti Flower Shop. “Lately, we have purchased a laptop and use it to find all kinds of designs on the web to cater to our customers' needs. I supply to weddings, birthday parties, corporate events-you name it,” he tells us. “We have a catalogue with traditional designs and modern ones and can copy them exactly and they are just as good as the ones from places like Ikebana, Pushponir etc.”
Like most of the shops in Shahbagh, Islam gets his flowers from different districts across the country, such as Chuadanga, Manikganj, Savaar etc. “We also get foreign flowers which are popular these days such as orchids, gerberas, Chinese roses, Thai roses, chrysanthemums etc which are imported by our suppliers in Gulshan and sold in bulk to us,” he informs us, “We use these in our new designs and charge less than half of what high end stores do these days. Also, unlike them you don't have to book us 6 months in advance. Customers come to us a week before the event and we can get everything ready for them within that time.”
The Shahbagh flower shops are also the main suppliers for peddlers all over the city and can work with a wide range of budgets starting from Tk 5000 and going up to ten lakhs, and therefore suitable for customers from all economical backgrounds. “Our customers can come to us or call us and we will go to them, whenever they need us,” says Islam. “I believe we are popular because we are accessible to everyone and open to any new ideas you can think of,” he concludes.