April Hunter’s husband, Kevin, has given her flowers on the same day every month for the past 12 years.
As in, every month for 12 years.
That’s 144 bunches of flowers. Or, if you consider the average bouquet contains 12 flowers, that’s roughly 1,728 flowers.
And that doesn’t include Valentine’s Day or other special occasions, which, by the way, he also honors with flowers.
“He’s just awesome like that,” his wife said.
It all started one night over a game of Bunco before the Ballentine couple — both USC students who met while working in Columbia — were married.
An older woman at the “ladies game night” began telling April about her husband of 20 years. Each month, on the couple’s wedding date, the husband gave his wife flowers. “That was just amazing to me,” April said.
April was so impressed she repeated the story to Kevin, not thinking he’d take the tale of that 20-year love story to heart.
Almost a year later, April and Kevin were married in an outdoor ceremony on Sept. 25 at Lake Murray. And exactly one month later, to the day, the first bouquet showed up.
“I was so surprised,” April said. “I had no idea he’d even remembered.”
And every month since, on or around the 25th, Kevin has managed to send his wife flowers.
“It started as a sort of ‘Let me see if I can make this happen,’” Kevin said. “Throughout the years I’ve been able to keep it going.”
There have been roses, carnations and calla lilies, and even plants for the couple’s yard. They’ve been as simple as a bouquet picked up from the local grocery for a few dollars to the elegant — a dozen roses purchased from the florist.
But no matter what the cost, the flowers, Kevin said, have been a way for the couple to stay connected, especially in the early years when both were busy building businesses of their own, and Kevin traveled a lot.
“I’ve ordered from Tokyo, from Spain, and just about every state in the U.S.,” said Kevin, who has set up the monthly flower delivery as an appointment in Outlook.
He even managed to produce a bouquet when the couple found themselves “out in the middle of nowhere” while vacationing in Australia.
“But he’s always been like that,” April said. “Even when I was in school he would leave a rose or a little note on my car window or leave flowers on my door step.”
And while the flowers have won big points with his wife, they haven’t always gone over so well with his buddies.
“They’ve said, ‘Dude, you’re making us look bad,’” Kevin said, laughing. “But secretly they think it’s cool. Privately, they’ve all said, ‘Man, that’s awesome.’”
For April, now a busy mother of two, the flowers have meant the world to her, though she said she never wants to take Kevin or the flowers for granted.
“He has made it a priority to remember and that means a lot to me,” she said.
For Kevin, who recently got his son, Grant, in the act when he had the 5-year-old make the monthly deliver — s a bouquet of tiny daisies — it’s all about setting an example.
“I hope someday he does it for the special someone in his life,” Kevin said.
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