One enchanted evening

Every Friday evening of his childhood, Dan Hathcock would accompany his father to the florist to buy a bouquet for his mother. Realizing his son had an eye for the freshest, most fragrant blooms, the elder Hathcock soon began letting his son choose the flowers.

"We'd get lilies, roses, chrysanthemums, whatever looked good," Hathcock recalls. "It was just something nice my dad wanted to do for my mom."

The beloved ritual gave Hathcock a reverence for the power of fresh flowers to transform the room, the moment, even the mood. It also launched a career: He would go on to spend decades as a florist before expanding into event planning through his Gainesville business, The Unforgettable Event.

"We started out just doing flowers, but time and time again, we were putting our centerpieces on old, tattered tablecloths. So, we started doing linens," he says. "It just kept on going from there."

Since then Hathcock, 58, has branched out to create lighting, wall and ceiling treatments, table settings, chair covers — even fragrances — for events from weddings to corporate parties.

Preparing for a recent wedding at the Golden Ocala country club, Hathcock wraps florist's tape around stephanotis, calla lilies and orchids for the bride's bouquet while his team tugs stretchy black covers over the country club's beige chairs to give the room a more formal appearance.

"Growing up in Miami, I saw Spandex used in ways God never intended," he laughs. "This the perfect use for it."

After so many years in the business, his hands — which Hathcock calls his most important tools — twist the tape and trim the blooms almost automatically as he recalls how he got his start, working as a delivery driver at age 14.

"I didn't have a license, but they didn't seem to care," he says. When he realized the floral designers made more money than delivery drivers, he took a crack at crafting bouquets, earning a spot on the design team. After graduation, he majored in English and psychology at the University of Florida, then worked for two years as a clinical examiner at Shands before deciding that world wasn't for him. He went back to what he knew: flowers.

Hathcock married his wife, Carrol, in 1973. ("The lesson? Don't ever do your own wedding.") They owned Enchanted Florist's two Gainesville locations for 25 years, but decided to leave retail in order to focus on events, which he found to be the most rewarding part of the floral trade.

"Now we're part of very special moments in people's lives," he says. "That's fun, but it's also something we take very seriously, because you don't have the opportunity to go back and redo it. With weddings, it's about a lot more than the couple getting married. A lot of times, it's also a family reunion for people who haven't seen each other in a long time."

Packed in Hathcock's southwest Gainesville warehouse are the tools that he and his team use to transform a room, from feathers and crystal strands to LED lights and towering crystal vases. He's been known to cover a reception hall's walls in fabric and make chandeliers out of upturned, flower-filled parasols, changing a ballroom from generic to breathtaking in the course of a few hours.

One of the most important ingredients in the transformation is fabric.

"Fabrics are critical because they help drive the feeling of a reception. It can make a room look edgy and contemporary or soft, romantic and elegant," he says.

Lighting is one of his favorite tools, from candelabras to color washes that can project different hues or patterns on blank walls.

"Sometimes the lighting in reception halls is flat and bland-looking," he says. "Washing the walls with color gives the room a whole different feeling."

Corporate events, benefits, anniversary parties and bar mitzvahs round out Hathcock's slate of weddings, sometimes three events a weekend. (As he wrapped lily stems in Ocala, another team prepared for a wedding at Sweetwater Branch Inn; Hathcock himself would head to South Florida the next day to do an event for the Florida Grand Opera.)

There are the inevitable crises: When political tensions shut down Thailand's airports in November, the orchid market was all but closed, leaving a bride whose centerpieces and bouquets featured orchids high and dry. (Hathcock found an alternate supplier from Costa Rica.) Then there was the time a refrigerator truck carrying thousands of dollars worth of flowers broke down en route from the Miami airport. (Hathcock rented another truck and drove down to rescue them.)

"When problems happen, some people freak out and yell at someone else. My general approach is, sit back, take a deep breath and figure out what's next. There's always a solution. You just have to find it."

He hasn't always been so calm. His own wedding, at the Japanese Gardens in Miami, would have concluded just before the gathering rainstorm let loose — if the minister hadn't forgotten the marriage license and had to turn around and retrieve it from his office. Thirty years later, Hathcock and his wife renewed their vows, but he never forgot how disappointed he was when the weather sabotaged their big day. And while he hasn't yet devised a way to control the weather, he starts monitoring it three days in advance of his events.

While meteorological challenges are the worst part of the job, Hathcock says the best part is watching the bride's reaction when she sees the reception hall for the first time.

"Sometimes they flip out and cry because they're so excited," he says.

Back at Golden Ocala, Karon Mixson, who has worked with Hathcock for 25 years, switches on LED lights in a pedestal beneath the centerpieces that illuminate the vases from beneath. They're preparing for a 150-person wedding, but Hathcock also does smaller affairs. With smaller budgets, the challenge is obvious: Maximum impact for minimum outlay. But for larger events, "there are more vendors to coordinate. You're more like the ringleader in a circus," he says.

The circus doesn't end when the guests go home. Tonight's event concludes at 11 p.m.; Hathcock's crew will begin pulling the hall apart when the last guests have dispersed half an hour later. The night crew will load all of the fabrics, vases, shepherd's hooks, even the arbor where the bride and groom exchange vows, into a moving truck for the trip back to the warehouse. They'll be on the road by 1:30 a.m., unloading the truck the next day.

From what he calls "Cinderella sparkle" to South Beach chic, Hathcock has had a chance to play with nearly every theme that engages his imagination, but one still eludes him: "I'm waiting for a destination wedding in a tropical setting where I can play with a combination of fire and water," he says. "I just need to find a bride who doesn't mind her centerpieces being on fire."