It caught her off guard when Araceli Castellón, founder and owner of Victoria’s Garden in Anaheim, received the first DM. The request: a ramo buchón. She had heard of the term but didn’t know much about it. So she proceeded to go down the #ramobuchon rabbit hole on Tiktok for inspiration.
“My first impression was: Wow, that is big!” Castellón tells L.A. TACO. With close to 27 years in the floral design industry, she thought she had seen it all, but even she was impressed with the grandness of the gesture that her client wanted to give his wife.
The buchón aesthetic—made famous on social media in recent years and exemplified by the pioneering buchona babe, Jenny 69—can be categorized as a fusion of Sinaloan-meets-gaudy-Rodeo-Drive: opulent, flashy, part chunti, part chic. European luxury unapologetically synergized with the indoor swap meet. And although buchonismo can border the boundary of female objectification, it really is more rancho than raunch, with traditional courting rituals that can be traced back to Mesoamerican cultures.
Traditionally, flowers have long been a medium of courtship for the people in modern-day Mexico, and those practices have been passed down through generations. In the 11th book of the Florentine Codex, written by Franciscan Friar Bernardino de Sahagún in the 1500s, he described the sacredness of flowers for the Aztecs. He documented their practice of arranging them into garlands and using them to seduce others.
More recently, abuelitas can recall a time when receiving a flower en el jardín of their Mexican hometown from a young suitor was common practice. For those who grew up watching Mexican television shows of the last century, they may recall the iconic Profesor Jirafales from El Chavo del Ocho, who showed up on the daily with a bouquet of roses for Doña Florinda, who undoubtedly gave him more than a tazita de café in gratitude for the gesture. And to this day, rose vendors can be found in restaurants or at concerts in both Mexico and Mexican-American communities in the United States, who offer a plastic-wrapped single flower for men to buy for their female companions.
“Mexican men spend a lot of money on flowers,” says Kristine Cao, owner of OC Beverly Flowers in Santa Ana, California. “They prefer very colorful flowers, especially red. Red roses.” Cao’s luxury floral design business serves a multicultural clientele, and each demographic has a unique preference for floral design. Although she had not heard of the ramo buchón, she does offer a popular 100 roses wrap arrangement for $530, which is quite similar in look.
Social media has undoubtedly contributed to the upped romance-via-flowers game. No longer is flower-giving a private matter. It is now also a public performance seen as an extension of a man’s upward social mobility. It has become as much about their improved lot in life as it is about the love in their life. And the latest trend in floral-giving rituals is centered around the Instagram-worthy and TikTok-trending ramo buchón.
Downtown Los Angeles has long been a destination for Latino floral trends. For example, not too long ago, it seemed like every floral shop in the area was selling the ramo bichon, an arrangement in the shape of a Bichon dog made out of white mums or carnations, inspired by a different type of boujee bitch.
But these days, the trend is more significant and more boujee. “Oh, yeah, people have been calling and asking for these a lot. It’s what’s popular right now,” shared Evelyn from Nikky’s Flowers near The Original Los Angeles Flower Market. “We make ramos buchones in all sizes, and we even recently made one with 600 roses.”
Ramo buchones average $300 but easily go up to the thousands. The number of roses determines the pricing and is considered part of their status. “Never make assumptions about what someone is willing to pay,” says Castellón. “Many men don’t hold back when they are trying to conquer the woman in their life. Or get themselves out of the dog house,” she chuckled.
The prevalence of boujee bouquets on Instagram took off several years with the particular styling of tightly packed roses in a box attributed to Los Angeles-based La Fleur Bouquets. Their arrangements quickly found popularity with the likes of the Kardashians and their periphery. Founder Hagar Elaziz built the successful business, whose bouquets of persevered flowers can go for close to $2,000 on organic Instagram marketing alone. Soon after the launch in 2015, the modern and lush arrangements began flooding the feeds of both celebrities and influencers, thus dawning the new floral trend and making the posting of said arrangements an equally important ritual.
Although inspired by the Le Fleur trend, the specific aesthetics of the ramo buchón can’t simply be described as boujee. The buchón is distinguishable by the precision of the dome-shaped bouquet of roses, tightly packed without any greenery and adorned with rhinestones, gold butterflies, and sometimes a mini crown. Typically they are wrapped in fancy paper, sometimes donning designer-inspired logos similar to those of Chanel, Louis Vuitton, or Gucci.
How the ramo is presented is also important, commonly an activity documented on social media by both the giver and the recipient. The giver usually posts a photo of the ramo in the passenger seat of their car, in route to being delivered; the recipient usually posts a photo of themselves posing with their backside to the camera and the large floral arrangement over their shoulder, strategically showcasing the curves of both.
Ramo buchones average $300 but quickly go up to the thousands. The number of roses determines the pricing and is considered part of their status. “Never make assumptions about what someone is willing to pay,” says Castellón. “Many men don’t hold back when trying to conquer the woman in their life. Or get themselves out of the dog house,” she chuckled.
The client who ordered the ramo buchón reached out to her a few days afterward to thank her. He confirmed that his wife loved the arrangement. He also said several of his friends had asked for the contact information to procure their own ramo buchón for their ladies. And when Castellón posted an Instagram Reel of the ramo with La Buchona song by Chuy Lizárraga playing along, several women immediately commented, “I want one!”
