Vintage Floral started as a flower shop and grew a formalwear department onto the side of it. That is the practical reason to know about this place: in a town of 2,164 people, one storefront on Main Street can put a prom dress in your hands, rent the tuxedo, and design the corsage to match it. Sisters Christy Graves and Sherry Hollis opened the doors on September 6, 2011, in the building that had been the original Bailey Chevrolet location, with Hollis’s daughter Shelby Gray involved from the start. Tuxedo rental was the first thing they added, in the first year. By the shop’s tenth anniversary, Graves told the Howell County News it amounted to five businesses under one roof — flowers, home decor, tuxes, formal wear, and casual clothing and accessories.
All three women grew up in Willow Springs and went to the high school on West Fourth Street. The shop was named the Willow Springs Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year in 2012, and Graves sits on the board of Main Street Willow Springs.
What is on the racks
Amarra, Dave & Johnny and Jovani all list this store on their official retailer locators. The shop’s own online store also runs collections for Ellie Wilde, Lucci Lu and Primavera, and gowns there are posted one at a time by size — a specific dress in a specific size, not a style with a size run behind it. Prices on those listings have run from about $299 to $559, with shorter Amelia Couture styles at $149 to $299. The online formalwear listing is thin outside of season, so what is hanging in the store in January is not what the website shows in August. Call before driving in.
The florist side asks for at least a week’s notice on prom corsages, boutonnieres and floral hairpieces, and it does custom work from a photo of the dress. If you buy the dress there, the color match is a conversation at the same counter rather than a phone call to a second shop.
Who is within driving distance
Willow Springs sits at the junction of US 60 and US 63 in Howell County, southern Missouri, at the point the two highways run together toward Cabool. The high school enrolls about 370 students across four grades, which puts the local prom crowd in the dozens, not the hundreds. The rest of the trade area arrives on those same two highways.
| From | Route | Approximate distance |
|---|---|---|
| Cabool | US 60/63 east | 15 miles |
| Mountain View | US 60 east | 16 miles |
| Mountain Grove | US 60 west | 22 miles |
| West Plains | US 63 south | 22 miles |
| Summersville | Route 17 / US 60 | 25 miles |
West Plains is the nearest town with other formalwear options, including a bridal and formal shop and a tuxedo rental business. Springfield, and mall-scale dress shopping, is roughly 90 miles west on US 60. That gap is the case for the Main Street stop: a twenty-minute drive against a three-hour round trip.
Hours and contact
Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; closed Sunday. The phone is (417) 469-0466, and it reaches both the flower shop and the boutique. Parking is on-street along Main.