What we care about

01

Why voice

A voice carries feelings that get lost when they are written down: a laugh, a slightly shy pause, a “thank you” said while searching for the right words. Voice Bouquet exists to deliver those moments as they are.

To keep it that way, we have made a few decisions.

• —Recipients do not see transcripts. We want them to listen to the voices themselves, and a misheard name or inside joke shown on screen can spoil a gift.
• —A bouquet contains only voices that people recorded themselves. We do not add AI-generated or text-to-speech voices.
• —We never use recordings to train AI.

02

Helping people say something real

Ask people to “record a quick message,” and you tend to get the usual “Happy birthday!” and “Thanks for everything.” Those are lovely, but what stays with someone is often a specific moment you shared.

That is why Voice Bouquet has conversation starters. The organizer can add a few things they would like everyone to talk about.

• —The organizer can pick up to three from suggestions for the occasion, such as a birthday or a retirement, or write their own. They can also skip this step.
• —It is not a questionnaire everyone must answer. Contributors can talk about one of the prompts or something else entirely.
• —Nobody needs to match anyone else’s tone, length, or topic. A bouquet of different stories shows the recipient how each person sees them in a way a row of similar messages cannot.
• —We suggest about 30 seconds to a minute, up to 2 minutes. We invite contributors to finish with a few words spoken directly to the recipient.

03

How we deliver it

We want to give the recipient time to listen to everyone, not things to manage.

• —There are no hearts or likes on individual messages. A bouquet is not a place to compare or score the voices people sent.
• —The recipient can play every message back to back, from first to last. Afterward, they can record a thank-you in their own voice for everyone.
• —People who contributed can listen to everyone else’s messages once the bouquet is complete.
• —A bouquet is made by everyone who added their voice. The organizer’s message sits alongside everyone else’s.

04

When a voice gift is not the best fit

A voice gift is not always the best choice. Depending on what you want, we would suggest another format or a combination.

• —If you want something to keep and display. Voices are for listening, so you cannot hang them on a wall. Turn the bouquet’s link into a QR code and print it on a card, or give printed photos alongside it, so the recipient gets something to hold as well as the voices.
• —If you want to give a long letter they can reread, a written group card is a better fit.
• —If you want people to be seen as well as heard, a video message is a better fit.

• Compare written, voice, and video group gifts →

05

Why we built Voice Bouquet

Voice Bouquet was created by Hiroshige Umino, Representative Director of ACK Craft K.K. in Kyoto and founder of Qiita, a knowledge-sharing community for software engineers in Japan. It started with a T-shirt his colleagues covered in handwritten messages when he left Qiita.

• Read the full story on our About page →