When putting together a client's exhibit, you get used to requests for last-minute alterations. Usually it's not that big of a deal to make small adjustments, say swapping out black stools for white ones. But sometimes even the most basic eleventh-hour request can unleash chaos behind the scenes.

My team and I were recently tasked with building a booth for a client at a health-care show in Singapore. The opening hours of the expo were going to be the most important because the country's Health Minister and his entourage were set to tour the booth, so everything needed to be perfect. The setup of the custom 40-by-60-foot exhibit went off without a hitch. Then our client showed up.

We gave her the tour the night before the show opened, and she loved everything – everything except the plants. Most of them were lemongrass, a kind of green reed, which she didn't like. She asked us to find different plants that were more colorful and luxurious. In my head, I wondered where we were going to find replacements since all the mom-and-pop florists had closed for the evening. However, I told our client we'd do our best to find new greenery. She took off for the night, assuming we would deliver.

Knowing shops wouldn't open in time for us to make the changes before the Minister of Health showed up the next morning, I phoned the florist we'd worked with to see if we could get some immediate assistance. My calls kept going to voicemail. We all hopped on our phones and started looking for any home-goods stores with a garden center. As luck would have it, IKEA was open until 10 p.m., and their online offerings looked like they'd do just the trick. A couple of my team members jumped in a car and made a run. They found the in-store inventory was pretty sparse – almost desert-like – but came back with about two dozen colorful plants. We started incorporating the flowers into the mix, making it look as lush as possible. I snapped some photos and sent them to the client.

She still didn't like the environment. I tried pressing her for specifics about what she envisioned, but her answers were, at best, vague. She didn't really know what she wanted, but she was unwavering in her opinion that it just needed "more" – and we needed to make it happen.

I felt stuck. Even though Singapore is on the equator and full of flashy fauna, it wasn't as if we could just go take clippings from public spaces, especially since the local authorities are notorious for giving people fines for the mildest of infractions, such as chewing gum or spitting (literally). And we certainly weren't going to poach samples from surrounding exhibits – even though there were some very lush living walls nearby. So I called the team together and explained the situation.

I made one more call to our local florist, who finally picked up. I told him our predicament and asked if he could help us out. The best he could do was get us what we needed by midmorning, way too late to be of use. After we concluded we'd run out of available options, I told the team to head back to their hotels, and I'd let our client know that we couldn't make things work.

Feeling defeated, I sat in the hotel drafting an "I'm sorry" message to the client. To procrastinate before hitting "Send," I scrolled through pages of Google results for local florists. And then I found it! On what must have been about the 50th page of results, I found a tiny florist in Chinatown that was open until midnight, and it was only two miles away. I checked my watch and saw I had half an hour to get there. I immediately called the number, hoping that the online hours were accurate – and they were! I texted my team and asked them to meet me at the florist.

Rather than wait for a taxi during the quintessentially Singaporean rush of late-night diners and partiers, I quickstepped it to the floral shop in 85-degree weather and 90-percent humidity, arriving just minutes before midnight and drenched in sweat. My team members turned up in a car at about the same time, and I explained to the owners what we needed. We all started gathering plants from all corners of the greenhouse and working up arrangements. While none of us could brag about our green thumbs and our compositions were unlikely to win any garden shows, we did our best. About one hour and $700 later, we walked out with around 60 of the grandest flowers on God's green earth and piled them (and ourselves) into the vehicle. I looked at the tired team and told them we might was well go straight to the exhibit and get this taken care of before turning in.

We arrived back at the venue only to find it closed up tighter than a budding rose. We drove around checking every entrance with no luck. Just as I was ready to give up, I spotted one last, lone door. I gave it a tug, and it opened! I stepped into what looked like a catering kitchen and began wandering around. In the next room, I about gave some poor man a heart attack. It was the head of the venue's F&B, who by sheer luck was working late. He let our small squad in and used his security card to access the show floor – and even provided us with some sodas.

After a quick refreshment, we got to work. At about 2:30 a.m. we wrapped up and dragged our exhausted carcasses back to our hotels for a few hours of sleep. Our client showed up in the morning and absolutely loved the new arrangements. The Minister of Health rolled in with his entourage, and things went splendidly. The client probably will never know all the effort it took to have the exhibit she wanted or how lucky we were to pull it off. Someone must have mixed a four-leaf clover in with all those plants.