Forget the celebrity stylists. That persnickety bunch tends to a handful of the highest-wattage Oscar contenders. There are 203 nominees this year.

The real behind-the-scenes stars leading up to the Academy Awards on March 2 are the specialists who serve everyone: the florist who delivers dozens of $600 congratulations bouquets on a single morning, the papersmith whose custom-designed invitations summon the A-list to all the best parties, the spray tanner so in demand that he offers 2 a.m. appointments to squeeze everyone in.

Without these people, Hollywood’s awards machinery would grind to a halt.

Who are the most indispensable? The crème de la crème of the cogs?

Meet Eric Buterbaugh, a floral designer who works from an underground parking garage at the Four Seasons Hotel and who says he can “spot crazy in about two minutes.” (This from a man handling the flowers for Madonna’s Oscars after-party.)

Say hello to Marc Friedland, who turned down a career in medicine to become the invitation king. (He also creates the Oscar winners’ envelopes.)

And brace yourself for Jimmy Coco, a former Chippendales dancer who improbably scampered to the top of the spray-tan heap. (He tanned Matthew McConaughey for “Magic Mike,” but maintains a strict policy about private parts: “no pits, no bits.”)

THE POWER FLOWER

“A lot of people in this town have terrible taste,” Mr. Buterbaugh said last week as he sat in his office coiling a $1,400 Jade Jagger necklace around his neck. “Half of Hollywood is fine with something half dead as long as it’s big.”

“And to those people,” he continued, with an arm flourish, “I say be gone.” He started to giggle, as if tickled by his own ridiculousness.

Mr. Buterbaugh, 50, has a way of making grand pronouncements without sounding egotistic. You can do that when you are the best of the best — “a floral visionary,” in the words of Maria Shriver, a longtime client. “He’s sending a mood, a statement, something profound that takes your breath away,” she said by telephone, adding that he is personally “witty and a little bit naughty.”

Catering to fashion houses is one of his specialties. When Valentino wanted to send Julia Roberts 20 dozen red roses — yes, 20 — after she won an Oscar in 2001 for best actress, the designer called Mr. Buterbaugh. (Ms. Roberts wore a vintage velvet and satin Valentino gown to the ceremony.) The morning after this year’s Golden Globe awards, Mr. Buterbaugh said he had 40 fashion-related orders for $600 (and up) arrangements.

“Thank you for wearing our dress, thank you for getting your client to wear our dress, please consider our dress next time,” he said. It’s effective. The stylist Rachel Zoe said, “I once received four dozen of his reflexed roses, and I literally gasped for air.”

Mr. Buterbaugh grew up in rural Oklahoma. He said he “ran from there fast and hard” and ended up working in a Versace boutique in Dallas and then in London, eventually focusing on the fashion label’s efforts to dress celebrities for red carpets.

He became a floral designer 17 years ago after “throwing together” centerpieces for a friend’s dinner party in Los Angeles and word got around. Since then, he has done once-in-a-lifetime events — Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday party at Windsor Castle stands out — and helped “a lot of famous men woo a lot of famous women,” he said.

“And, of course,” he said, anticipating my next question, “my lips are sealed.”

THE ACE OF CARDS

Inside the front door at Marc Friedland Couture Communications is a white ceramic flower pot shaped like a man’s head and filled with gnarled branches. It would probably make Mr. Buterbaugh blanch and run back to Oklahoma.

But nobody does invitations like Mr. Friedland. Or, as he prefers to call his creations, “pieces of communication art.”

“A great invitation is like a great scent,” he said, as a little dog named Barkly flitted around his feet. “A perfume that can throw you back to a moment in your life.” Prices start at $35 an invitation and rise sharply for services that include video and websites (receive a card, go online to R.S.V.P.).

“I clearly have the wrong friends,” I muttered as Mr. Friedland, 54, showed off some of his more lavish creations, including a wedding invitation composed of three petite boxes lined with fur, feathers and fake grass. “You need the 1 percent,” said a chipper Louisette Geiss, Mr. Friedland’s director of “presence and publicity.”

I visited on a busy afternoon. Mr. Friedland’s 10-person team was working on birthday invitations the size of place mats for Steve Wynn and his wife, Andrea, and ornate “keepsake books” for the family of Edgar M. Bronfman, the billionaire who died in December. Three women sat at tables assembling the Oscar envelopes.

If you can believe it, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences used to send stars striding onto the Oscars stage with envelopes bought at Staples. Mr. Friedland fixed that in 2011. Now the envelopes are made of iridescent gold paper and have red enamel interior lining.

“It’s all storytelling,” he said.

Born in Woodbridge, N.J., Mr. Friedland has a master’s degree in public health from the University of California, Los Angeles, but made a sharp life turn after taking a painting class for fun. A project involved designing greeting cards.

So, does anyone ever dare send plain old Hallmark to Mr. Friedland?

“My mother,” he said, with a grimace. “I love her anyway.”

THE ONE-TAN SHOW

Don’t sniff that this isn’t an art. What Mr. Buterbaugh does with petals and Mr. Friedland does with paper, Jim Snyder — a.k.a. Jimmy Coco — does with body paint.

Mr. McConaughey, who has been on the awards circuit with a tan that, at times, has looked Ooompa Loompa orange, is not a current client. Mr. Coco, 41, will claim Heidi Klum, the Kardashian clan and the “Entertainment Tonight” hostess Nancy O’Dell. But mostly his lips are also zipped.

“Hollywood is smoke, mirrors and spray,” he said, pausing to greet his cats, Star and Tanner. “Most clients don’t want anyone to know.” Mr. Coco, self-named in part after the song “Shimmy, Shimmy Ko-Ko-Bop,” will say that he expects to tan more than 100 people in the days before the Oscars, leading to those early time slots.

“Sometimes I feel like a hooker because I’m on call 24-7,” he said with uncontrolled laughter. One tan is $350, and he always comes to you; some clients keep him on a monthly $4,000 retainer. You might say that he is extremely serious about his work. Mr. Coco’s emails come with the signature “Sent from my TanLine.”

He grew up in Sacramento and first pursued acting and modeling, ending up on that global Chippendales tour with his twin brother. Looking for a more stable line of work in 2003, he spotted the rise of mobile spray tanning. “I love the art of it,” he said. “It’s a challenge to find the right tone.”

Mr. Coco is working on a line of self-tanning products — he may or may not have spritzed me in the face with one — but I was more interested in hearing about mistakes: What happens if somebody gets too tan the night before the Oscars?

“You run to soak in a chlorinated hot tub,” he said. “Ketchup baths work, too.”

I tried to picture Mr. McConaughey’s assistant frantically collecting McDonald’s ketchup packets.