Education and Business Training for Floral Designers.
I just did my first wedding of 2020 yesterday and shared my #foamfreefloral mechanics on Instagram. Click through the pics below to see the before, during and after on this foam free wedding arbor including 2 time lapse videos showing you the greening and the flowering! [Read more…]
Debra and I sat down a few weeks ago, here in Vermont, while we were both attending and teaching at The Floral Field Trip. It was such an honor be invited to be a guest and I hope you’ll take a some time out of your day to have a listen!
From DebraPrinzing.com:
“I’ve known Alison mostly through social media over the years and I’ve watched how her business of teaching and education has really grown. We also share a fun connection through Florists’ Review, where I’m a contributing editor and Alison is a regular business columnist.
I couldn’t skip the opportunity to record an in-person conversation with Alison to share with you. Lately, I’ve been in conversation with many of you about the term “Sustainable,” and in addition to having sustainable practices in our businesses, I strongly believe the term also applies to ensuring florist and flower farmers are SUSTAINED by their businesses; that they are paid a living wage and compensated fairly for the beauty they bring to the world.
Alison is one of the people helping make that happen, especially as she coaches others how to build profitability into their flowers…”
Here are a few photos from our experience on The Floral Field Trip in September…all photo credits to Taken By Sarah.
We made a foam free (#nofloralfoam) arbor with custom structures that Kelly had custom made by a welder, and added Holly Chapple pillows from Syndicate Sales as well as short black floral buckets and a few Eco Fresh Bouquet wraps for our design of all locally grown Vermont flowers and foliage from Mountain Flower Farm.
Kelly and Mary Kate picked a perfect time of year for a photoshoot in Vermont. We were lucky to have a real life couple for our models for the day….how beautiful was this day by the way?!
Knoll Farm was an absolutely awesome location. Check out their website here to get a sense of what this unique retreat is all about. They provided 3 meals a day for us and each one was fantastic!
For our farewell dinner we cut down our bouquets from the photoshoot to serve as centerpieces. Including flowers from The Floral Reserve, Mountain Flower Farm, Understory Farm, and Longfield Gardens.
This business retreat was a great opportunity to learn more about sourcing American Grown Flowers (the basis of the Slow Flowers movement!) and it was not only educational, but truly inspiring to connect with likeminded floral professionals. The future of floristry will be “locally sourced flowers” and more eco-friendly design mechanics….especially if we, the florists, do our part to help make it that way!
It was a pleasure to be invited to teach on The Floral Field Trip and a special bonus, and a genuine honor, that I got to connect with Debra for an interview on her #slowflowerspodcast, too!
I mean, is it “really that bad” for the environment that you should join the #nofloralfoam movement?…
The truth is, it’s complicated! Florists say, “but Oasis is biodegradable!”….but there are some very specific conditions required for foam to biodegrade in a landfill, and most landfills don’t meet those environmental conditions!….and even the company itself doesn’t purport to be “eco-friendly now” so much as they’re letting us know they’re “still working on it”….
I started my wedding season on June 1st and while I was cleaning out my studio in prep for the big start, I found a partial box of floral foam and I thought to myself, “What am I going to do with this?….” So I hopped into my Facebook group to share my thoughts on how to handle the floral foam in my possession!
Click to watch:
Here are a few foam free designs from the weekend that I shared on Instagram (make sure to scroll the images!):
And here’s a look as we were breaking down the next day (scroll again!):
The moral of the story is simple: Do your best! Be mindful. Be eco-friendly as much as you can in your life AND in your business!
The floral industry is not “eco-friendly” as a general rule, but there’s nothing that says we shouldn’t try!
As always, keep doing beautiful work, floralpreneur®!
With love from me to you,
Alison
