2026 Floralpreneur Workshop

How do you find the best floral workshop for florists?

If you’re looking for a small scale workshop with business and design training, that uses zero floral foam at a charming Vermont inn and all of your meals are included, then The Floralpreneur® Workshop is for you! To learn when doors are open CLICK HERE! I’m excited to share a short recap of our 2026 event thanks to Isora Lithgow Creations who was with us for the 4th year in a row to help capture the day.

We kicked things off for the Floralpreneur® Workshop with Color Theory Conversations and Elements and Principles of Design, followed by wearables and cake flowers with Lori Bley from The Hidden Daisy Floral. Designs feature locally grown tulips from von Trapp Flowers and all the colors of the rainbow are represented in the floral palette. Blue delphinium, purple hyacinth, magenta dianthus, red tulips, orange protea, yellow spray roses, and green hellebore were all in the lineup, just to name a few!

Every Floralpreneur® Workshop is foam free, so chicken wire, floral frogs and pin cups from Floral Genius were key to our mechanics.

For our group design project on Day 2, we decorated the entrance to The Inn at The Round Barn Farm and created colorful cake displays with delicious cakes from The Goose Chase Cake Design. All of the flowers in this grand entrance were repurposed and moved indoors for our final dinner in the barn, highlighting the ability to adapt or flip if needed.

We started to add greenery to our basic mechanics indoors, and then moved them outside to complete our set-up. Because everything is foam free, they are lightweight and easy to move. This was a group effort to complete the designs and everyone played a part to help make it come together. From moving crates of tulips, to climbing ladders and flowering the entire entrance, we pulled this off in about 45 minutes! In fact, we were all set to get a group photo before lunchtime.

For our overhead mechanics, tulips with bulbs still on were hung from wooden skewers in a simple chickenwire frame. We also featured tulips on one of our cakes with warm, analogous colors of yellow, orange, red and pink for a “tequila sunrise” vibe with a meadow of blooms in rainbow pin cup flower frogs. For our simple white cake we added a rainbow of blooms (none of which were touching the cake thanks to sculpting wire!).

After our cake photoshoot, we got back into business mode to talk about how to price installations, elaborate cake displays, or anything you haven’t made before, by using the EveryStem app! Our students are running small businesses, so the practical aspects of selling, client communication, and building your brand reputation are all important aspects that we cover in detail. Additional business sessions included Website Tips, Social Media Without Overwhelm, and 3 Keys To Booking Great Clients.

I want to say a big thank you to our sponsors for the workshop! Each of our students got to take home a pin frog, a hairpin frog, and a floral pin cup! They were really grateful for the additions to their foam free mechanics toolbox. They also left with a sleeve of recyclable vases from Flower Box and got to try an easy, magnetic boutonniere trick using Quick Clips Floral.

I want to also give a personal thanks to everyone at The Round Barn for taking such good care of us! And to my co-teacher, Lori, and my friend, Blair of Sweet Blossoms, for joining me (again!) for this special workshop. It’s such a pleasure to get to spend this time together doing what we do best!

Stay tuned for 2027 workshop dates and agenda! You can sign up to get on the notification list to learn when doors are open HERE!

By Alison Ellis

Rules and Boundaries for Your Floral Business

What guidelines do you follow in your business?

As a floral business grows and matures, certain boundaries and rules are required to maintain a profit and feel proud of the work you do.

Saying “yes” to every request is not feasible in a small business, so how do you decide when to say “no”?

Oftentimes, we learn through circumstance and bad experiences, but rules and boundaries provide a path for success and clear expectations.

First, let me clarify the difference between a boundary and a rule:

A boundary is something that you do to hold yourself accountable, however, a rule is something that you expect others to do.

Photo from The Floralpreneur® Workshop 2023 by Isora Lithgow Creations.

When you establish a rule in your business, it’s up to you to communicate that rule to customers.

This communication happens on your website, in-person conversations and e-mail correspondence as well.

How can your customers follow the rules if you don’t explain what they are?

The same is true for establishing your own boundaries!

Hold yourself accountable by setting a boundary and make it a new guideline in your process.

For example, here are a few questions you can ask to help set boundaries as a business owner:

What is your minimum order? How much do you require to go out the door with an arrangement and turn a profit?
What are your operating hours? When are you closed, away from your desk, or on vacation?
What is your profit goal so you can pay yourself and all of your business expenses?

Here are some rules your business could establish:

When final payment on a wedding or event is due and what happens if payment is late.
Whether your delivery driver leaves flowers if no one is home or calls ahead to arrange a delivery time.
Refusing to send “secret admirer” or other “anonymous sender” enclosure cards for the recipients’ safety.

Photo from The Floralpreneur® Workshop 2025 by Isora Lithgow Creations.

The boundaries you set in your business may differ from others and that’s OK.

In fact, it’s a good thing to be different!

Here’s a boundary in my home-studio business:

I stopped doing Valentine’s Day flowers about 20 years ago.

Now, this may sound bonkers bananas based on the traditional retail florist model, but there are a few really good reasons why I don’t do Valentine’s Day and most of them are related to the freezing cold temperatures and snowy conditions in Vermont!

My garage studio is unheated so I have to bring flowers up and down the stairs of my basement to work.
Every single arrangement has to be wrapped in plastic to protect from the winter cold. This is time consuming and a hassle!
There are sometimes many inches of snow the week of Valentine’s Day here in New England and I’d always worry about deliveries.

After a few years of soliciting Valentine’s Day orders, I decided this holiday hustle wasn’t for me! There are flower shops that can do this work and I can send people to them. And this gives me time to focus on the things I do better than Valentine’s Day flowers!

Now, here’s an example of a rule in my business:

Final payment is due at least 3 weeks in advance of any event so that I can order flowers. If payment is not received, flowers will not be ordered.

I communicate this rule upfront when clients are booking so there’s no confusion.
I reiterate the terms before the due date to help guide the clients.

If you want to see exactly how I explain the rules in my business, you’ll find them inside my Wedding Templates here! Including my E-mail Templates, Wedding Workflow, Proposal and Contract for Florists!

We learn by doing in business, but you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to client communication and healthy boundaries and rules. That’s why I created these templates for florists to make it easier!

If you need any help from here, let me know.

Upcoming Workshops:

You can join me for a free training this month in the Marathon Mindset Summit Feb. 23-24th!

Meet me at the Wisconsin and Upper Michigan Florist Association Annual Convention March 20-22nd!

Come to Vermont for the 2026 Floralpreneur® Workshop, April 19-21st! Seats are extremely limited.

And if you’d like to inquire about individual coaching calls, click here for details and we can set up a time to talk.

Keep doing beautiful work!

xo. -Alison Ellis

By Alison Ellis

5 Ways To Grow Your Floral Business

What are you doing to move your business forward right now?

A designer asked about any upcoming business trainings I’m offering. so to help make it easier for you to plan ahead and join me, here’s a list of 5 Ways To Grow Your Business With Me!

I have more than one LIVE business training for florists that you can take advantage of before the end of the year!

And as always, if you have any questions, please reach out anytime.

5 Ways To Grow Your Floral Business

#1. Improve your customer management and workflow to book weddings in less time with less effort.

Join me live on November 12th at 12pm Eastern/9am Pacific for 5 Steps To Book Weddings More Quickly!

It’s just $37 and you can get all the details here and I’ll see you LIVE on Wednesday, November 12th.

A replay will be available so you can watch anytime.

Sign Up Here!

#2. Create an intentional marketing and branding strategy beyond posting on Instagram!

Join me for the Marketing Workshop for Florists! This 3-day Live Virtual Training will take place December 8-10th at 12pm Eastern.

Learn how to market your business to build your brand and attract better clients without posting on social media every day.

Doors open soon….get on the waitlist here to stay in the loop!

Get on Waitlist

#3. Map out your business plan in 2 hours with this Business Plan Jumpstart and Next Level Business Planning Session!

Your business plan serves as a compass when you’re trying to find your way in your business and it’s the first place to start if you’re feeling lost, overwhelmed, or like it’s time to level-up and make a change in your current trajectory.

This workbook + video training is available on demand and you can get it right now when you sign up here for $27!

Get the Jumpstart

#4. Get answers to your specific business questions with Monthly Group Coaching Calls with Alison.

You can join me for Monthly Q&A Calls as a member of my Patreon Community for $29/month.

There is no longterm commitment–you can try it for one month and cancel anytime.

In addition to our Monthly Q&As, you’ll find a vault of lessons on business strategies, design tips and customer management strategies inside the membership.

Join on Patreon

#5. Private Coaching Calls.

If you prefer one-on-one attention for your specific situation, we can book a call to talk about your business goals or struggles.

Whether you need a mentor, a floral business coach or a sounding board, Coaching Sessions are designed to facilitate a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires you to maximize your potential (both professional and personal) and develop a plan to reach your goals.

Learn more about coaching here.

Request A Coaching Call

If you have any questions for me, reach out via email at info@realflowerbusiness.com

I’m here to provide support and point you in the right direction as you continue to grow your floral design business.

Keep doing beautiful work!

I hope to see you in one of the upcoming trainings.

xo. -Alison Ellis

By Alison Ellis

Wedding Bootcamp Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of the Wedding Bootcamp recap! As I mentioned in my last post, hosting a Floralpreneur® Workshop with a commitment to foam free designs and a balance of business strategies has been a privilege and a proud accomplishment over the last 3 years! In all of the work we’ve done, not one piece of floral foam has been used. The reason for this is simple: if we can work more sustainably as floral designers, I believe we should!

I love learning and sharing new foam free techniques because it can truly be quite simple to reduce our environmental impact by cutting out single use plastics in our work. And when I can use the same simple mechanics in more than one way, I am really winning! Here you can see how we used the floral table runners above (from Part 1 of our Wedding Bootcamp recap) to create a foam free arbor design. We just placed the designs in boxes and marched them over to the arbor with a step stool and a few floral tools.

It was a beautiful spring day here in Vermont and we enjoyed the time outside to set everything up and enjoy the views of our work! We used Holly Chapple eggs, water tubes and bind wire to attach each arrangement to the arbor–so all of these mechanics could be reused if you want. Lori and I placed the first two pieces and then everyone jumped in to add a personal touch!

One of our reusable mechanics included these water tubes on bamboo skewers that I made in a workshop with Hitomi Gilliam several years ago. Sometimes the finer details on our mechanics can transform them into something that adds value to the design! As you can see below, another foam free flower design tip I share often is to mist your flowers with water. That’s why I gifted everyone with a 3-second mister to help encourage good flower hydration.

We’re a good looking group, aren’t we?! You can hardly tell that we’d been working hard for the last few days! (Although thanks to our wonderful hosts at The Round Barn we were eating quite well, too!)

In addition to the centerpiece designs and arbor decor that we made on Day 2 of our Wedding Bootcamp, our students created hand-tied bouquets, cascade bouquets, wearable flowers and floral crowns on Day 1, which Isora Lithgow Creations captured in the images below, too! Each student used their time to explore something they’d never made before or wanted to just experiment with. Every designer’s work is unique, though we did work with recipes and price out our designs.

A tremendous thanks again to all of our students and to my co-teacher, Lori Bley of The Hidden Daisy and her fantastic assistant designer, Kollin. We’re a great team and this was a truly special experience for everyone who attended!

A successful workshop requires so many tiny details coming together and it was an absolute pleasure to get to do this with you! I’m kicking around an agenda for 2026, so let’s plan to meet up again for another memorable floral gathering at The Round Barn. I’ll see you here!

xo. -Alison Ellis

See Part 1 of Wedding Bootcamp recap here.

By Alison Ellis

Wedding Bootcamp Part 1

This year’s Floralpreneur® Workshop was a Wedding Bootcamp at The Round Barn in Waitsfield, Vermont with instructors Lori Bley and Alison Ellis. This was my third year hosting floral design students for an intimate workshop at The Round Barn and once again, it was an absolutely incredible group and I can’t wait to do it again!

Isora Lithgow Creations was there (for the 3rd time!) to document our final day of the Wedding Bootcamp and here’s a little recap and glimpse behind the scenes at our students, their beautiful work, and the foam free designs we created together. I can’t fit all of the fun into one post, so make sure you follow the links in the post for Part 2 of the recap!

Our floral palette was a mix of lavenders, yellows, whites, pinks and blues, including roses, jasmine, delphinium, tweedia, and some phenomenal tulips from von Trapp Flowers, which just happens to be located a few minutes from The Round Barn. Our students absolutely loved the tulips as they got to select whatever colors they wanted to work with, and we made tulips a highlight for our decor for the Welcome Party, which was sponsored by EveryStem! Thanks, LuAnn!!

My Floralpreneur® Workshops always include a mix of practical business training and hands-on design work. After our morning discussion on pricing, recipes and a look at how I use the EveryStem app in my own floral business, Lori taught a demonstration on a foam free elevated centerpieces. Her mechanics, recipe, pricing and finishing touches were all revealed in detail so designers can feel confident in every aspect of this piece. Lori is generous with her knowledge and answered tons of questions as well!

We then moved onto my favorite mechanics for a foam free table runner that we also transformed into a design for a ceremony! I gave some brief instructions, gave our designers the recipe they had to work with and let them go for it! Check out Part 2 of the Wedding Bootcamp recap to see how we used the same mechanics two different ways.

Before our lunch break, each designer placed their foam free table runner piece on the table to see how it all comes together. And after lunch, we used the same pieces to create a completely different design for the ceremony arbor! You can check that out in Part 2 of the Wedding Bootcamp recap here.

I want to give a big thanks to all of our students as well as our sponsors and gift contributors! EveryStem, FlowerBox, Harmony Harvest, Floral Genius, and DV Flora! We appreciate your support!

See Part 2 of Wedding Bootcamp recap here.