My Story

My first experience of floristry was at 13 when I spent a week cleaning buckets and stripping stems in a little shop in Chiswick, I was mesmerised by the florists, with their ability to turn beautiful things in to works of magic, it was like watching the sweet pumpkin become a gilded carriage, oh what can be done with a few branches a bit of foam and a touch of pixie dust! The idea that I could ever be that kind of artist was beyond me and I decided I better settle and be a famous actress because realistic goals were very much in fashion in the preteen scene.

Many years went by in which I peered through windows of shops not at shoes like my friends but at the various shaped leaves of eucalyptus and millions of flowers who’s names I did not know. I made daisy chains in the garden and occasionally I emptied my purse on to a florist’s muddy counter and filled my sink with leaves. But I was not a florist and I had no plans to be.

Ten years after I had played florist for a week and completely forgetting I had ever done so, I decided on a whim to follow in the footsteps of my great grandmother and learn the art of flowers. She had trained in Paris and I had been told stories of the strange contraptions she used to use when arranging flowers for a dinner party. I wasn’t going to be a florist but I definitely wanted to be able to throw a good dinner party! So I decided to search for a place to learn & it just so happened that the little florist just around the corner was not so little at all, downstairs they had school of art, it was hidden below the tiny shop and was one of the windows I’d spent many days peering through, that is where I would go. The Covent Garden Academy of Flowers.

The Academy was nestled in the heart of the city surrounded by theatres and galleries and the palatial Royal Opera House. The hotels on their list of commissions were places I’d only ever heard of but I’d heard of them all and watching the tall vases go out each week with their intended destination a famous landmark filled the little students that we were with glittery excitement. Our teachers were wonderful and warm and true artist. We learned a million tiny things and somehow along the way in the many months we were there we all became artists too, some of my class are florists now, others went on to work with silks and others into fashion and one even crafts edible roses for wedding cakes.

The first time I wired a small ivy leaf and a little thistle and built a crown I knew I never wanted to do anything else. Floristry was like going home and with each day this world opened up around me and I thanked my stage fright and lack of talent for keeping me from becoming an Oscar winner and instead leading me to this.

After I worked through my time at the Academy I spent a while floating through freelance and one day stumbled across a scruffy little website and emailed them immediately. Steph invited me to her house for a cup of tea and I set off that morning to meet her and start my adventure with Charity Florists. Steph’s house was beautiful , the kind of place that feels so open and inviting that it could be a fictional country house in the South of France, but is in fact hidden in sunny Fulham. We talked for no more than 20 minutes and she penciled me in for a wedding 2 weeks later. She was wonderful and I fell completely in awe of her, I still am. The first wedding we did together was at London Rowing Club and it was a busy morning with endless buckets of flowers and hot cups of coffee, chattering florists and a river side wedding being built. As I left with hands stained from ivy and eucalyptus, that now lay draping from the mantle pieces, I had found my floristry field and it was beautiful. The world of weddings and events and the flowers that filled them was waiting to be explored and as I wandered down the road, my mind like a pinterest board, I had just begun the most exciting chapter and I hope it never ends.

I have now done many many weddings and events along that stretch of the river and in other places in the city, and venturing across the country and into North Wales where my own little business has found it’s home. My days are now spent exploring flower markets and beautiful venues, planting a garden of flowers and talking ribbons, vases and flowers in hair; bringing to life the wonderful ideas people dream. And sometimes they are even spent channeling my great grandmother, filling a space with flowers and throwing a good dinner party.