Grateful For You
The pandemic sure has it own set of problems for the wedding and event industry that relies so heavily on large gatherings. I am grateful for our couples who managed it all with grace either scaling back or pushing to next season. There is no handbook for this. There is no precedent. Thank you for being understanding and kind. We seriously have the best clients!
In a season of pivoting and challenges we still found some time for creativity and joy. Creating keeps me sane if it were not for the small events and styled shoots I probably would have broken. Busy hands for me is a calm mind.
We are grateful for The Good Day shop and Green Life Trading company that hosted our CSA while our market changed. We appreciate these strong badass women who are there to help their community. When our farmers market was not the same they allowed our product to still be seen.
Huge thank you to the market managers from the Dane County Farmers market who pivioted the largest producer only market in the US into a model that worked for the farmers and kept people safe! Those ladies were truly pioneers!
We made it through and its because of all of you. Those who bought or sent flowers for mothers day, who had flowers delivered to your porch, those who made the trip to our farm, who sought us out on the What’s Good app for farmer’s market pick up. Those who scaled back or moved their weddings and did not cancel, those still booking for next season. And all our florists who bought local this season when they could. You all are magic. You helped sustain a small business.
Our business is in the second generation so we wont go down that easy. Banks are willing to give us loans, credit card companies are willing to offer business cards etc….thankfully we didnt need those things. However, these are things that new small businesses often do not have available to them We got lucky, as a farm there was grant money and PPL loans for us. We were able to keep a few people working and managed to survive paying ourselves very little.
Im so thankful I had my mom and sister this season. My sister helped prep for markets, weddings, bunch wholesale and harvested for dried flowers. My mom helped with weddings and childcare. I lost both my very talented and amazing badass designers by the time the season started as they need year round jobs and shorter commutes. And I just didn’t hire anyone else because you cant be 6 feet apart. But I missed them everyday.
This season as bonkers as it was, was also amazing market research into what are some new things we can do to better serve you all moving forward. Im super excited about out mothers day flower delivery success and we will continue that next spring! Apparently Hans is super good at delivery logistics and can map a route efficiently and flawlessly and that’s amazing. I get to hand him a pile of invoices and he can take that info and make it work so well. This along with the success of our porch deliveries also showed us that our CSA might be best as a bouquet subscription with delivery and now that delivery portion is no longer a big hurdle we didn’t have the time to figure out.
We also found what we can manage with less staff. This has been something we have been struggling with for a long time. Labor always crushed any profit we made. There was never anything left to put back into the business. Being forced to run on a skeleton crew let us see what that looks like. Farming for profit has everything to do with scale and labor and we are one step closer to figuring that out. Profit isn’t everything, we figure as long as everyone got paid and operating costs are covered we are doing well. However, I dream of a bigger studio where I can hold workshops, that means some profit is needed to expand. Why do I share all this?…I guess because social media can easily fool you to think people have it all or its easy. Its never easy and there are always improvements to be made.
To our wedding clients and market customers, my cousin, my Mom, my Sister, Matt, Annah, Anne, and Anna, Gracie and Andrew, Carol, Sarah and Sasha, Dominique, Deanna, Shivani, Wood Violet MKE, Daffodil Parker, Blooms by Brandi, Briar loft, Bird & Bumble, Generations, Fellys, Metcalfs, and every other shop or person that ordered from us, Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!!!
Lisa and Hans
