Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Mai.
Hi Leah, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I immigrated to the United States from Vietnam as a teenager. The United States is a place of such incredible opportunity but opportunity only materializes into a livable wage as the result of incredibly hard work. I love nature and gardening and design and I have always wanted to have my own business. So my floral design business combines all of my passions but it has also helped me realize a major life goal. I have always wanted to have a home and it seemed so completely out of reach, particularly in a place as expensive as San Diego. After saving for many years, and working as hard as possible in my floral business, I was able to buy a home along with my siblings. Having a home for my family and a garden of flowers and vegetables has been an incredible blessing and source of joy for me.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, it has not been a smooth road but I’m grateful for all of it, every bump and unexpected pothole. My leap into floral design actually only materialized as the result of an unexpected exit, during Covid, from my previous profession as a tailor. You have an ability to work so hard when you are pursuing a passion and that is certainly the case for me in the context of floral design. I don’t think you can be successful in this business without having an underlying passion for it….there will be a lot of potholes. My journey has involved deciding to plant flowers in those potholes lol.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I work with clients that have a range of budgets and design tastes and I find that this customer diversity enhances the challenge and the professional satisfaction for me. I’m constantly facing new challenges and that feeds a wellspring of new ideas and experiments. In that light I would definitely say that I am known for an exceptionally detail oriented effort to completely understand and capture a bride’s vision. I certainly have my own stylistic and design preferences but it’s about bringing the clients vision to life. So I try to put those inherent preferences of mine to the side and really do whatever it takes to focus so intensely on putting together a vision that not only captures what my client imagined but really exceeds their expectations. Well done floral design has a magically transformative impact upon an event space. It creates an energy that brings such happiness to people and I get tremendous joy from bringing that to life.
How do you think about luck?
What role has luck played? I think luck always ends up treating and mistreating you in equal proportion and the question ends up being, what do you do about it? On the positive side I have been incredibly fortunate to have amazing professional colleagues who have helped create so many event opportunities for me and have helped capture my work and share it with the world. Floral design involves so much hard physical labor, to a degree that I think very few people understand because all they see is a clean finished product. I have such a fantastic team and the common trait among us is a very strong work ethic. That work ethic enables us to push through from design through delivery and the exhausting clean up process that follows every event. On the unlucky side there are countless instances of battling surprise flower shortages, reacting to difficult last minute venue constraints, and lots and lots of unexpected stress.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.Leahmaifloraldesigns.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maifloraldesign?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leah.mai.39?mibextid=wwXIfr
Image Credits
@sloanphoto_
@carmensantorelliphoto
@mirellecarmichaelphoto
