Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Scherer and Tiffany McCloskey.
Hi Sarah and Tiffany, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
We meet 5 years ago when Tiffany bought the house next door to me. We were instantly bonded by motherhood and quickly learned that we had floral design in common.
We started traveling to the central coast to freelance with my cousin Nina who owns By Request, a floral event business. After making it through distance learning with 5 children (two in kindergarten and then 1st grade!) we decided it was a good time start our own floral event business in San Diego County.
June 16th, 2021, By Design Florals was born! We thought we would be slow to start and we were ok with building the business gradually. One and half years in and we’ve done over 50 events!
Covid caused mass rescheduling of weddings and unfortunately many florists were forced to closed their doors. When the world reopened, we were bombarded with requests and our business started growing rapidly. We could have never dreamt two moms who have never owned a business would be profitable in the first year.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We haven’t had any issues getting business which is incredible! That being said because we started in June 2021 sourcing both hard goods and flowers has been a huge challenge. Shipping delays due to strikes and the lack of production of product has made us extremely resourceful. Now fuel cost are adding an extra layer to those challenges. The cost of fresh flowers goes up every day!
We’re also both learning to balance managing a household and, raising children while running a business. Neither of us truly knew how much time we would need to invest to be successful. We pride ourselves on making our clients’ vision come to life and being excellent communicators, two things have proven to take much of our time.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Weddings are our specialty! We love all kinds of floral design; we have contracted corporate events as well as making single arrangements for close friends but we LOVE creating wedding flowers. If you asked our couples, I would hope they would tell you that we listen to what their vision is and we bring it to life!
The best compliment we get over and over is how well we communicate. Putting nervous brides at ease is important to us. We’re punctual and fast! We’re a well-oiled team of two. Tiffany and I complement each other in every way possible and it truly shows in our work.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
The floral business changes from month to month. It is nearly impossible to predicate what the trends will be in 5 years. We never thought we’d see baby’s breath tend again in our lifetime but it’s have a BIG moment in the floral world. This year’s colors was supposed to be purple but we haven’t seen it yet… We’re just rolling with the punches!
Silk flowers are also picking up tractions as an option for couples. As the trend grows, we have seen a small decrease in demand.
Locally grown and organic flowers are being requested more and more. I hope to see more small local growers get into the game. We try to source from local growers whenever we can.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.designflorals.com
- Instagram: @bydesignflorals
- Facebook: By Design Florals
- Yelp: By Design Florals
Image Credits
Kelsey Muma Photo
BrittanyJenbender.com
www.cloveandkin.com
