And that decision is to have Ritual Floral become solely a wedding & event floral studio, putting all online orders, subscriptions, pickups, deliveries, etc. on pause for the time being.
This is something I thought I should do for months now, but didn't want to. Not because I was worried about missing out on the money or anything like that, but because I was sad to miss out on the people.
There are definitely some frustrating aspects to delivering flowers. Like when nobody's home but it's freeeeezing out, so you don't want to leave the flowers out to die. Or weird addresses where you can't tell if you're at the correct house or not. Once I actually did leave the flowers at the wrong house because the addresses were so similar (seriously, why is there a 1st Street and a 1st Place right next to each other?!) and had to make a whole new order. Live and learn!
But there is no better feeling than delivering a bouquet of flowers to someone and absolutely making their day. The excitement is contagious. If I'm personally having a bad day, somebody's excitement over a flower delivery turns my mood right around, and I end up smiling to myself like a weirdo for the whole drive home.
Of course I've also helped people sympathize with a loss, or honor a life, through flowers. And I've helped people celebrate important milestones like sober anniversaries or pregnancies after a long struggle to conceive. Sometimes I think that my job isn't that important. "It's just flowers." Until I remind myself of all of the reasons people send each other flowers. It's a simple but universal gesture that we humans use to express any and every emotion for so many different life events.
So that's why it's been tough to decide to let go of the daily flower orders.
I've been fortunate in that the wedding side of things has really taken off for me, (and I'm so thankful to family, friends, fellow vendors, and of course my clients who have supported me to make that a reality.)
Ritual Floral is just me, and I plan to keep it (mostly) that way. And I just can't support fulfilling last minute online orders while also working on a big wedding or event. In the past, I would just turn off orders on big event weeks. But as my calendar continues to fill up, I'd probably end up having to be closed for orders most of the wedding season anyway.
And to be honest, the expectation we humans all generally share of being able to order flowers last minute just does not jive well with my brain. I try to compete with other florists and let folks order as last minute as I can handle (the night before was my cut off), but my brain hates it. I'm a planner, so it's really hard for me to keep my week days open for orders, not knowing whether I'll have a crazy busy day or absolutely nothing. The nature of wedding & event work, having everything on a calendar ahead of time, is just better for my brain. I've decided to accept that and stop fighting it!
Thus the decision to focus solely on weddings and events going forward.
Well, I shouldn't say solely. More like mostly. I still plan to:
- Sell flowers via preorder for holidays such as Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.
- Participate in local vendor markets and pop ups
- Stock local businesses like H. Berg Ceramics, Altered State, and On&On Milwaukee with grab n go dried flowers.
- Collab on other larger, preplanned flower things. Like workshops or photoshoots, things like that.
I may also bring back online ordering in the future, but at a smaller capacity. This might look like dried flowers only, or fresh flowers but with higher minimums or more advanced notice or designer's choice only, something like that. I need to figure out what makes sense.
I'll be making some updates around the site soon to better represent my change in focus, so I apologize if it's weird or messy in the mean time. Something about taking 2 weeks off for the holidays made me realize that this was the right decision to make, and the right time to make it. So I didn't have a whole new website ready or anything, haha.
And that's that!
Thank you to everyone who's supported me this far. I'm excited to see what 2025 brings for Ritual Floral with a more focused direction.
