Our Story
A little bit about how we got our start with Lily Floral Designs!
From Lily:
I really needed a job in college, so I walked into the flower shop in Pittsburg, KS and they said "we have to hire you, your name is a flower!". I started off as a delivery driver, bucket washer, floor sweeper and slowly moved my way up. I didn't have a clear path during school and decided to move to Kansas City to figure it out.
Betsy & I met when we worked at a large established florist here in Kansas City in 2012. In 2017, I was ready to move onto something else and got a job in the corporate world. A few months into that, I realized "oh my god, what have I done. I miss flowers so much." I posted on my personal facebook and asked if anyone would want me to do their wedding flowers. In 2017, I had 5 weddings, In 2018 I had 25 and in 2019 I had 50 weddings. This is all out of my studio apartment after my corporate job. In the meantime, Betsy had moved to Charleston, SC. She worked for a large florist there as their lead buyer and lead floral designer. Charleston is a big deal for destination weddings so this was huge for her. At the end of 2019 she called me and was like "Yo, do you wanna do this for real??" and I said "OMG YES PLEASE I'M DROWNING".
So.. Betsy moved back and became my 50/50 business partner. We leased a studio in January 2020. We spent 3 months renovating our space and quit our full time jobs. Then in March 2020 everything shut down - all events postponed or cancelled. Our April 2020 Open House was cancelled. It was honestly terrifying. We had to reschedule all of our events and do major pivoting of what our business plan was. We started doing monthly flower subscriptions, "daily" deliveries for birthdays, anniversaries, funerals, etc, We also held a few virtual workshops. A lot of our brides opted for an elopement style or "micro-weddings". We made it work!
In 2021, it was like the flood gates had opened. Not only were we doing all of our rescheduled 2020 events but all of our 2021 events too & all of the daily orders we had taken on as well. Out of our 800 square foot studio, Betsy & I completed 250 events in 2021. At the end of 2021, we upgraded our studio and are now located in Columbus Park. We have almost 4x the space now with so much more room for rentals, more space to bring in freelance design help & more space to grow our daily side of the business.
Our current studio is located in Columbus Park - located directly between the very popular Swoon Bakery and Cafe Cà Phê's new brick & mortar. We're so excited to be a part of such a historic KC neighborhood with such deep Kansas City roots. Our block has flowers, coffee, cookies and will soon add an ice cream shop and a Mexican restaurant like are you kidding me??? A DREAM.
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