Welcome to my very first post! I have been so excited to rebuild my website and do a little rebranding, so I hope you’ll stick with me and follow along in what I am titling “Journal.” I don’t love the word “blog.” It just seems a little “blah,” and it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I wanted something more thoughtful, more meaningful and more personal.
When I thought of what I wanted to convey in these posts, I knew that I wanted every reader to get a sense of me personally because I think that is important when you are paying for a service to know WHO you are paying. I want you to be able to see what I’m all about so you can trust that I will do my very best on your big day.
I knew that the posts would be mostly floral and wedding related, but also sometimes not. I knew that they’d be written in a casual and straightforward style, and get down to the nitty gritty on all the things without the fluff.
It really did just seem like it was meant to be a journal; a place where my thoughts get written down and are not necessarily concentrated on just one thing. So, here we are! I’ll be honest that I don’t know how often they will come, or what the content of each will be exactly, but I can guarantee they will be heartfelt, informational, silly, honest or any combination of those (plus maybe a few more adjectives that I missed).
So why the rebrand?
The short answer is that my website needed a refresh. Even just being 2 years old, it looked outdated and I am now taking BLOOM in a different direction than what my website portrayed.
When I started BLOOM in 2019, I had focused on daily deliveries and flower subscriptions. I had the time at that point. My kids were in school, and I would arrange and deliver while they were in school, and be back in time to put my mom hat back on and help with afternoon homework and sports. At the time, I didn’t want to do many weddings because we had weekend sports and all sorts of other weekend activities.
Then came COVID. I hate to still talk about it at all (because it has honestly gotten way too much press), but the fact remains that it changed things.
My husband and I decided it would be best to keep our kids home during all the chaos and homeschool them full time. I was choosing curriculum, making lesson plans, teaching, and being a mom (like, all at the same time). Oh, and trying to stay in Instagram’s algorithm – that in itself is a full time job! The daily deliveries and subscriptions were too much in combination with the new family changes.
So we shifted.
I started accepting weddings and cutting back daily deliveries. The kids weekend sports dwindled, and I got a few more wedding referrals from past clients. I was so flattered that people were coming my way organically, and all my brides were awesome. I loved creating beautiful and memorable pieces that made lasting impressions. As I was taking more and more weddings, my family was able to join me for wedding work, which I really like. I mean, not only are they free labor, but I kinda like them too 🙂
So here we are, 2022. I am now only doing weddings and events, so my website needed a refresh. It was very much geared toward retail and now it needs to function differently. I still have a place to shop online for when I do the occasional flash sale, or during workshop season, but for the most part it needs to now be a place with contact information and forms, a gallery, and some concepts from my brain spilled out for all to read. I am so happy with how everything has come out.
As an aside, I had been conjuring up this rebrand for quite some time. I had met Vanessa Amalong of Vanessa Lynne Photography a while back on an elopement in Forest Hill and we just hit it off. We like to bounce ideas off of eachother on how that dang Instagram algorithm works, and how old it makes us both feel to try and keep up with it. Turns out, she is in a little transition of her own and wanted to do more branding photography, so I was THRILLED when she was available and offered to do my photos. She is an amazing photographer and took the thoughts right out of my head on what I wanted these photos to be!
That’s all for now. I am thinking next I will cover how BLOOM came to be and what led me here in the first place, but something else could pop in my brain before then too, so stay tuned!
If you aren’t already on my email list (if you have purchased from me before, you are on the list). Use the contact form to sign right up and get first access to workshops and flash sales, and new concepts posts alerts (but don’t worry, it won’t be all the time. I promise, no spam)!