We are finally stepping through the doors of a place that I have wanted to visit for a while, and it's just down the street.

It's fairly new.

We're heading to Bouquet of Grandeur, my new friend Trudy.

Thank you so much for having us here today, because this space is just beautiful.

When you walk into it, you can smell the florals.

And this is all about giving the people just a beautiful piece of florals that they can take home with them.

Yes, absolutely.

And tell us about the business itself, because I see you have some stuff that's grab and go here too.

Okay.

So what else do you guys offer here?

A bouquet of Granger?

Yep.

We always offer, grab and go and a couple different price points.

We have a small and a large wrapped bouquet.

Okay.

And then we always have a small and a large arranged bouquet.

And so those are always available for customers to come in.

We don't need any call ahead, but we always have something.

Yes.

Yeah.

Last minute does not bother us because I'm one of those last minute people.

I'm like, oh, shoot, I forgot something.

So you could just stop in here and grab it.

Yeah, absolutely.

We always have them ready.

So these are the small ones.

These are our small ones.

Yes.

And we say small in quotes because they're fairly decent sized and they're very intricate.

Yeah.

I mean, that's really what the beauty of it is and what you guys do here.

Yes.

So everything that we create is designers choice, meaning that our floral designers, myself included, and we have a lead designer as well.

Get to sort of take their artistic interpretation of the flowers that are feeling seasonal and in the moment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So you're not just grabbing a pile of tulips, correct?

Yes.

This is something that you want people to see when they come over.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And then these ones are your large ones.

Yep.

So these are our large, again, these are.

Thank you.

These are always made, fresh daily.

We always have something different.

And we try to have them feeling as kind of seasonal as we can for these.

Okay.

And then you also have kind of more of the.

I'm heading to a concert and I need to give that floral arrangement to my loved one.

Yep, yep.

These are wrapped bouquets are perfect, for gifting really easily.

And then when you get them home, you can actually arrange them in the vase as you want them to be, too.

So if you have a vase already, these are perfect for you.

If you want something that's that's vast and ready to go, the arranged are perfect.

Now, a lot of people aren't really good at arranging themselves, right.

So talk to us about that.

What goes into designing this?

I know, don't give away all your secrets.

What?

You gotta help us out a little bit, right?

Yeah.

So we curate our color palettes weekly.

We try to bring in, sort of seasonally inspired color palettes.

So you're seeing a lot of our spring colors right now, a lot of our pastels.

And then as we get into summer, you'll see some more bright and some more fun things.

So we curate our color palettes.

We always bring in some really pretty garden roses.

These are one of our favorites.

My wedding bouquet was these.

It's really.

Yeah.

They're beautiful.

That wasn't like the ivory roses.

Beautiful.

Yes.

And then our designers will put them together.

Yeah, but but we really just try to go with what we have on hand and sort of, be inspired by the flowers that we have.

And that's really the inspiration behind this, because, yes, this is not where you guys started this talk and bring it all back.

Yeah.

So I got my start as a flower grower.

I was sowing seeds kind of shortly after Covid, just growing a lot of flowers.

We have a small boutique flower farm.

So I was growing extra flowers.

I had too many.

So what do I do with these?

To kind of support my flower growing?

Have it.

So I started selling, at farmer's markets, and eventually connected with florists who wanted locally grown flowers.

And I was able to source and then sort of began training on weddings.

So I do have another, flower business called Cherry Road Florals.

Yeah.

And Cherry Road Florals does full service, luxury elevated weddings.

Okay.

And that's before they do that.

Yeah.

And it's it's so much fun.

I absolutely love it.

But I also had the desire to be able to help people with everyday flower needs.

Exactly.

Yes.

And so that's where this came into play.

Where it's the holiday flowers, it's birthdays, it's pick me up.

Everything like that.

We're able to supply here.

I don't need wedding florals every day or every week.

Yes, we do do wedding flowers here.

And we're, we're getting a lot of great clients reaching out, and we're, we're excited to be doing some, not not necessarily smaller weddings, but we do offer that.

So if someone wants to get a bridal bouquet, a bridesmaid bouquet, like a one on centerpieces, you know, getting married at the park or something, they just need a yes.

Yes, we can help them with that.

Yes.

Okay, great.

Now this is heading into the space.

Yes.

I mean, this is amazing.

This is really from scratch for you guys.

Yeah.

So when I first came into this space, I had a dirt floor, my walls that you'll see were not there.

And I had the chance to sort of design the space from scratch in terms of what I wanted as far as the layout and the look of, of the, shop.

And we're right here in State Road 23.

But I love how open this space is.

In fact, your whole entire space is open.

But this is more of your retail side.

You want to talk to us about that because there's a lot of women entrepreneurship built into this too, right?

Yes.

And so obviously I am this is a women owned business.

My husband is very involved.

My family is involved, but I am the owner.

And so I wanted to bring in a lot of women owned and small business gifts into our shop.

So we have our candles are our most popular item, and those are sourced.

There's a there's a maker in Mishawaka that we work with a lot for those, but we really try to work with, Indiana based small businesses when we can.

And then we mix in with other.

Yeah.

Excuse me, I have to I have to point this out because this is really cool.

Yeah.

That and that's annotation your your different pottery.

Yes.

Cups around her mugs.

Those are really pretty too.

Yeah.

So the idea with the gifts too was that aren't those adorable.

Yes, I love those.

The idea with this too is if someone needs a gift for someone and they don't know what to get them, like they can walk into our shop and they can find something that wraps up the work.

Yes, and we can have them pick something, or they can pick it on their own, because sometimes you want the flowers, and sometimes you need a little gift to go extra with it.

You have to have cards too, of course.

Okay.

Horror story.

That's important too.

Yeah.

Oh, look at these.

And a lot of these are we have some that are made by local artists, but you know.

Yes.

Like able to source a lot of cards and yes, that's very cute.

Now, I know you guys have a lot going on here already in the store.

We do, but there's stuff going on in that.

Can we check it out?

Right.

Yes, actually, let's go look, because this is where the magic happens.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

So we're in the workshop.

Is this what you call.

Yeah, sure.

Love it.

But what's great about this space is that you guys can actually host workshops.

Yes.

So one of the things I really wanted to provide were workshops for our community.

So floral design workshops, is, is kind of the basis of what we do back here.

We offer workshops every month.

We have a different selection of workshops.

So we do.

Yep.

So like seasonally inspired again.

So we have Easter workshops coming up.

A lot of spring focused workshops right now in the shop.

And those are always on our website if anyone is interested.

We also always shows on social media, so we always have different ones per month.

We'll have a lot for Mother's Day two.

I was going to say that, I mean, you're coming into the spring, so I know the flowers are heating up and yes, that is.

Yeah.

But they're blooming.

Yes.

We go.

And this is really the time where I feel like everything kind of comes together.

Yes.

Especially in the floral realm.

Yes.

For sure.

And then we also do offer private workshops as well.

So if, if you get a girls group together.

Yeah, that's that's our favorite.

If people don't see something that they want on the website as a public workshop or they just want the space to themselves, we offer that, we ask for a minimum of six guests to come, and we can do any of our workshops that are available as a public workshop.

We'll make a private workshop, no extra charge.

For those that might be fun for like a bachelor.

It's so much fun for like that.

Yeah, maybe even like Girl Scout.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm actually doing a talk tonight or this week at a Girl Scout troop meeting.

Yeah.

And we're going to do a little flower arranging there, I love it.

And again, going back to it, not everybody knows how to make floral.

So you are our master.

Yes.

And so we when we do the workshops, we, we'll talk about the color palette, we'll talk about the overall sizing.

And then I go through or our lead designer goes through how to actually put the flowers together in a way that's esthetically pleasing.

And I will tell you that a lot of people are intimidated by this.

They but everybody walks out.

Everybody's arrangement is going to be different then then another person in the workshop and everyone's as beautiful.

Always by the time they walk out the door.

I love that everything you do here is beautiful.

Congratulations.

I know you're just kind of new to this.

You're in this building and I know it's going well.

I have so many friends who are talking about it.

Oh, good.

So congratulations and I hope you guys stop on.