2024 WRAP UP

At the risk of sounding cliche — here we are! The end of another year and I can’t believe we’re here.

It’s been a pretty amazing year. I’m going to run through some of the high points and hopefully that’ll help me actually remember what we got up to because the year went by so quickly.

My family moved last October — literally the day after my last wedding, we all got hit with food poisoning, and then the day after that, we moved. That was pretty chaotic.

The plan was to build my new workshop over the spring to be able to work in it this summer, so we started off the year working in our very messy garage until the shop was built. I sort of can’t believe that it all happened!

This year saw us complete 35 weddings! I think I’ll try to cap future calendar years a little lower than that — we were thrilled to be part of each of those weddings, and the season went farther into November than I’ve done in the past, but I’ll be honest, it was definitely exhausting and we could have done with a few more breaks.

The studio build

The building process was really cool. The permit getting process was not. It was just frustration after frustration with very little helpful information available and a really poorly designed submissions website. But eventually we got everything approved, with like 4 days to spare before the concrete was poured!

My brother-in-law’s company, Abe’s Kongcrete, poured the pad for us and installed the heated floors. You know what’s funny, is I totally didn’t anticipate how messy this stage of the process was. Like somehow I thought that my yard wouldn’t get totally destroyed and everything would be perfectly tidy. So that clearly wasn’t accurate.

We then worked with Star Builders to build the actual shop. It’s 20x30 so we’ve got an awesome amount of space, and it was astonishing how quickly it went up.

Insulating, OSB walls, painting, my husband built me an incredible and huge work bench, the cooler got all set up…and there we were. It took a little longer than I hoped for, but then we were in and it was amazing.

Next year I’ll do a proper studio tour. The front space is all intended for designing, and the back houses the cooler and lots of storage space for vases and stuff, and overall I’m really proud of the entire studio!

Above are a few shots from when we were working in the attached garage! It worked out quite well all things considered — aside from the fact that my entire living room was filled with all of my inventory (literally the ENTIRE LIVING ROOM) and we needed to move our bikes in and out of the garage every single day. It was chaotic and not ideal, but it did work.

One of my personal and work values is to work as earth-friendly as I possibly can. As I’ve said before, it’s surprisingly hard to do in the floral and in the wedding industry.

You know I love my locally grown flowers, and I use as many as I possibly can for each summer wedding. Of course we can’t get everything we need locally, and one challenge we have is that imported flowers typically can’t be composted here in Winnipeg, because our facilities can’t properly handle the high level of chemicals coming in on the flowers.

So, I work with Compost Winnipeg to compost all of my green waste!

Working with them, I have diverted 405 kg so far this year! That is equal to 365kg CO2e, and equal to the carbon sequestered by 6 trees grown for 10 years or the emissions avoided by 16 bags of trash composted rather than landfilled. I don’t understand it all, but it’s cool!!

We launched our Rentals Collection! I did this for a few reasons — to bring in a little more revenue, to be part of a few more weddings and help elevate their aesthetics, and because it really bothers me when every supplier brings in the exact same inventory and all of our weddings just look the same over and over and over. I hope that by offering my rentals to other floral and event designers, that they won’t all feel the need to expand their rental inventories with more of the same.
Each year brings me to different wedding venues, and it’s always interesting to see any patterns in where I’m working. Last year, we worked at so many venues one time each. This year, we had a good spread but our top venue was by far the WAG, with 4 weddings, along with a couple each at the Assiniboine Park Pavilion, St Charles Country Club, and the Leaf. We also designed a stellar wedding at Alloway Hall for the first time, and at Lilystone Gardens!

I got lucky this year with a fantastic combination on multiple occasions: indoor weddings that actually look good 😂 I really don’t mean to be rude with this, but let’s be honest: a lot of indoor locations are really just lacking (especially for ceremonies). But I managed to snag myself a handful of clients who get sunburns as easily as I do, at great venues, so we had a comfortable working day. Aside from the one time that Deanna got heatstroke on the hottest day of the year!!
Stone House will be turning 10 in June 2024! I’ve got some ideas rolling around for something celebratory, but overall, I’m not great at allowing myself the luxury of celebrating so I’ll need to really force myself to let it happen. I’m really proud of these last 9 years and year 10 is going to be a record breaker in many ways.
Photo above by Keila Marie Photography

Planning for Next Year

We’re going to be launching an A La Carte floral service — still working on the details, but we’ll hopefully announce it soon!
I’ll be taking part in some cool opportunities within Winnipeg next year — Camp Rover (a conference for creatives), along with Design Your Day (a wedding workshop for engaged couples with Kayla Lagos Events).
Hopefully a trip to Quebec for some floral design inspiration, if the stars align!

You know what I love? Room Reveals.

I don’t often get to be there in person when you see your wedding design for the first time. But sometimes I do, like with both of these weddings below, and I LOVE seeing your excitement and complete overwhelm at how good everything looks in person. Making this all come true for you is one of my favourite things ❤️

Also, if you have 5 minutes in your schedule, and the details have been important to you, ask your photographer and wedding planner to arrange for a room reveal. It’s so special for you to see the room completely put together, with no one there aside from the two of you.

Photos below by Picture & Poet

Some other notable moments for the year:

Designing for Stanley Cup Winner Mark Stone

In late July, I designed the flowers for NHL Las Vegas Knights’ Captain, Mark Stone (a Winnipeg man!) for his Stanley Cup party at Breezy Bend Golf Course with Soiree Event Planning. I even got to see the Stanley Cup itself about 3 feet away from me— I am not a hockey player, but grew up in a hockey family, so that was very cool.

Designing for TikTok

We don’t have a ton of intriguing corporate events here in Winnipeg, so when I got a call from TikTok asking if I would design for the final dinner of an Accelerator Program for Indigenous Creators that they were hosting at the Millenium Centre, I was super excited. It was a very last minute event, but it went so well!

Some Near Misses

I’m 9 years into this business. I’m really good at it. I won’t pretend that I’m not. But this year we had some near misses — one wedding that I somehow forgot to order 2/3 of the flowers for, and one wedding that my wholesaler missed the order on. In both situations, we managed to pull EVERY SINGLE THING that we needed and everything else went off without a hitch. Aside from the panicked stress moments 😂

The cutest bridesmaid proposal party

We don’t just do weddings! This bridesmaid proposal party was the literal cutest I could possibly imagine. So here’s a note for you: I want to be part of your bridesmaid proposals, your rehearsal dinners and day-after brunches, your wedding showers, your engagement party…anytime you want something a little extra, you just call me.

I am so grateful for all of the amazing people who were part of making this wedding season happen. It’s absolutely not just me over here.

Deanna’s been working with me for at least 7 years now, but this year, she came on with me full time. It was a big leap for me to do that, but I couldn’t be happier that we did it. It was SO amazing having her full time, not only because she’s a phenomenal designer but also because having her here meant that my time was freed up to work so that I didn’t have to work every single evening. She designs most of our centrepiece arrangements and we tackle most installations together; we work really well together and I truly trust her with everything. She’s amazing!

At various weddings, we’ve also had in a crew of wonderful freelance designers and set up help. I’m so thankful that I can hand off jobs to people who I know will do an amazing job so I can keep other things moving along on schedule. Vanessa, Andrea P, Andrea N, Emily, Natalie, Fareedah, Shantel, Roberta, and of course, my husband Chad as well — YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING. Thank you!

Before I close out, I wanted to mention an organization I’m connected with that’s doing amazing work in some of the poorest, most underserved communities in the world: Village of Hope Africa. It’s a Christian organization, so if that’s not your thing then that’s fine, but they work to bring hope to children through education, nutrition, shelter, and healthcare. We (aka you and me together if you’re one of my clients!!) support a child in their Malawi school (the 9th poorest nation in the world).

They’re organizing something called HOPE PACKS, which are just $25 and include toys, books (children in Malawi have such limited access to books!), clothing, and treats. If you’re feeling generous today, I’d be thrilled if you’d send a hope pack!