All flowers pictured here were grown with laughter on Snell Family Farm.

What a weird time to be starting this blog...it took me over a month to think of something appropriate so I thought I’d just start from the beginning (look back to move ahead!). I frequently get asked how I got into dis bizness. So here we go... As I start every bedtime story with my daughter this shall be no different.

“A long time ago in a kingdom far far away…”

People who know me do not think of me as an outdoorsy nature lover who of course landed in a business that worships mother nature. I’ve been “camping” once (and I cried myself to sleep every night), I kill plants and will never be the one to initiate a hike. If you asked me fifteen years ago where I thought I’d be today I would have said working as an assistant camera operator on the next Scorsese film. But after film school, where I worked on music videos for bands like Taking Back Sunday and Coheed and Cambria, I stumbled into a job at Fuse TV coordinating all the music video submissions and eventually booking artists on a fun show called Talking Metal. I’ve been in both Glenn Danzig AND Kerry King’s homes but paid my dues by spending a week on Warped Tour before that.

2007 or 8 on the set of Steven’s Untitled Rock Show (Fuse TV) with my favorite band of all time - Thursday. These guys were very kind to me that day and I will never forget that.

After that I tried getting back into production but found the hours to be really demanding (LOL JOKES ON ME) and went to go work for a dear friend of mine when she opened her own business, High Horse Salon in Williamsburg. (I am now realizing this is going to be a long post but unless you’re an essential worker I assume you have nothing but time on your hands to indulge me). I still consider managing this salon as one of the best jobs I’ve ever had and funny enough it led me directly to where I am now (and now they’re one of my clients!). One day I started buying flowers from this great bodega near my house and making small arrangements in mason jars for each of the stylist’s stations. It was definitely the highlight of my week and I would send the photos to my mom, who used to be florist and ask what the varieties of flowers were and for some pointers (which is hilarious because I can’t tell you how many times growing up I would roll my eyes at her when she tried to get me to admire some flowers or literally stop and smell the roses). I did spend time in my youngest years filling water tubes at a mom and pop florist in North Jersey. It was great and every time I walk into a flower shop and smell that cooler/tulip/oasis smell it takes me back. I eventually got old enough to do the scarier things like strip roses and earned my first $20 bill. My mother was horrified that I had taken money from her boss but I.EARNED.THAT. pricked fingers and all.

From there I went and got a certificate from Flower School NY and right after my husband and I decided to move to Portland, ME. Why Maine? WHY NOT!? I had been in New York since 2001 and thought it’d be better to move away than wind up in anger management or jail or an underground fight club. Sometimes you just need to go on a break (see Ross/Rachel. What happened with this move was just as confusing). But being in Portland was one of the best things I could have done for my career. I quickly got a job at a really busy flower shop. This was not the fancy smancy shops you see in downtown Manhattan but that’s not what I needed because this place was BIZ-ZY. Having to work very fast in high stressful situations is something you can’t really be taught. It’s sink or swim and when it’s February 13th and there are 100s of orders to attend to you better be swimming. You also get really good at making something out of nothing. Any test of a true florist is to whip up an arrangement with whatever is left in the cooler at the end of a long crazy week. During this time I also got to work weekends on weddings for the lovely Sarah Lapine of Watershed Floral. She taught me so much on how to run an event smoothly from beginning to end and became a strong shoulder for me to lean on. It’s really an invaluable experience to assist someone so closely and I’m lucky I got to do it with her because I learned so much. We’d often set up next to some beautiful body of water and sweat through our shirts, maybe get stuck in the mud and often grab an ice cream cone on the way home.

Sarah (Watershed Floral) and I leaving a wedding install somewhere off the coast of Maine.

Then came the summer of 2016 and I took on a personal challenge (see first paragraph) of assisting Carolyn Snell with growing her flowers at Snell Family Farm. Wtf was I getting myself into working on a farm? I didn’t truly know at the time but knew it would be an integral part of my flower journey. To see and participate first hand in the hard work and dedication that it takes to grow flowers is nothing to brush off. Early mornings, high heat and putting your body in positions that it’s not used to for extended periods of time was a lot. But this specific farm is magical. Not only is this family one of the kindest around they also hired a lot of women of all ages to work it. I really enjoyed our mid day meal when we would all congregate in the kitchen and get to know each other a little better. And the flowers were exquisite. None of them had been squeezed into plastic, shoved in a box and flown into JFK.

They were in their prime and all their glory and you’re a dummy if you took it for granted. At the time Carolyn also had over 20 types of lisianthus growing. Before starting on the farm I used this flower in most of my arrangements (I still do, I love it) but I had no idea how it grew. I didn’t understand why the lower blooms always died first or at which point they should be cut to get the most life out of them. This is another huge thing - after working for Carolyn I had such better insight as to what a very healthy flower looked like. There are specific rules as to when flowers should be cut or what they look like when they’re about to be on their way out and this knowledge helps me when I’m shopping for flowers at the market. I started in May cutting poppies and ranunculus and was hooked. Overtime it was snapdragons, eucalyptus, zinnias and sweetpeas (among SO MANY others). I trellised peonies, got stung by a bee (twice), drove a Gator and had many laughs with the flower crew. I wouldn’t trade in my experience in Maine but it was becoming apparent we needed to go back to NYC and in the mist of that move I found out I was pregnant (lol I wasn’t constantly exhausted because I was working on a farm and going straight to a boxing bootcamp for 3 weeks- I was growing a human!). Here’s a photo of me and my mom putting together the flower’s for my baby shower.

Working on my first wedding, September 2017. Lucy was only there for a few minutes visiting because I don’t work very well when she’s in the room!

Once back in NYC, I freelanced with some amazing people and worked in a very beautiful large plant/flower shop in Williamsburg. But after having Lucy it was apparent I needed to start my own thang. I’ve always wanted my own business so it was only a matter of time and trying to freelance while juggling my husband’s work schedule and a baby was not working for us. When I say I’ll show up for something, I mean it and I felt like I couldn’t keep my freelance commitments with the way our life was. Not to mention our baby never slept and I was often running on 4 hours of intermittent sleep. So I slowly built Grace and Grit Flowers. I like it here. The weather is pleasant, people are nice and I get to choose the snacks.

I find it’s rather rare for people to follow a direct path to their career (but seriously more power to ya if you do!) and I believe we are meant to go through those phases to have experience and learn the tools to get to where we want to be. I’m able to smoothly execute an event because I understand the value of pre-production from my years making the motion pictures. I understand operations because of my time as a studio manager. And I know how to talk to people about flowers because I did it in a busy retail setting. I have spent many a time talking to your boyfriends about what kind of bouquet to get - “does this flower go with this one?” “I don’t want to spend a ton of money but I don’t want to look cheap” “I literally don’t know what I’m doing. Please help me not screw this up”. There is nothing more gratifying to me than the look of excitement on someone’s face when they leave with one of my bouquets because they are giddy about GIVING it to someone else. Back in Victorian times each flower had a specific meaning and people would put together bouquets to send secret messages.

But that’s a post for another day…

Back in NYC at Dutch Flower Line and hanging on to a little bit of my past.

How Did I Get Here?