Almost three years ago, Grace Scott established For Keeps Florals, a flower preservation shop located in San Diego, California. However, the passion started earlier when she got married in 2020, "I really didn't want to part with my wedding flowers. I started to play around with flower preservation and this experimentation turned into a blossoming business," she tells. Her shop provides various flower preservation products and services including pressed bouquet frames, pressed flower jewelry, and bouquet recreation. In the past few years, she saw the flower preservation industry "getting bigger and bigger". In this article she discusses this development and the opportunities that lie ahead for this niche in the floral industry.
Grace Scott with one of her pressed flower frames
From fresh to forever
According to Grace, flower preservation is trendy these days. "Of course, flower preservation has been around for decades, but now it receives more attention and there are so many options. Today it's really vast and exciting out there in the flower preservation world," she says, pointing to the various shows and events in California in which there is a demand for it. "Especially the bridal shows are amazing thanks to the wide range of wedding industry professionals that are participating, I love the networking."
She believes increased attention for waste reduction is one of the main factors that fuels the flower preservation trend. "We really try to pay attention to this sustainability aspect, we for instance use sustainable packaging, wood, glass, and non-toxic glue." Further she mentions that customers wish to get the most out of their flowers and create lasting memories. "Our top clients are couples in their mid-twenties to early thirties, or a mother of a bride or groom. On occasion we get gentlemen, they always ask great questions too."
Cooperation
At For Keeps Florals they believe that cooperation is key to their current and future operations. First of all, they are regularly in touch with local flower farmers. When For Keeps Florals needs to source flowers they go right to growers and wholesalers, Grace highlights. "We source flowers mostly from Cali Wholesale Flowers in Carlsbad, California. They are so easy to work and communicate with, and they always have the best quality flowers grown all over the world. The market in Carlsbad has approximately 40 different wholesalers. Some grow their own flowers too, it is a wonderful place to visit."
Looking ahead, the company hopes to expand its reach while strengthening new and existing partnerships. "We saw that the trend for preserved flowers is widespread so we would love to have customers from outside the US. However, so far the shipping process is challenging. We think that collaboration can help us further. I think we can work together with everyone in the industry, to reduce waste, especially so in the weddings industry. Some flowers are more suitable than others, but we've never really thrown away a flower. We love offering wonderful ways to keep flowers around forever," she concludes.
For more information:
For Keeps Florals
www.forkeepsflorals.com