The 2021 Canadian Event Awards
Winner of the Award for Most Creative Floral Design
In 2018 when we won our award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Association for Best Overall Wedding Florist, we were taken completely by surprise. We really had no idea that we were even a contender. Two years later, we were able to take the same award at the provincial level.
This was a moment of profound realization for us. That we weren’t a fluke, or a one-hit-wonder. That we were able to create weddings and event designs that were on par with the most capable talent in British Columbia. It was an overwhelming thing to think that for such a young shop we were able to have such an effect.
Then Covid hit.
The entire idea of what a wedding awards show would be was completely upturned. Florists all over the country had all of their major events cancelled due to event capacity limitations, sometimes as low as ten people, or not at all. Nobody was really able to break out their big guns to show off what they can REALLY do. We got lucky that year. Because many of our clients moved forward with their events at a reduced capacity, and because some of them redirected their budget from catering and decor into florals and better photography. I suspect other shops had a similar situation.
We submitted an installation that we did that year for an industry event. We used a support to suspend a “paint can” to appear as though it was pouring a rainbow of flowers through a lounge area. We partnered with BASH Specialty for bold, colourful lounge decor, which was perfect for our installation. There were some implicit themes regarding inclusion and LGBTQ+ positivity, but ultimately, we really just had a lot of fun playing with the basic colours in this piece.
On a whim, we made two submissions to the Canadian Event Awards. I don’t think we really expected very much and it was really hard to comprehend the scale of what competing at the national level would be. Every florist from every province could enter.
Both of our entries made it into the three finalists. There was an intense conflict in our feelings – we were excited about the prospect that we might actually win against these incredible odds and insanely talented designers, but absolutely didn’t want to get our hopes up too high. We had to convince ourselves that there was no possible way that it could happen. But what if...
The night of the awards, we watched the live stream in anxious anticipation as they went through each category. When they announced the category for the Most Creative Floral Design, it almost didn’t register with us when they called our name. We watched in complete disbelief as our acceptance video played. We’re pretty proud of our designs. It was completely unfathomable to think that we stood a chance, much less that we would win.
We’re honoured by this. We’re proud of this. We’re truthfully humbled to be counted in such a prestigious group of incredibly talented and hard working people.
