For my 11th experience, I reached out to my event colleague, Sharon Mintz, Owner of Organic Elements – an award winning and regularly published – floral and design studio, and asked if I could shadow her team for a few hours. She was very gracious to have me pop over to her new studio and let me get my hands dirty! I’ve also been in awe of floral design and after seeing what amazing floral art Sharon and her team regularly produce and design, it was easy to know who I would want to train under!
As an event planner, my involvement with a floral team is to talk about a design and place an order. I really had very little knowledge about ordering, flower production, design and execution. On the day I shadowed the Organic Elements team, I was able to help prep a few upcoming projects.
My first assignment was to clean a dozen vases. Like many parts of the event industry, these are the tasks that are not overly fun but very necessary. The behind the scenes prep is what most people forget is necessary. Instead, they walk into a ballroom all set-up for the event and have little knowledge on what it takes to get it from a blank slate to a visual cacophony. It was very evident that the Organic Elements team is well prepared and organized. They have a very efficient system that enables them to work proactively versus re-actively. Kudos to Sharon for taking the panic out of event production!
My next task was to place gorgeous purple orchids in the clean vases. Kaitlyn, OE’s manager, was overly warm and generous in educating me about the process and why flowers need to be processed before they can be used in a design. She was also very complimentary of my ability to be a quick learner! Maybe a career in floral design awaits me in my next life!
My final task was to process a huge bunch of white roses. Thanks to Kaitlyn’s education, I now know that in order to get roses to open up, you must strip them of their leaves because the leaves hog the water as it moves up the stalk. Removing the leaves allows the roses to open and in this case, would make turning these beauties into petals to be tossed at the weekend wedding, a lot easier.
Here I was a novice being tossed into a team of professionals and they couldn’t have been more wonderful and supportive of my willingness to learn. What struck me, beyond their talent and beautiful designs, was the camaraderie amongst the staff. Sharon has designed a team that clearly works hard but plays hard together too. What a joy to be amongst professionals whom truly love what they are doing and they respect the team they are working with. I loved my time at Organic Elements and hope that my future blooms with another opportunity to work behind the scenes with floral designers.
Your take away from this experience should be to think about an industry you know little about but would love to learn and ask for an opportunity to shadow. Most companies always need an extra set of hands and they are very generous with their time!
Thanks Organic Elements team – experience #11 was amazing thanks to you!
