“I won The Wedding Industry Award for ‘Best Wedding Florist in the South East of England."
Katherine Craft - Wedding and event florist owner at 'Florist in the Forest'
Floristry was a complete change of career for me, having been a Visual Merchandiser in the fashion industry. Having no floristry experience, I decided that a college course would enable me to learn all the skills required to follow my dream.
As part of the course, we were taken on an amazing trip to The Netherlands to see the flower markets and growers, which was a real eye-opener to the scale of the industry.
We were required to do work experience in a florist shop, which was a brilliant insight into how a floristry business works and really helped build my confidence. It enabled me to get a position in a small family-run florist shop; they offered me employment and I remained with them for 5 years post-study.
In 2011, after working for the local florist shop, I decided to take the leap to setting up my own business. I started with growing flowers and selling at farmer’s markets, along with flowers for small weddings. As my business has grown, I now focus largely on weddings and events, along with catering for peak occasions: Valentine’s day, Mother’s day and Christmas.
Large scale installations have become increasingly popular over the years and I love the challenge of coming up with new ways to create the ‘wow factor’ at weddings. I love the variety of my job - no two weddings are the same!
My most notable career highlights came in 2014 and 2016, when I won The Wedding Industry Award for ‘Best Wedding Florist in the South East of England’ which was amazing.
Every year is new and exciting.
Being a florist is such an amazingly rewarding career. If you are looking to follow in the same direction as me, my advice would be to connect with others in the industry. When I started my business, Instagram was in its early stages, but is now an amazing way to link up with fellow wedding suppliers and keep up to date with trends.
I still enjoy taking courses to further my skills and for my own enjoyment. Keep learning!