Stonehouse Creative

It’s funny isn’t it, how sometimes things come back to you in ways that you’d never have expected? That’s really how my journey with flowers has come to be — a funny process that really wasn’t very intentional, until all of a sudden it was. 

I grew up surrounded by flowers — I just didn’t realize that that wasn’t a common thing. I was raised on a small farm, with lots of beauty around me thanks to my mother, who is an incredible gardener. Over the years, she has somehow managed to make her gardens even more breathtaking, but even when I was a kid (one of four!) she somehow found the time and energy to cultivate multiple flower beds that were teeming with colour, scent, and unique varieties that catch the eye. Even better, both of my grandmothers were also gardeners, with their respective gardens also filled with beautiful blooms all summer long. 

I just assumed this was normal. Everyone must be a gardener, especially if they lived in the country. Why have grass when you can have flowers? I know now that I certainly took it all for granted. I didn’t realize that my Grammie had a lilac hedge probably 100 metres long until after they had left the farm, or that the sweet pea growing up by my Grandma’s back door would create a scent memory that’s lasted my entire life and caused tears on multiple occasions.

And so there I was, growing up in this incredible environment surrounded by flowers (when we weren’t surrounded by snow, that is) and just not really even noticing it. That’s why looking back is so cool, and realizing how those little things can come together as some of the biggest puzzle pieces in life.

Fast forward to my university days, you’d find me dreaming of two things: wanting to run my own business one day (just not having a clue what that would be), and wanting to work in publishing for a bridal magazine. I accomplished the second task far easier than I expected to, as a local wedding magazine was just started up and they desperately needed help from someone just like me — engaged, eager to prove herself, and graduating with an Honours English degree. I spent about two years there, loving the work but being massively taken advantage of and abused by the owners. 

Here’s another one of those big puzzle pieces that really seemed like a dead end: I gave my notice to the magazine on a Friday with no clue what I was going to do next, but I couldn’t stand any more. I didn’t tell anyone but my husband and co-workers. That Sunday morning at church, I was approached by a woman who owned a large flower shop, who had been one of our advertisers at the magazine. She said to me, “my daughter had a dream that you need a job. Would you like a job?” 

Obviously I was shocked, but not too shocked to utter a very quick, “Yes!” It didn’t really matter to me what the job was, just that there would be a paycheque coming in. I started a few days later, working out of the head office/warehouse location (at that time, we had the central head office as well as 3 retail locations) and being informed that I’d be in charge of wedding consultations and organization (along with delivery of all weddings), and marketing. Okay! I was ready, except that, of course, I had zero experience with actual weddings or flowers themselves. 

Meeting new co-workers is always tough — especially when the co-workers mostly happen to be fairly shy women who are also burnt out after the Christmas rush and working weeks of overtime. And then, there’s always one co-worker who just won’t like you, no matter what. That one wasted no time in grilling me about my experience with flowers, and I was pleased to realize that I ended up being quite well-informed. She was pretty visibly shocked that I could actually answer her questions. How did I pull that off? The garden! 

This moment was when I first looked back on my childhood, and realized that not everyone grew up with a gardening mother or gorgeous flowers around them for much of their lives. My childhood was going to be a bizarre advantage to me, and I needed to take full advantage. 

I naturally fell into the wedding side of the business, given my own recent wedding planning experience and my former career as a wedding magazine editor (and several years worth of Martha Stewart Weddings magazines sitting on my shelves!). I loved increasing the number and quality of wedding bookings, doubling both the number of bookings and the average sale within 12 months. I dug hard into the business side of things, barely even touching flowers (I was far too afraid of failing to even try to design!). 

A few years later, it was time for a change again. I had given far too much of myself to a business that I didn’t own, had zero boundaries, and was completely burnt out and unhappy. An opportunity to work for a wedding blog got me excited, introduced me to working from home, and was the perfect landing pad for me to reset. 

One of my clients at the blog was Kelly Perry, who was just developing Team Flower and launching the first Team Flower workshop. It sounded like such an inspiring, uplifting experience and I decided to go — with zero expectations of actually starting a floral business at the end (but we all know how that goes!), simply looking for something to inspire and excite me again. Needless to say, things took a turn and I ended up writing out my entire website on the flight home, once again reflecting on the gardens and how I was raised. I named my business after the stone house that I grew up in, bringing things full circle. I had the passion and the knowledge, and was ready to give it a go. 

My first year in business was an astonishing success, thanks to referrals from one particular floral designer-turned-friend (never underestimate the incredible impact you can have on another business just by sending out a quick referral when you’re booked!), and it’s grown exponentially in the 7 years since, often circling back to some of those other puzzle pieces from the earlier days in my life. Becoming a referred designer for some of my former clients from the early magazine days (including for several of the largest weddings that I will ever book), becoming a featured speaker at the Team Flower Conference, doing consulting work for the same retail flower shop to help them modernize some of their processes — all things that have happened as a result of little moments in the past, circling back to me unintentionally and beautifully.

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Lauren Wiebe of Stonehouse Creative is a studio florist who specializes in weddings in the Winnipeg, Canada area. She's known for her signature lush, garden style floral design and is constantly seeking to elevate her work through unique colour palettes and intriguing details, and make it simple for design-oriented couples who believe that flowers bring life to a celebration.