Beth, from Forbesfield
Over the next few months, we will be speaking with some of our favourite industry experts.
This month, we had the opportunity to chat with Beth from Forbesfield.
Continue reading to see some of the topics we discussed.
1. What inspired you to start your business?
As far back as I can remember I have wanted to be a florist, it never left me. I loved flowers even then. The colours, the scents, the shapes, the imperfections and the differences in between.
After working for other companies, learning, gaining experience and knowledge I decided that I wanted to head in a new direction. I wanted to be a design orientated florist. I was, and still
am, inspired by fashion and interiors but more than ever I am inspired by the natural world and wanted this to translate into flower design. There was no florist in this area doing this at the time and I could see European floristry was really blazing a trail and I wanted to be part of that. Floristry in this country, for the most part, had been frozen in time and I wanted to innovate and
progress. It was a wide open space. That was 12 years ago and I still love flowers and they are what keep me doing this through late nights, early morning, and bone shattering tiredness that every florist feels through wedding season.
2. What is the best part about being part of someone's wedding journey?
It’s the reciprocated trust, it’s always a lesson and a beautiful insight in the human condition of trust and respect. It’s strange but true that being a wedding florist reminds me of the seam of humanity that runs through all of us; a window into someone else’s world to remind me that all we really ever want is to be loved and to love in return, to give comfort and receive it back.
I get really frustrated with silly terms like ‘Bridezilla’. They are so unhelpful, casually sexist and a really lazy stereotype - certainly in my experience. I don’t ever forget, in my role, that this is almost always the first time that these couples have been through this and that it can be stressful as weddings can get horribly political within families and the burden on them to fulfil a family’s idea of how their wedding should look can be overwhelming. My part in these situations is to alleviate the pressure and allow the couple to decompress by feeling they can trust me to understand who they are and to translate that into some kind of wonderful floral design. That is really the joy of my part in someone else’s wedding journey.
3. What are you most excited about for the 2024 bridal season?
On a purely personal level I am really looking forward to less back to back weddings. To find breathing space between weddings this year is a real luxury. Creative burnout can easily happen when you are constantly under pressure to perform, at peak, for 5 months of the year. Nobody can function at their best day in day out no matter how much you love your craft.
This year I’m taking back control and have chosen less weddings but they are projects that I really wanted to be onboard with. Essentially, I’m excited that 2024 will give me peak creativity and quality of design work. Quality over quantity always.
4. Are there any new trends that you are seeing within your customer request?
I’m going to be completely honest here; I’m not keen on mindlessly following trends and that applies across my whole self - my floral design, my home interior and how I dress. For me, personal expression is really important for a true sense of your own identity and a sense of identity really helps self-esteem and self-worth. I know some people reading this may wonder what on earth floral design has to do with self-esteem but I genuinely believe
that a herd mentality behind following trends can be reductive and become an echo chamber and you simply get fed more of the same back. It can be hard to break out of that cycle of thinking, assuming that is way things should look and it can be easy to forget you have your own freedom of thought and choice and that includes the big stuff and the small stuff. For me, design is about style not trends. I think style is about knowing yourself and talks of craftsmanship and creativity while trends are just about a mainstream movement of a look.
To balance that however! I will absolutely agree that nobody is immune to a degree of inspiration arising from trends as they filter down and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. But we should always be seeking to evolve and progress it along to add something new - a new slant, a new emphasis so it’s not replication.
It’s my job to take clients beyond the Pinterest images that come up on repeat and really delve into their individuality.
5. Can share share with us some of your most memorable weddings?
One wedding really stays in mind because every time I think of it I cringe so badly at something I said I think I’m going to disappear inside of myself.
We got flown to California to create wedding florals in the Santa Monica hills (yes people are crazy!) and at the wedding there were a few high profile people I recognised but it was mainly music industry people as the groom was a musician/drummer. When I was setting up the switch around of flowers from ceremony to reception celebrations I started chatting with a lady who seemed to be stood on the periphery of it all so I thought maybe she was a plus one and didn’t know many people. She said that she just needed a little time to ‘warm up’ to the whole party thing and was ‘taking a moment’. I replied something along the lines of “well you know I’m here running around so we can chat if you’re feeling shy, you can stick with me.” Looking back I’m not sure whether this is imagined or whether it was real but I see her giving me a bit of narrow side-eye. And I have no idea what possessed me to say those words.
The next day scrolling through instagram after the gorgeous wedding was done and dusted and I was scoffing French toast at the beautiful Venice Beach ‘Rose Cafe’ feeling delighted with what we’d created, I see that the ‘shy lady’ was in fact a hugely famous and successful actress. An Emmy and Sundance festival award winning actress no less, who I had completely failed to recognise and furthermore went on to patronise! My husband nearly died laughing about it all and asked whether the famous boyfriend she was with didn’t give it away. To this day it makes my nose sting and my mind boggle at what she must have thought of me and my little Welsh self; I still shudder with embarrassment.
