Today we’d like to introduce you to Meg Schroeder.
Hi Meg, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I worked for a small family flower shop called Dunbar Floral in Duluth, MN in my early 20’s, learning the ins-&-outs of traditional floral design. After moving away from Duluth, it became very helpful to have a florist in the family as all 3 of my sisters & countless friends got married, and the first iteration of Meg’s Flowers was born in 2006.
As I became a mom & moved from MN to OH, then finally to NC, flowers took a backseat; I still did flowers for friends’ weddings or events, but my focus was on my kids. As the third kid got out of diapers, I tip-toed back into the flower world, booking a handful of clients for smaller weddings & events. I started to build a relationship with one of the wholesalers here in Raleigh, Jagg Wholesale. Owners Jeff & Adair were kind and supportive, & as I showed up more often for flower orders, our friendship grew. At some point, they needed some extra help, & I needed some autonomy from my boys, so I started working for them part time, processing the shipments coming from the airport, preparing the flowers to be picked up by designers like me. Here I learned more about where my flowers came from: Holland, Ecuador, California, Florida, and oh, so many other far-off places.
At Jagg, I also met Heather Miller of Eclectic Sage who was also working there as Jeff & Adair’s buyer. Heather is another floral designer, with background in interior design, who’s visions and executions were larger than life. She asked me to contract for her, & under her tutelage, I learned so much about modern floral design. I discovered more of my own style working for Heather; she is gifted in putting together gorgeous assortments of blooms & greenery, & she allowed me some freedom in design as I worked for her.
With Heather, I was able to work for her with her installations in Art in Bloom at the NC Museum of Art; this opened another aspect of flowers to me, as art. And I loved it! As a daughter of parents both in the medical field, I didn’t always appreciate things that made me feel something; did it help someone? Did it fix something? These were valuable. Art, especially visual art, didn’t inspire me until much later in life. And art in flowers, not until Art in Bloom.
Then COVID hit. Jagg all but had to shut down. Weddings were postponed, or all of a sudden, small intimate events – no need for flowers beyond a bouquet and bout. My friend Gabrielle and I started to dream in another direction: could we do this differently? Could floral design reflect my heart for sustainability, could we look at things grown local, thus eliminating this crazy thing happening with ships with fresh product waiting out at sea, finally delivering over-priced, half-dead flowers? Gabrielle started researching flower farms close by & discovered Piedmont Wholesale in Durham and Stemz in Winston-Salem. All of a sudden, it was possible. And we just decided to go for it.
In May of 2022, with a Mother’s Day pop-up, Meg’s Flowers relaunched as sustainable & committed to using all locally-grown flowers. With the support of so many friends & my 3 boys, several of whom came alongside me and worked weddings with me, cleaned flowers, hauled compost, Meg’s Flowers started to grow into what we are today: a group of mostly women, hustling & slinging flowers, laughing & smiling, and yes, sometimes crying, supporting one another, all while we bring locally grown flower love to the people in the Triangle.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When Gabrielle and I first started dreaming about this, we talked at length about how we wanted to make this business sustainable, not only from an environmental point of view, but holistically. As women, moms, partners, sisters, friends – stuff comes up, and I believe fully that we sometimes have to make hard choices about priorities. I want my people to be able to call out because their kid is sick or because they are stretched too thin. I want them to feel safe to ask for what they need – more hours, less hours, a raise, a snack. And it’s not always obvious; I tried from the beginning to allow for a space (often right after we finish an event so everything is fresh), where we grab a drink or an appetizer, and I ask for feedback: what went great, what was terrible? What do we need to do again or never repeat? Is there something I could have done to better set us up for success? And I think as this has become the norm, my team expects this, and they’ve offered some super helpful feedback: making sure we always have inspiration pictures printed (on up-cycled paper 😉 not just available on our phones; we need a different cart to haul all our stuff; next time we work this venue, we need to remember how big this arbor is. The village of women that I’m fortunate to be surrounded by in this adventure make this dream of holistically sustainable possible: supporting, stepping in, offering what they can, asking for what they need.
The wedding industry is extremely wasteful, and that’s always hurt my heart. We’re constantly evaluating how we can reuse, upcycle, compost, buy used or thrifted instead of new, donate excess or leftovers, use products kinder to the environment. This can be tricky as the floral industry still uses many products developed in the 1970’s, made with harsh chemicals. I consider us master problem solvers, creative engineers, & cheerful givers, and I’m so proud of what little we throw away.
One of the greatest challenges we face, especially early on, is trying to convince potential clients that locally grown could be as beautiful as traditional floral design, ie flowers shipped in from all over the world. My favorite example to give is the peony: when I would order peonies when I was sourcing thru a traditional floral wholesaler, probably shipping them from Holland, the stems would come in as tight plum-sized buds. I’d hope and pray, fresh cut them often, putting them in warm water in a sunny location, and maybe 6 or 7 of the 10-stem bunch would open a little bit. Now, my farmers wait until they are almost in full bloom, at their height the blossoms are the size of softballs and bigger, cutting them on a Monday or Tuesday for them to be in an event that Friday or Saturday, so they are full & glorious just when they need to be. I may not be able to promise you red roses, but I can promise you, whatever we agree upon together will be the best quality available.
I love thinking about new ways to use old things or stuff already in my possesion. One of my favorite upcycles was vintage rolling pins into taper candle holders: my aunt had collected rolling pins, I remember playing with them in her kitchen as a kid. She decided she didn’t feel as attached to them a few years ago, and I couldn’t let her give them away. Some are gorgeous and will continue to live in a large crock by my back door, used only by my boys when I ask them to use them to roll out knots in my back. But others have seen better days, but still have this amazing texture and patina. So my oldest son & my dad cut them into sections of various lengths, drilled holes into them, and we created unique holders for beeswax candles made by an apiary in CO.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I love using weird, unique, funky stuff in my designs. Piedmont Wholesale knows I like the weird stuff, sometimes holding it for me! Some of my favorite examples have been artichokes in large arrangements for a wedding, carnivorous pitcher plants in a “dark & moody” wedding, cloches with dried flowers & beautiful dead bugs (butterflies, cicadas, moths, bumblebees), antlers from the flea market made into a full skull with hanging amaranth & other dried flowers, Lego flowers added to a bout for a groom who still loves building, and a Hobbit-inspired welcome sign, complete with “po-tay-toes.” I love learning unique or singular things about clients, & then finding ways to reflect their individuality in their flowers.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Raleigh & Cary reflect so many types of people: different nationalities, beliefs, preferences, religions, languages, socio-economic statuses, education. I love that my guys are growing up with so many types of people, hearing so many languages, eating so many types of food! We are surrounded by some of the most intelligent people in our many world-renowed colleges & universities, and we have an incredible art community. I love that we don’t have some of the struggles of a large city (I’ve lived near NYC, in Chicago, Minneapolis & St. Paul, Toledo – okay, that last one is not huge, but I did live in downtown, so felt very urban ;), but we do have access to multiple theaters, concert venues, art, history, & science museums, incredible parks and natural spaces, inspiring boutiques and shops. I love that I am personally friends with someone in local government, that activism is accessible and appropriate for my boys to engage in as well. Our public schools are not perfect, but I care for so many of teachers and staff personally because they have cared so deeply for my guys.
I don’t love our lack of extensive public transportation, which seems like such a silly thing. As mentioned above, our public schools are not perfect; I have been a substitute teacher in the past few years, and it’s difficult knowing how hard it is to be a teacher right now; I wish we could pay our teachers what I think they are worth, educating our kids thru COVID, remote learning, the rise of phones & social media. It’s a crazy world, and we lean so heavily on them as major influences; my guys have been so lucky to have some incredible teachers, some of whom I couldn’t let go of after they taught mine, so I brought them on with Meg’s Flowers 😉
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.megsflowers.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/megsflowersnc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1DDo7uxue3/
