Through The Lens: Of The Wild

Ellie Grace takes you through the lens into the world of Of The Wild.

Now seriously, who doesn’t like flowers? Okay apart from maybe scrooge or people with extreme hay fever, but they can at least still look at them and appreciate their beauty. I popped into of the wild for a lovely little afternoon in the cute little shop nestled in Broomhill. When I was editing my photos I realised I had hardly taken any photos of actual flowers, it’s not my fault as I was distracted by the whole shop and Kath who is one of the loveliest shop owners I’ve met.

It’s definitely one of the most inviting shops in Broomhill based on the outside, laced with daffodils and roses whilst the ground is still sprinkled with snow, it gives you hope of there being a bright and wonderful (and hopefully warm) spring. The blue paint work and homely feel of the shop front almost entices you in automatically, then the waft of flowers just draws you right in! I was very impressed with Kath’s incredibly simple and pretty, but accidental marketing strategy, the music sheet paper she uses to wrap her flowers up with. It instantly reminded me of seeing her in Moonko nearly a year ago and jogged my memory back to how I pretty much fell in love with her bunches of beautiful flowers. Such a simple but effective way to present the flowers rather than in your stereotypical and sometimes tacky plastic wrap, but who am I to judge?

She’s not even had the shop open for a year and it seems as though the business is absolutely blooming (ahem). Starting back in February 2014 she was given the wonderful opportunity by Common People to have a pop-up shop with them, conveniently just in time for Valentines day, and then followed this to have a pop up shop in Moonko just in time for Mothers Day. It was with these two complete successes that when a shop came up for sale in Broomhill she just went ahead and bought it, life has got to be full of risks to succeed right? And it seems as though it was the best decision. With the help of Instagram, Facebook and her shop, she’s been able to provide many people with glorious flowers for all occasions.

Walking into the shop is like entering a small girl’s imagination, all that’s missing are the fairies, and to quote many of her customers it looks like it has been “picked from a meadow”. I met a lady who said it was her little daughters favourite shop and each week she would come in with her pocket money and buy something, too cute. Everything in the shop is handmade and shows sure signs of her background in textile design, in fact her teacher even asked her if she would consider going into floristry because of the pieces she was designing. There are canvas bags that are printed by Kath, and little stitched quotes in frames also made by her. Creativity obviously runs in the family as scattered around there are wonderful handmade cards and some lovely quirky little clock books that her sister makes. Basically if you wanted to “pop in”, you can’t. Make sure you have 15-30 minutes to have a proper snoop around.

Last year she provided the flowers for 25 weddings and it’s set to grow this year. Kath absolutely loves weddings and seeing the end result when everything is set up. When she has a bride that’s interested, she invites them over to the shop for a cup of tea and a general chat about everythin so that they can get to know each other and figure out exactly what they want. There are brides who have a specific idea, brides with just a colour theme and brides that have no idea, all of which Kath can work wonderfully with. It’s always great to bounce ideas off each other and ensure you are providing the best service. Her brides have all commented on how much they trust her to just get on with the job and I think that’s a really special part of the service she offers; there needs to be that element of trust. Adding to the trust is the quote that she provides the brides, I thought it was really wonderful that she doesn’t just put “flowers – £X” she will provide a detailed list of exactly which flowers and the amount so that the bride can see exactly where their money is going.

I asked Kath a difficult question, “what are your favourite flowers?” I know, tricky. She had three which I totally agreed with, Peonies, Stocks and Memory Lane Roses. She has a lovely assistant who works with her one day a week called Teresia. Teresia is originally from Sweden and actually Kath gets a lot of inspiration from Sweden. There’s a huge florist community on Instagram with American and Australian florists all providing a different perspective and constantly inspiring each other. A lot of Kath’s inspiration also comes from the time she spent in Cornwall.

She quite clearly loves what she’s doing and knows exactly what she’s doing, and with sheer determination and dedication, she has got where she is today. She’s even that dedicated to getting the best flowers that she will go to the flower market at 6am, far too early for most people but I wouldn’t complain if I got a wonderful bunch of flowers due to this dedication. It’s amazing that the business has grown in such a short space of time into something so big and yet there’s still room for growth. I’m excited to see what’s next! It’s a really lovely shop and if you would like to see the bunches of flowers she does and what she can produce for your wedding then please head over to her Instagram @ofthe_wild as it’s filled with glorious photos. By the way if anyone would like to send me a bunch… then contact me for my address ellie@elliegracephotography.co.uk thanks!