We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christine Wilson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christine below.

Christine, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

As a small business in the big industry of wedding invitations we absolutely do a few things differently. We have always believed that serving couples on such an important day in their lives is such a personal thing. From the very beginning in 2008, we approached our business as a service first rather than a product first. Our process has been to get to know our clients, ask questions that lead to a personal brand, and then produce pieces that are meaningful to them. Over the years this process has created a genuine client experience and one of the most exciting parts of their planning.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Creative in Bloom was named metaphorically as well as for the location of the business. Founded in Bloomington Indiana in 2008, I was leaving the corporate world of advertising and taking on two very new adventures. I started Creative in Bloom to allow me to stay at home with my new baby. Little did I know how much work and time was needed to build a business from the ground up. Looking back, the business just had a very slow growth and grew as my daughter grew. While this is not a business plan that I would ever suggest, it was the only way it was going to work for me at the time. I had no family available to help me with my new baby, and we didn’t have the foresight with the business to take out a loan and speed growth and production. In 2008 the invitation industry barely existed. This was sort of an innovation and I had a lot of work to do to move forward. I had many ideas but no real knowledge on how to get there. I definitely didn’t have the funding. I got some really bad advise from a business coach who told me I’d never make money selling stationery. This held my confidence back but I refused to give up. As my client base grew I learned what people wanted. This was a great method to understanding my market. Over the years one big thing you learn in business is that you never “figure it out” the market is always in flux. You will always be changing things, attempting to be on the cutting edge or at the very least keeping up with new wants from your potential clients.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

You name it, I tried it. I had an Etsy store that didn’t make big money. It became busy work – I call it “penny work”. Work that makes you think you are doing well because you are so busy, but looking at the bank account says otherwise. After about 2 years, I closed that down as a revenue stream idea. In 2019 the business was still just me, a freelance wedding design and stationery business. I hired out all printing at that time. In January I had a break down. I had no revenue that January and I told myself I was a failure. I thought I was taking advantage of my family, my husband who was supporting us. I had a big brain and a college education and I felt I was failing our family. So I got a full time job in a different field. I kept the business opened and even had a few clients that year, but I turned most of the work down. I learned a lot that year about myself and where I was really meant to be. I was down about 9 months and quit that job in the spring. When summer wedding season rolled around I was back better than ever with a new confidence and some insight into sales. After that, business really changed for me. Soon after I secured my first studio space outside of my home and it’s grown from there.

Have you ever had to pivot?

COVID. wow who didn’t have to pivot? I experienced my first panic attacks and didn’t understand what they were. The wedding industry shut down. Most of my clients wanted to cancel. It was likely worse for so many of my colleagues, but it was bad for me too. To piviot I decided to try and sell a new product. I was seeing a resurgence in snail mail so I created a product, shot photos of my daughter for marketing and branded the whole thing on my Shopify account. I reached out to other fellow wedding vendors and collaborated with them on little projects. The largest project I took on was my collection. Because of Covid I developed my first collection and that was a huge asset to the business sales as the next years came.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.creativeinbloom.com
• Instagram: @creativeinbloom
• Other: TikTok @creativeinbloom

Image Credits
Anna Clark Photography Courtney Rudicel Photography Rebecca Shehorn Photography Ivan and Louise Weddings