We were lucky to catch up with Kari Hartley recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kari, appreciate you joining us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

I absolutely love this question because anyone who owns a business knows just how much of your heart and soul goes into actually making that business run. The idea of flowers was never something I ever thought I would get into, I was in the Navy, hobbies with woodworking and construction renovations, and played a lot of sports. However, when my husband and I married super young and broke, I designed flowers from recycled newspaper blooms from Hobby Lobby. It sounds so silly to say now, but at that time, I thought it was the coolest thing.

I began being asked to do faux flower arrangements by my friends and their friends, even shipped a few wedding floral arrangements across the country a few times, all while I was still Active Duty in the Navy! After my enlistment ended and I lived back in my hometown in Illinois for a while, I began getting requests for fresh flower weddings…and. I. Was. HOOKED!!!!!

Designing for weddings with fresh flowers became something I was fully invested into, so many possibilities, ever-evolving trends and styles, every wedding a new opportunity to create something never created before! I began doing so much research from watching videos to talking with season florists and learning what all they knew, I still can’t get enough.

The only thing that took a good while to figure out was the admin side of actually running a business and not just playing with flowers. The stuff people don’t see. The emails, proposals, design books, cleanup, driving, scheduling, filing, pay the taxes, etc. I took business classes to help me understand this side and years later actually hired a few specialists to handle things I wasn’t as great at.

All in all, launching this business has been a dream come true, hard work and all!

Kari, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Kari Hartley and I am the owner of Soulful Stems floral company! I’m an Illinois native living up my life in the sunshine state of Florida! I am a Queer, fun-loving person with an adventurous soul AND who always has a project going on. Whether it’s my favorite pastime of woodworking or vacationing with my fun little family, I’m always excited for the next adventure!

Some fun facts about me:
– I go all out, all year long for Halloween
– I love working with all colored florals but I only ever wear black clothing
– Tattoos and funky hair colors are my favorite way to express myself
– Wrestling with my spouse and my kiddos is one of my favorite pastimes
– Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Nightmare Before Christmas, Anime, Comic Books, Law & Order SVU, Star Trek, and Inglorious Bastards are some of my favorite interests!
– Going to theme parks & renovating the house are in constant competition of which is my actual favorite thing to do.

My love for floral design started as a poor kid trying to have a little wedding when I was only 20 years old! Way too new in the US Navy to be making any kind of real money and way too young to know anything else! I designed faux recycled paper flowers into some easy arrangements and BOOM, I was hooked, friends started asking me to do theirs and it grew from there.

Now of course, it is so much more than just being able to design, running a business meant learning BUSINESS, which as a creative, took some time and continues to be an area that I’m always learning in.

Soulful Stems is a large-scale florist in Jacksonville, Florida and we specialize in weddings and events. We offer arrangements as simple as bouquets and as orante as hanging installations and beyond! The goal is always to make a STATEMENT. Investing your money in pieces that make an impact on your wedding and event days, that make all those who see it be like, hot dang that’s awesome!!

We pride ourselves on really listening to our clients dreams, asking in-depth questions about their floral goals, as well as getting to know them as people. This allows us to create floral designs that look like our clients, that make them step into the room on their day and it be like they’re looking at a reflection of themself in flower form!

Our clients are our muse for every event. We combine their vision with our eco-friendly mechanics in order to execute something epic! Sustainable floristry has really allowed us to deliver a much better product than ever before. By concentrating on greener practices such as using wool in place of plastic floral foam, or reusable containers in place of disposable, we are able to invest in the most important asset of all…FLOWERS of course! Our clients are able to get more blooms for their buck simply by us adhering to eco-friendly practices! More blooms and a greener Earth, what a beautiful way to start a new chapter in their life!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to unlearn was that my business and my personal self could never co-exist! Learning that it was okay to put my own character and ideas into the designs to create a new, edgy style that was darker than just all the bright and airy things weddings are known for. I’m a weirdo, so learning it was okay to let that weirdness into my designs was a game-changer and it attracted the right clientele.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have always been a big believer in natural growth in social media. The follower count is not important, the engagement and the authenticity is. We try to share things that make an accurate representation of who our company is, and then interact with comments and establish connections with people. This includes clients, admirers, and all of the amazingly supportive vendors we have the honor of knowing! Community over competition will always be our goal.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.soulfulstemsjax.com
• Instagram: @soulfulstemsjax
• Facebook: @soulfulstemsjax
• Other: Pinterest: @soulfulstems

Image Credits
In order: Oxana Rox Photography Tabitha Baldwin Photography Karmathartic Photography Celeste Burns Photography Britt & Bean Photography Jenn Mosely Photography Britt & Bean Photography Ashley Dye Photography Cafe Y Estilo Photography