We were lucky to catch up with Kristin Burrello recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kristin, appreciate you joining us today. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?
I got my first scathingly bad review in ten years of doing wedding flowers from a bride last year. It was the best thing that could have happened to me.
We have a saying in my studio: “Pinterest ruins lives.” Brides commonly scroll through social media and collect images that emulate their dream wedding. It can be a helpful tool for visually sharing likes and dislikes, style and taste. I will look at their Pinterest board and use it as a point of departure for my design proposal. The problems arise when a client gets too attached to an image and expects me to replicate someone else’s design, or has collected images of lavish, celebrity weddings that far exceed her budget. I am an artist with a farm teeming with flowers at my disposal and I prefer to create my designs using what is blooming locally. I am respectful of a client’s chosen color palette, but enjoy the nuances of nature and let the color play of the flowers dictate the direction of the design.
On this particular occasion, the red flags were everywhere but I hadn’t booked as many weddings as I needed and I decided to overlook them. The bride wanted blue and white flowers and had a list of all of the flowers she wanted in her bouquet, many of which would need to be imported (which typically drives up the cost.) She (and her mother) kept trying to cut corners to save money without cutting any items, and continually added things then balked at the extra expense. They wanted flowers for brunch the following day but didn’t want to pay extra for them, and they didn’t want them to look like the flowers from the night before. I stupidly agreed to deconstruct the centerpieces and rearrange them into different vases (which they didn’t want to pay for) during the clean-up at the end of the night for no extra charge! If you’ve ever worked in the event world you know that catering companies and venues break down a night’s party and set up for the next day in a well organized, efficient nanosecond. Flowers were flying! I was in the way, and I held up the manager from going home. No one from the family acknowledged my presence or thanked me for my work. I felt like a failure. I had compromised my value, my design aesthetic and my integrity. I knew I was going to pay for it.
Sure enough, three months later the bride went out of her way to post a negative review on one of the leading wedding sites. While some of her criticisms were legitimate, the majority of them were unfair or simply not true. I was devastated that I had failed to make her happy on her wedding day. It was the wake-up slap that I needed; I made a vow to say ‘no’ to clients who were not a good fit, to stop agreeing to replicate designs that rely heavily on imported flowers, to book only those who were willing to trust my expertise and style, and to demand that my time be compensated. The failure helped me get back in touch with my core values.
Kristin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I have always been a creative person. I was a serious ballerina through high school, majored in creative writing in college and had a wild and wonderful career as a theater artist in Chicago, particularly at the now defunct Redmoon Theater. When my sons were born my husband and I decided to leave the Midwest and move to New England. I had an overwhelming desire to live someplace beautiful and raise my boys on a farm. Thanks to my mother, I have gardened my entire life and my love of flowers borders on addiction. Starting a farm business seemed like a good way for me to be a stay at home mom and grow a business. We wanted our children to grow up surrounded by nature and learn the value of hard work. Muddy Feet Flower Farm is a boutique flower farm that offers over 100 varieties of flowers and greenery from April through December. I specialize in creating unique garden-style mixed bouquets; I rarely make the same bouquet twice. I sell my flowers at the Westport, Connecticut Farmers Market and wholesale through The Connecticut Flower Collective. My design studio, Farm Couture Flowers, specializes in wedding and event design. We treat the land with respect and don’t use harsh chemicals or pesticides
I am most proud of the impact growing up on a farm has had on my boys. While there were many years of gripes and groans when it came time to do farm work (my middle son used to fall down and play dead,) they have each developed an incredibly strong work ethic, and an appreciation for our home.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
When I first started the farm business I was doing a lot of guest vendor appearances at different farmers markets. I quickly learned that I needed to stay in one place in order to build up a loyal customer base. I also sold my bouquets wholesale through two prestigious national outlets. I was so flattered that they reached out to me to sell my flowers that I ignored the extra time and overhead expenses. I thought that they were invested in me and my business and would promote me which would therefore lead to more opportunity and growth, but in the end it really just meant I was selling my best product for a fraction of the price that I could get retail and they didn’t care about promoting me. When Covid hit in 2020 I ended my relationship with them. I also learned early on that I could make a lot more money doing wedding work and that my experience in the theater production made me uniquely qualified to handle the stress of events.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
My mother grew up on a farm and maintained beautiful gardens at my childhood home. When I graduated from college and moved to Chicago I planted gardens at all of the apartment buildings that I lived in. I planted spring bulbs, lilac bushes, roses-the works! Some of them are still there. When my husband and I bought our first house, we took down the fence between our neighbor’s house and ours and merged our gardens. I started getting commissions from neighbors and friends to design gardens on their properties, which led to enrolling in the Garden Design program at the Chicago Botanical Garden. When my second son was born, I began a deep dive into organic farming and began constructing my farm dream. I took a business class for farmers at the Angelic Organic Learning Center and wrote a business plan for my future flower farm. In 2010 we bought an old 1776 farmhouse in Connecticut and Muddy Feet Flower Farm was born.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.farmcoutureflowers.com
- Instagram: @muddyfeetflowerfarm
Image Credits
Kristin Burrello