Thanks for stopping by to see what's happening with Le Champagne Projects.
I thought I'd start this new year by introducing myself, the business and set my intentions for the year...
About Me...
I'm Kelly, le creative behind Le Champagne Projects. I've always been an artist; drawing incessantly as a child, taking numerous art classes in high school, and eventually dropping my pre-med major in college to pursue my passion in arts. Let me tell you, that was not an easy call home, but I think both my parents realized that Art had always brought me joy. Their bigger concern was how I would make a career out of it.
I don't think any of us would have guessed it would be as a Florist...
Photo By Lucy Munoz Photography
I have always loved to pull inspiration from nature and my love of traveling and cultures. I studied ceramics and sculpture in college and became enamored by Earth Work Art, where people created fleeting installations using only what Mother Nature provided to create beautiful site-specific work. I love to think that, in a roundabout way, I have fulfilled my goal to be an Earth Works artist using flowers as my medium.
About the Journey...
So how did I become a Florist? I like to say flowers found me.
After college I moved abroad to Italy. It was supposed to be for six months, but somehow six months turned into the better part of three glorious years. I like to call them my years of "early retirement". I taught conversational English, traveled nearly every week, always making sure my holidays included as much Art as I could cram into a 3-4 day visit to somewhere new.
When I moved back to the States I had trouble fitting back into my American life. Things move a lot slower in Italy. Life's focus is very different too. I missed traveling and absorbing cultures and art. I missed the food and family I'd made for myself abroad, so I started trying to bring home some of my favorite Italian traditions. Mainly I needed someone to eat all the food I'd learned to cook with me. I started throwing elaborate 5 hour dinner parties where friends would bring the wine, I'd cook, and we'd sit and eat and laugh and talk for hours. Eventually these parties turned in to theme parties, starting with Halloween, then making up reasons to convince my friends to all dress up, my birthday, New Years, Villaintine's Day (we were all single for Valentine's Day, it made sense).
It was one of my closest friends that actually suggested I try and make a business out of entertaining and party planning. That's right Le Champagne Projects actually started as a Theme Party business. I planned and decorated so many awesome theme parties. I still love to help friends throw parties, but it was when my neighbors and close friends decided to get married and asked me to do their wedding flowers that I finally ventured into the floral world.
I had never really made a flower arrangement. Birthdays and boyfriends always came with balloons because I'm actually allergic to most flowers (hence why I never imagined they'd become my main medium for art). I tried to explain this to them, but they pushed back and said, "whatever you do we know we'll love it". I didn't want to let them down, so I took an internship with a big florist in San Diego. The first day of my internship I pinned 700 something roses to a Chuppah and it just got bigger and grander from there. I learned so much and fell absolutely in love with flowers; I was hooked!
About the Business...
I'm so passionate about working with flowers and using them to celebrate ALL love. I love creating lush organic arrangements and working closely with my couples. I love hearing their stories and getting inspired by their venue choices to create unique and romantic pieces. My design style is very ethereal and whimsical, with lots of movement and texture. I draw heavily from my fine art background when it comes to color palettes and love to make site-specific installations, so that the flowers look as if they grew right from the earth.
Sustainability is also something I'm very passionate about. I've spent years transitioning my home to be low waste and wanted that to translate in to my business as well. So in an effort to give back to Mother Nature and thank her for giving us such beauty to work with, we went foam free in 2020. And since then have been implementing more sustainable practices, such as using locally organic grown flowers, composting, and reducing our carbon footprint so that we continue to have beautiful flowers on this earth. We are committed to sustainability without compromising style. By eliminating foam, we are able to create an even more natural look to our wedding flowers and give them that light and airy feeling.
I can't wait to see what the future will have in store for us. I look forward to connecting with more couples and working with them to create the weddings of their dreams! Thanks for following along.
Photo by Mandy Ford Photography
