Selena Thompson speaks all things green.
“I like to put things in at separate heights, it just creates more movement,” Thompson says.
She’s the co-owner and lead stylist at a floral shop off Grand Avenue in Phoenix. She’s a fourth-generation florist and her style is the mantra behind her business: The Wildflowers.
“Rather than forcing something natural to be tight and un-organic, we try and let the flowers speak for themselves and let them tell their own story and I’m just the vessel for them,” Thompson says.
When the pandemic first hit, The Wildflowers were in peak wedding season, Thompson says they were doing all weddings out of her home.
Thompson says she and her mother, “Were getting email after email, gotta postpone, gotta cancel because of COVID.”
“I felt horrible for all of our couples that had to move around but we were really deeply impacted,” Thompson says.
“I think we lost $18,000 to $24,000 that we had to pay out of pocket because we weren’t going to put that onto our brides,” Thompson says.
And now they’re feeling the stress of inflation. “We’re absolutely still recovering,” says Thompson. “Before like a standard rose could have cost a $1.25 to a $1.50 for us, for a nice standard rose. But now they’re like, $3 to $5 a stem.”
Thompson continues, “There was a white flower shortage. We couldn’t get any white roses for a while.”
Although we’re finally seeing inflation track downward, Thompson says, “We used to do a $75 minimum but now we have to do an $85 minimum for deliveries just because of gas inflation.”
Their local business, like so many, are having to once again, adapt to survive.
“If I could do them for free, I would,” Thompson said. “But I gotta buy the product and unfortunately the product is expensive.”
