About Us
I am a wedding and events floral designer serving Sonoma and Napa counties. My style and belief is that floral design is an extension of nature. I do not use floral foam and promote the reuse of materials and composting all organic matter. Please check out my web site www.lavenderfloral.com for hundreds of photos and details on pricing and my design philosophy.
The products and services we offer
Products & Services
Lavender Floral provides floral design services for Sonoma and Napa county weddings and events. My design aesthetic and philosophy is harmony with...
Personalized service of floral design for weddings and events in Sonoma and Napa counties. We also provide rental equipment including: arches, chu...
Lavender Floral creates naturally beautiful floral design for weddings and events in Sonoma and Napa, California wine country.
Recommendations Given (12)
"Anastasia has an eye for beauty along with the skill and attention to detail for any project. ..."
Read more
"Anastasia has an eye for beauty along with the skill and attention to detail for any project. This comes not only from her experience as an interior designer, but her creativity as an artist."
"This is a fun and very interesting way to see Sonoma. Pushpak motor tours are something you..."
Read more
"This is a fun and very interesting way to see Sonoma. Pushpak motor tours are something you should definitely do when visiting Sonoma. "
Recent Activity
I came to the realization recently that I want to do floral design for weddings for the next 2 years and then retire. I had a stressful incident, and picked and arranged some flowers to de-stress. I realized that I am not ready to give up my little business just yet. I am 71. But, that said,...
(more)
I came to the realization recently that I want to do floral design for weddings for the next 2 years and then retire. I had a stressful incident, and picked and arranged some flowers to de-stress. I realized that I am not ready to give up my little business just yet. I am 71. But, that said, I will be redesigning my web site this winter. I will no longer be everything to everyone. Smaller weddings, my natural, eco-friendly style only, and letting people know that costs have gone up and as kindly as possible conveying that reality.
My husband and I both work from home. We operate 3 business. A vacation rental home, a wedding floral business and computer software for credit and debit card processing. My husband is a programmer and now is almost completely retired, so is not doing much with that business, other than...
(more)
My husband and I both work from home. We operate 3 business. A vacation rental home, a wedding floral business and computer software for credit and debit card processing. My husband is a programmer and now is almost completely retired, so is not doing much with that business, other than maintaining and updating a product he developed for some of its users. I have never been involved in that business. We have shared a home office for over 18 years. At first he spent a lot of time on his business and now mostly works with me on the other two. We have well defined areas of responsibility for each business and that helps us not have conflicts. The only thing I will say is that he does not like helping me sometimes with the floral business. Doing my web site and the financial aspect he is fine with, but I need him to help me with delivery and set up on the day of the wedding. That he has never been too crazy about. I really have never wanted to hire someone on an as needed basis for day of set up, because of the experiences I had with employees for the 4 years I operated a floral shop.
The only way our two small home based businesses will recover is if Covid is controlled. We own a vacation rental house and right now we are shut down again for the next 3 or 4 weeks. I want to keep the property and hope that tourism can recover in 2021, with a new administration in Washington...
(more)
The only way our two small home based businesses will recover is if Covid is controlled. We own a vacation rental house and right now we are shut down again for the next 3 or 4 weeks. I want to keep the property and hope that tourism can recover in 2021, with a new administration in Washington focused on science. My other business is floral design for weddings and events. In the past I have had a high dollar minimum for each event to justify all the work, personal service and complicated process of getting all the materials needed. Now people are only doing small events, so I need to find a pricing and planning strategy that will be profitable for these smaller events. I have to say that I have been dismayed by some of the comments I have seen on these threads from other small business owners. I see a recklessness in attitude about the spread of this virus. I see many people just thinking we can go back to business as usual and not worry about spreading the virus. I personally will not go against the heath orders and do things like, renting out our vacation rental house when it is not permitted or doing flowers for illegal large events.
1 Reply
As a wedding and events florist, I am struggling with two things right now. I have some large events booked for 2021. Some of them are events that have rescheduled from 2020. I realistically think that they will not be allowed. Given where we are with Covid, gatherings like this would be...
(more)
As a wedding and events florist, I am struggling with two things right now. I have some large events booked for 2021. Some of them are events that have rescheduled from 2020. I realistically think that they will not be allowed. Given where we are with Covid, gatherings like this would be irresponsible and spread Covid. I have spend lots my time with these clients, but feel if the events can not take place, I need to fully refund their deposits. I did this for all cancellations in 2020. But, now that the additional unemployment for sole proprietors has ended, I am basically working for nothing, to keep good will for the future and prevent "Yelping". And second I am getting requests and doing these "micro weddings". They are labor intensive, but I am making very little money on them. If anyone is in a similar situation or has some ideas, I would love to hear them.
One group that seems to be overlooked in all the questionnaires is the event and wedding professionals. It would be great if Alignable could connect us. As what we do can not be done at home and will most likely be small groups in the near future, it would be great to connect with others: ...
(more)
One group that seems to be overlooked in all the questionnaires is the event and wedding professionals. It would be great if Alignable could connect us. As what we do can not be done at home and will most likely be small groups in the near future, it would be great to connect with others: floral designers, caterers and event sites to see what they are planning to do and what works and what does not.
1 Reply
I agree with many of the other posters. As a sole proprietor of a small business that can not operate now (wedding florist) this $600 has been a life line. For many small business owners like me this is the only meaningful relief we have. PPP and EDIL are based on number of employees and...
(more)
I agree with many of the other posters. As a sole proprietor of a small business that can not operate now (wedding florist) this $600 has been a life line. For many small business owners like me this is the only meaningful relief we have. PPP and EDIL are based on number of employees and payroll and almost completely useless to those of us who do not have employees and do it all ourselves. Now that it is has ended I have $0 income. What the state pays is about $160 a week. The idea that people are not going back to work because the have this benefit is ridiculous. The only jobs for me, if I could even get one right now are: drive for Amazon or work at the grocery store. I wish people would stop making up stuff like this. It hurts all of us and makes it seem like there are all kinds of jobs out there, when in reality everything has ground to a halt. This latest round from he who will not be mentioned is going to make it even worse. Payroll tax suspension is just another round of helping the wealthy as some of the PPP did. Employees and real small businesses should be getting the benefits to help us survive this crisis, not the wealthy and corporations that can weather this.
Please create a sub category on your questionnaires for type of business. This will allow you to see what those of us that primarily do work for weddings and events are experiencing. For example there are many of us who do not have store fronts and only do weddings and events. I am a floral...
(more)
Please create a sub category on your questionnaires for type of business. This will allow you to see what those of us that primarily do work for weddings and events are experiencing. For example there are many of us who do not have store fronts and only do weddings and events. I am a floral designer, and to lump in my and many others experiences with store front and delivery floral designers does not make sense. We can not reconfigure our businesses to suddenly be store fronts and do daily deliveries. And if we did we would experience even more financial loss, as for most of us, our towns and areas are already saturated with enough store front florists now. They in turn can not do what we do with large dedicated events, unless they hire lots more people and get lots more space. There are are also photographers, entertainment, planners, caterers and others in the same position. We need a sub category for event businesses. Ours will be the last if ever group to be able to open. How can events of 100 more people be allowed until there is a vaccine? I do not think you are reporting the impact on our business sector. That said I certainly do not want to see gatherings of hundreds of people, given where we are today.
Here is something I learned this month that may help those operating vacation rentals, small hotels and bed and breakfasts. We have a vacation rental house in Sonoma wine country. We are usually solidly booked from spring through fall. And we also do very well in winter. Since March we have...
(more)
Here is something I learned this month that may help those operating vacation rentals, small hotels and bed and breakfasts. We have a vacation rental house in Sonoma wine country. We are usually solidly booked from spring through fall. And we also do very well in winter. Since March we have been ordered shut down by the county, and we just reopened July 1 when they permitted us too. We are finding that guests that have booked long ago are waiting until the last minute to cancel. Most of these guests were coming from out of state and most likely flying. But, as we cancel their reservations and our calendar opens up, locals from within California are booking the dates. This has happened for almost all our July reservations. Of course we give full refunds to anyone who does not want to come because of Covid 19. I will write again, if this trend continues over the summer. So it maybe that lower priced and non luxury short term rentals may do well, with local travelers wanting to get away at the last minute.
We took the PPP which were small amounts for both of our businesses, a wedding floral design studio and a vacation rental. We used it to pay our selves as employees and expenses. We did not take the EIDL loan that had to be repaid as it was not large enough to be of any value for paying down...
(more)
We took the PPP which were small amounts for both of our businesses, a wedding floral design studio and a vacation rental. We used it to pay our selves as employees and expenses. We did not take the EIDL loan that had to be repaid as it was not large enough to be of any value for paying down our mortgage. We did not want to accumulate debt, beyond the mortgage that we have on the vacation rental home. In no way was this money enough to make up for lost income. The way the program is structured, is not beneficial to businesses like ours without a bunch of employees. The programs should have been structured based on what businesses need to cover expenses, when there is no income. Our county prohibits short term rentals and gatherings and events, so there is no way to restructure. Unlike restaurants that can do take out or delivery, we are prohibited from doing business. All that said, something is better than nothing. In addition we are now getting unemployment as sole proprietors. In some ways this is much more helpful in making ends meet and paying expenses than EDIL or PPP.
