They Call It Magic- The Flower Cottage

We have always said The Cottage is a magical place. And much to our delight everyone who comes through our doors quickly feels it too. We’ve cultivated a community of flower lovers, master hosts, intentional designers and just down-right kind, supportive people over the past few years in this magical space. We never thought we’d have a flower studio down the road from our high school stomping grounds- but here we are & we pinch ourselves on the daily that this is our gig. We’ve been feeling gushy and nostalgic since celebrating our 4 year anniversary of moving out of our mom’s basement (thanks mom!!!!) and into our dream studio space.

The space felt like home from the first time we stepped foot inside way back in 2016. Then, it was Vintage Alley Rentals, and we were hosting our first floral design workshop alongside Trish, the owner of VA and Dawn Derbyshire, one of the best wedding photographers in Pittsburgh (such warm memories from this Spring floral workshop together!). The space was soooo cute and the flowers just amplified the charm of it all. Less than a year after that, having grown our businesses along side each other, Trish was bursting at the seams with her growing inventory of beautiful antiques and we knew we had outgrown our mom’s basement and were SO ready to level up our client experience.

The timing was fate.

We got the keys on February 1st, 2017 and had SO many plans to make this space our own. We hit the ground running and gave ourselves a 1 month deadline to transform the space by scheduling a client meeting for March 1st (with wedding season following right behind). No time to waste!

The Cottage started as a 1960’s modular home that would later transform itself with different businesses—a ceramic art studio called the ‘Clay Cottage’, a “princess palace” themed party venue, and an office/warehouse for contractors to name a few. Each business before us had left their mark, resulting in a whole lot of random light figures and about 5 different colors of bold paint. We wanted our space to feel fresh, inviting, cozy, and inspiring. We wanted our potential clients to walk through the doors and immediately feel at ease, surrounded by intentional design details and know their wedding designs would be beautiful, too.

We painted EVERY surface floor to ceiling. Our Dad spent a week hanging shiplap and framing in the windows while we followed behind with primer and paint. The furniture we had previously been using for the past several years in our mom’s basement fit perfectly. It was coming together just as we envisioned! But it was a loooooot of work. Blood, sweat and tears as they say (wedding florists are no strangers to this type of work). But we loved it and to say it was all worth it feels like an understatement.

Soon after opening we realized this space could become so much more than a place for our wedding consultations and meetings. Brides would come for their floral consult and ask if they could have their bridal shower here. Moms coming in with their daughters would say it’s the perfect place to hold their next garden club meeting asking, “Do you do floral demonstrations?”. We’d linger after workshops chatting to our attendees who couldn’t get enough of the space and the flowers. We had a couple photo shoots here and the photographers would always comment on the dreamy lighting. We started renting out the space for events and photoshoots and loved the opportunity to transform our space into something new each time. Every event allowing us to learn more about how our space works (and doesn’t) and how we can continue to improve it.

Opening the space up for opportunities has catapulted our growth and as a result we’ve come in contact with some amazing people we wouldn’t normally meet if we worked solely in the wedding industry.

Which has us thinking that we don’t want to keep all the beauty for ourselves- this space is for everyone!

Through this experience this past year as small business owners, we’ve been given the time to really reflect on our niche and our purpose. COVID might have wiped out a lot of our wedding work but we’ve been using our ‘down time’ to redesign the space to be more accessible to our community. It is not lost on us how fortunate we are to still have this space after 2020 and we do not take any of it for granted.

This place has been “The Cottage” for so many different businesses, and even with all of the shiplap and paint we need to go a step farther to clarify what we are really all about here.

So it only makes sense for us to amend the building’s inherited name from “The Cottage” to “The Flower Cottage”. An intimate event space inside a floral studio. When you walk through our doors you’ll be able to experience what we experience daily— the magic of flowers.

We’re grateful that you’re here with us as we continue to develop The Flower Cottage into something meaningful. It’s a process and it’s not perfect but we’re ready to share more of this journey with you!