By Madoline Markham Koonce
Garden Party Designs lives up to its name, and not just because it designs florals for weddings and other celebrations. For the trio of women who own it, their work often feels like a party of its own.
If co-owners Suzanne Graves, Jerri Minor and Melissa Mistrot are setting up flowers in front of the stage when the wedding band starts practicing, all the better; they have their own dance party while they work. They all love wedding cake, so it’s an extra exciting day if they are offered a slice, but they also get sweetness in their day when they catch a moment such as the bride doing a first look with her groom as they set up.
While the three of them are creating bouquets and arrangements, they’re also talking about their families and motherhood and what they are cooking for dinner.
“At the end of the day, we have been working all day, but we feel like we’ve been hanging out with our girlfriends,” Mistrot said.
Graves, Minor and Mistrot had all been working as freelance florists when they decided to start Garden Party Designs together in 2021.
Graves had been doing floral work for weddings for nearly 30 years before that; Mistrot had a background in marketing and social media from working in retail; and Minor had experience in accounting and tracking details.
But, most notably, “We are all creative and love flowers and beautiful things,” Graves said.
There was a dream they shared that got them through some of the early days.
In moments on busy weekends when they were tired, they’d say to each other, “When are we going to Italy?” Through weddings and showers, Valentine’s Day pop-ups and homecoming dances, they’d keep asking each other, “When are we going to Italy?”
In April 2023, to Italy they went.
“We saw beautiful flowers and ginormous lemons and ate lots of food and gelato and drank lots of wine,” Mistrot said.
Now they’re asking each other what their next trip will be. At the moment, they are thinking Spain.
Seeking the Wow Factor
Often for their floral work, the partners select blooms from the gardens at Graves’ Homewood home – dahlias, hydrangeas, roses and such. The three of them find inspiration looking around what she is growing, and Mistrot said it could be its own flower shop.
“If you can cut something from the yard, it makes it that much more special,” Graves said.
For each wedding they do, Garden Party Designs tries to design at least one element for the reception that has a “wow factor,” whether it be floral rings hanging from the ceiling or a special design around the cake table. They have even created a flower wall with pink roses at the Birmingham Museum of Art and decorated a large bell at Sloss Furnaces.
“Any time I am getting to use the creative side of my brain, it feeds my soul, and I feel happy,” Mistrot said.
To give each event the attention they think it deserves and make sure they still have time for their families, Garden Party Designs usually takes on only about 10 weddings a year plus some showers and other events. Usually brides or mothers of the bride find them through friends who have used Garden Party Designs for their own weddings.
Mistrot said she thinks brides are drawn to what sets their designs apart.
“We are willing to go outside the box to find that perfect flower to go in an arrangement that you are not going to see at a flower store,” Mistrot said.
Plus, the owners get extra excited to work with colorful flowers in weddings since whites and greens are so popular now, though they say they enjoy those designs, too.
No two events the business takes on are the same, which keeps the work interesting and fun, the owners said.
“Every bride wants something different, so it’s fun to create their vision,” Graves said.
Each of the partners has kids who are overlapping ages in high school, college and young adulthood. Often, one of the kids is attending the company’s events as their friends are starting to marry.
No matter whose wedding they are designing florals for, their team dynamics are the same.
Graves is the peace and calm of the trio. Minor is the master of spreadsheets and pulls together design elements, always reminding her partners to “make it pretty!” And Mistrot handles social media and other aspects of the business.
“We feel like we are using the gifts we’ve been given,” Graves said.
And they sure have a lot of fun doing it.
To learn more about Garden Party Designs, follow @gardenparty_designs on Instagram.
