Why I became a florist.

Short answer: I became a florist because it was (finally) a creative job that I could see being able to cover my living expenses (and hopefully more). I met some brilliant florists along the way who have been so supportive and thank them in my next blog post.

Long answer: This time last month I was sitting in one of the London skyscrapers as an actuary at a big corporation in London, specialising in building software for insurance companies. For those who don’t know what an actuary is, don’t worry, most people other than actuaries will never know.

Taking a step back, at school I was always ‘mathsy’ and arty. When it was time to go to college, I followed the numbers and did Maths at university before becoming a graduate actuary at a start-up in London. Now, whilst being said actuary, I tried a plethora of crafty hobbies from pottery painting/making, to cross stitching, to painting and trying to start a cooking blog -  I apologise to all my friends who I’ve dragged along to these taster sessions or, maybe worse, received something from me that I have made. I’d get lost in the fun, dream of doing this for a living and then swiftly realise it probably wasn’t going to cover my dog’s pet insurance, let alone my monthly living expenses.

When my partner got engaged, I very quickly started looking for a wedding florist close to my venue (I’d like to say we started looking for a florist but I completely took over!). Safe to say I became obsessed with flowers and followed a ridiculous number of them on social media. I found my florist through Instagram and messaged her (jokingly at the time) that I think I wanted to become a wedding florist and she said that’s how she got into it – which got my thinking I could do the same thing.

I knew deep down I needed a break from corporate land so decided to take the summer off to explore a few options and see where my feet took me. In the meantime, I did a lot of research on the ins and outs of running a floral business via blogs, podcasts, chatting to other florists. From this, I slowly came to appreciate that this could be a job where I could be creative and earn a reasonable amount of money (in the long run) – hence how Amy Carlile Flowers was born.

So there you are, why I became a florist, may be it’s similar to your story! The next blog post gives some more detail on what I did to enter the floristry world and some people I met along the way.