Your name: Holly Heider Chapple
Your Business name: Holly Heider Chapple Flowers ltd.
Your Location:Leesburg VA. I service DC, MD, VA. Lucky Me.
How did you start your business?
I grew up in a family of farmers. My father had a large green house and was the landscaper for many businesses all over the DC area. He was also a produce farmer. I have been surrounded by flowers all of my life. As a child I thought I hated my fathers business, all of us were forced to help in the family business. We often help start thousands of plants by seed and we always had to water the plants. Not fun for teenagers. When I left home at the age of 21 my husband I ended up on a property that was loaded in old time shrubs. I started to arrange for my little house. I knew the basics of design from helping my dad at Christmas time.
I started my business so that I could be home with my children. I knew that I wanted a big family and I wanted to be home during the day to raise them. My husband would watch them on the weekends when I was off at a wedding.
What is your design aesthetic?
I consider myself a mass floral designer, I love full rich floral design. In other words I am a crammer, one more blossom, one more element and then one more just to make it perfect.
What are the trends, flowers & colors that are unique to your region?
In DC and Virginia, we are back to a simple but elegant approach. Vintage, Vintage, Vintage, we are using mason jars, milk glass, and garden classics to bring our weddings to life. I do believe that we will swing out of this trend rather quickly and move to a vintage glam as the economy recovers. We are blessed with amazing peony, lilac, blooming branches. Local growers provide dahlias, coxcomb, zinnia’s, herbs.
Are you a retail shop, studio/warehouse or home based?
I am a home based studio that focuses on weddings and special events.
Do you offer any services in addition to floral designs?
We also offer styling of an event so that there is continuity and flow throughout the event. We also will begin offering our inventory as rental items for DIY brides.
What does your toolbox look like?
I have a Doctor Bucket. It is literally a five gallon bucket that has a little harness that slips down into the bucket. They sell these at construction stores. It has little loops and pockets that hold all of the necessities, like scissors, pruners, tape, wire, and pins.. I also have wristlets in the Dr. Bucket because someone always wants to convert their pin on corsage into a wrist corsage.
What tool in your toolbox can’t you live without?
The scissors of course.
What’s your favorite flower?
It used to be Lilac so I still say it is Lilac. It was the lilac on my property that truly started my business. However in truth I have about 20 favorites.
Anything else you’d like to share with Flirty Fleurs followers?
I love the idea of this blog and have been wanting to do something like this ever since I started my blog so good luck this is awesome.
Contact Information:
703-777-8227
http://www.hollychappleflowers.com/
