perks of being a seasonal montana florist?

If you’re lucky, you get to be a seasonal Montana florist. You get the height of summer with lush blooms, petals in your pockets, long bright days outside. And you also get to embrace the dying of the year with hibernation, reset, planning, rejuvenation. Both are gifts. I’m posting this on Valentine’s Day—which is normally the busiest of all holidays for florists, but I’m embracing feeling connected to my people instead of the small-business-hustle.

One of the hardest things about the modern world is how rarely we’re allowed to truly experience seasons. We live indoors. Under artificial light. We arrive everywhere by car. We stare at screens. We connect with people—and even with flowers—through social media. It’s easy to lose touch with the natural ebb and flow that our bodies were designed to follow.

I remember living in California for a few years as a child and realizing how much I struggled without true seasonal shifts. It was warm, then windy, then hot again, but the rhythm felt flat to me. I missed the seasonal turns. The way you feel the year moving. Seasonal flowers embody that rhythm. They arrive in abundance. And then they rest. There’s a reason we coo over the first daffodils, snowdrops, hyacinths, and tulips in the Gallatin Valley. It’s the same reason we welcome snow drifting over empty fields in November. The words out of my mouth are always, “Awwww, I missed you.” As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

When I chose to design weddings using entirely seasonal, locally grown Montana blooms, I knew it meant embracing both abundance and seasonal boundaries. I’ve had people tell me it might affect my bottom line. That I won’t be able to take production-sized weddings. That my designs won’t be as diverse.

But here’s what I know:

Local flowers are more expensive because growing in Montana is no small feat. I’ve never wanted the stress of large-scale production weddings—I love intimate celebrations with grounded, thoughtful clients. And my designs have never been more diverse than they are now, because I’m working with flowers that don’t ship well, flowers you can’t find in a box from overseas.

I don’t see constraint. I see invitation. An invitation to design with what gorgeous flowers are actually blooming here. To create wedding flowers that feel like they belong in this landscape. Shaped by this light, this weather, this particular moment in the year. Seasonal, sustainable Montana flowers aren’t about restriction. They’re about resonance. When you choose locally grown flowers for your wedding, you’re choosing to celebrate not just your marriage, but the exact season in which it begins. You’re allowing your wedding to be grounded in this place, in this valley, in this turning of the year.

And that, to me, is far more beautiful than having anything available at any time.

Sara and Scott’s vivid and bright Spring Wedding at Copper Rose Ranch in Paradise Valley