The story behind the name

Everyone assumes Garden Graffiti is just a nice catchy name. But it’s eight years on this September, so i’m unpacking the story behind the brand. And the story behind me.

I have a theatre degree, which explains more about my work than the floristry certificate does. I don't arrange flowers. I build sets.

When arts work turned out to be hard to come by, I did my Cert 3 in floristry in 2014 and spent a year working for a very good wedding florist. There was a moment when I was carrying an arbour across a paddock so we could reset it for the reception, and I remember thinking, oh. This is it.

London

I went to London to get better work, and for a while got very little of it. Freelancing for seven pounds an hour, which is a difficult way to live in that city. There were beautiful jobs, some very correct and very expensive florals in Knightsbridge houses, and they taught me a great deal while feeling nothing like me.

Then I found Rebel Rebel in Hackney. I started casually and about a year later they made me shop manager, which was generous of them given how little management experience I had.

That shop is where I fell for flowers properly. Colourful, wild, gardeny. Loose in a way traditional floristry never is. I went to the flower market and spent an unreasonable amount of money on everything London had to offer, and slowly worked out what I wanted my own work to look like.

Italy

The same company ran a flower school in Italy. I spent a stretch of months travelling and teaching workshops in Barga, which is still one of the better things that has happened to me.

Melbourne, and the wrong turn

I came back to Australia and went to Melbourne rather than Brisbane, because I thought the floral scene would be better for me. I freelanced for a few different people for close to a year and slowly realised it was not the right fit.

New York, and the name

Before coming home I was in a rut, and I knew I needed something to shake me up if I was ever going to start my own business. So I flew to New York and freelanced for the summer with a handful of different florists.

I was living in Bushwick. Street art on every surface, colour everywhere, edgy and modern and a bit loud. It did exactly what I needed it to do, and it gave me the second half of the name.

Garden, from England. That loose, garden-picked style I learned at Rebel Rebel.

Graffiti, from Bushwick. The colour, the edge, the modern bit.

I engaged a graphic designer, settled on the brand, and came home to Brisbane in September 2018 with no money and a laundry to work out of.

Why it matters when you're choosing a florist

Most Brisbane wedding florals look the same because most Brisbane wedding florists trained the same way. Mine look different because I learned them somewhere else, in a shop where wild and colourful was the whole point, and because I think about a ceremony the way a theatre graduate does. Where you'll stand. What you'll see. How the room feels when the doors open.

That is the whole idea, and it has been sitting in the name for eight years.

Ready to talk about your dream wedding flowers?

Bring your wedding inspo, your Pinterest saves, and any adjectives that feel right. We'll take it from there.

- Kat