We finally got the time to rest a little after Christmas so we asked on our Instagram what should our next blog post be, and majority of you guys voted for a 2018 Wrap Up!
Here's some of our highlights of 2018!
Starting out:
2018 was a year of many firsts for us, and we started out (unofficially) at the start of the year - Valentine's Day, to be exact.
Prior to that we were merely making bouquets for friends at a small fee (or sometimes none) whenever they had events to attend and wanted a small bouquet.
(Thank you to our friends who've always supported us!!)
When Valentine's Day approached, we took flower orders from some of our friends (and friends of our friends). Even though it was Valentine's Day, we didn't impose a surcharge and sold the bouquets at really low prices. Not only did we not earn anything from this event, we ended up receiving more orders than we had expected (we even had a guy come up to us and asked where we got our bouquets from!) and had to work all night to finish our orders! Not to mention, it was Chinese New Year after so we couldn't get any rest till then.
Our official launch:
After months of preparation - from designing our website, our logo, our name, fine tuning other logistics... we officially launched in May, just in time for Mothers' Day!
At that time, we were still relying a lot on our friends who needed bouquets and other favors because we did not actively promote our brand. Every time we completed an order, we would spend extra time discussing on how to improve. Looking back now, we're glad to have since grown and met many other customers, clients, and partners along the way!
If anyone's interested in more behind the scenes on how we decided on our brand name and other parts of the launch process, let us know! Maybe we'll do another more detailed blog post nearing to our anniversary next year. Most of the stuff that you see online and on our social media are actually done in-house by us with some occasional help from our friends, so... it has not been glamorous at all!
Giving back to the community:
We're not sure what gave us the courage to start our own community project given that we were a small florist that has barely earned anything... BUT we really wanted to give back and managed to pull it off!
After 2 (almost) sleepless nights we managed to give out over 200 bouquets to nurses on Nurses' Day. This was where we had our first mini collaboration with @agapescripts.co , who designed the cards that were given out to the nurses that day. We're really glad to be able to collaborate with a brand who shared the same vision as us!
We've also collaborated with NUS' Community Service Club to sponsor another of their community projects this year. We've blogged about both events so if you're interested you can read up on them here: Nurses' Day / Grant a Wish .
As the new year approaches we hope that we can continue giving back to the community in whatever ways we can and we hope that you can do the same!
Collaborations and new friendships:
We got to work on our very first wedding project with Klokkev - thank you so much for contacting us! It was a pretty crazy one for us as we were trying out something new within such a tight time frame and a small budget. Nevertheless, we're thankful for the opportunity to expand our portfolios and we look forward to more weddings and events for 2019!
For Christmas, we got to work with Two Curiously and Faire Soapworks, 2 other local brands that specialise in handmade jewelry and artisan soap. Thank you for letting us take full control of conceptualising and designing these gift boxes! We also decided to have a go at producing videos:
(We're not professionals but hey, baby steps, we're always trying to improve!) These videos are currently on our Instagram page, and we will upload them soon onto IGTV.
We've grown in more ways than we could have ever imagined and this would not be possible for all the support that we've received thus far! It really warms our hearts when we hear from customers that the recipient loved our flowers, or when customers share with us the stories behind each bouquet. We're so glad to be part of your celebrations, or even something small like making someone's day.
To more collaborations, new friendships and growth,
Happy New Year from us to you!
Keep Buddin'
The Wallflower Bud Team