Last week, I shared with you all a few changes I am making to our business and farm next year. Most of those changes were motivated by sharpening my focus on what I want my business to look like in the next few years.
I'm so thankful most of my life was spent in regions with distinct seasonal changes. It's made me realize how important it is to embrace seasonality in our own lives. You learn that rest, slow periods, and change are a necessary part of life, contrary to the narrative of perpetual growth pushed by capitalism-at-all-cost society.
Our family is entering the final years with kiddos at home. All the middle-aged ladies at the grocery store told me it went to fast while I was wrangling defiant toddlers. I hate to say it, but they were right. My oldest entered high school this year. I have one child in high school, one in middle school, and one in elementary. These are busy days, and they will be gone in a blink.
I want to soak up these last few years with my kids under my roof, and that means making changes to the wedding side of Kinship. For 4 years, I've provided both ala carte and full-service weddings. A full-service wedding is a big undertaking when you're a one woman show. It's a week of procuring, processing, and designing flowers followed by delivery, set up and strike on wedding day, and hopefully a bit a rest the day after.
I love designing wedding flowers. It fills me up to know I am creating something beautiful for one of the most memorable days of someone's life. In order to both honor my desire to continue wedding work and my desire to maximize my time with my family, I will be taking on only ala carte weddings beginning in 2023.
I'm excited about this change. Ala carte weddings already make up a large portion of my wedding business. They are also a more economical way to flower your big day, making my work financially accessible to more clients. It also allows me to continue showing my children how important it is to make time for something you love.
It can be scary to cut income generating work from your business. But ultimately, most of us became small business owners to have greater control and say in our work. I heard a farmer say on an episode of The Gardener's Workshop podcast that sustainable farming is only truly sustainable if the work is sustainable for the farmer as well as the earth. We must take our humanity and season of life into account when planning for business future.
Comments