May 14, 2024 | By: Matthew Freeman

In Business: ‘Flora & Floret’ in Park Rapids Has Busy Mother’s Day Weekend

Many around the world celebrated Mother’s Day over the weekend, which meant certain retailers got busy with shoppers coming in for last-minute gifts.

In downtown Park Rapids, Flora & Floret, owned and operated by Tessa Kumpula, was busy with flower orders for the holiday. Kumpula started the business after seeing the building and instantly knowing what to do with it.

“So I was doing wedding flowers, and so my dream was to just start a wedding flower business,” said Kumpula. “I was actually across the street doing some work on my laptop and I saw this face for space and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to go check it out, probably won’t do anything with it,’ and then I just kind of fell in love with the little space and I kind of had a vision as soon as I walked in and it was like, ‘Let’s do something with it,’ so here I am.”

Mother’s Day weekend usually brings a crowd to Flora & Floret, making it the busiest time of the year for the shop.

“I was delivering wedding flowers this morning,” explained Kumpula. “I probably got up around 4:45, 5:00. Did the wedding flowers, delivered those, opened the shop, and I’ve been here – it’s 5:00 now, been here all day, and I was here all weekend, probably until 8 or 9 p.m. all week actually, just getting ready, getting set up. So yeah, it’s been it’s been really busy.”

But Mother’s Day weekend isn’t the only time the shop can bring a lot of traffic, and some in-demand days may surprise you.

“On Valentine’s Day for sure. It’s probably the second busiest holiday of the year,” Kumpula stated. “Unexpectedly, Thanksgiving was busy, so I didn’t expect that many people to want Thanksgiving flowers. But I guess it’s the thing.”

When Mother’s Day rolls around, that means it’s time for Flora & Floret to prepare for the busiest weekend of the year. But it also means it’s time to celebrate, because it’s the one-year anniversary for the shop as well, as Kumpula opened up the store over Mother’s Day weekend last year.

“It’s crazy,” said Kumpula of the year that’s passed. “You learn a lot. There’s a lot of changes, things that you don’t see coming, but it’s been great. I love the community here. Everybody’s so supportive and it’s been better than I could have imagined.”

Kumpula added that she loves coming into work and meeting members of the community, but owning a floral shop doesn’t mean you’re just playing with flowers all day.

“It’s funny to think, playing with flowers people are like, ‘Oh yeah, flowers. That’s what you do all day,’ but that’s probably like 10% of the work,” she said with a laugh. “The rest is like sweeping floors, taking leaves off the stem. So you do – most of the work as like, behind-the-scenes stuff you don’t see. But yeah, we do get to play with flowers and that’s fun.”

Kumpula tries to get everything for her shop from local vendors, including those beautiful flowers, and if she can’t get certain items from the vendors, she turns to other small businesses in northern Minnesota.

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