Who is Inhale?

From left to right: Olivia, Dean, Haley, Selah, and Lyje holding Adaline

 

 "Hi there! We are a small family business, and we are so glad you found us!

I'm Olivia, and I'm proud to say that I'm a 4th generation florist. I just got back from crossing off one of my bucket-list items, volunteering internationally for the past 3 months, and now I'm ready and excited to launch a new division of our business in central Alberta.

   

Me at a flower farm and nearby cliffs outside La Paz, Mexico

 Growing up with both my mom and dad as hard-working entrepreneurs in their own businesses has inspired me to run a business of my own. I have seen how hard you have to hustle and I love the challenge! My first memories are watering the flower garden, passing tools to my dad, and washing buckets or de-thorning roses with my mom. I am so thankful for the strong work ethic they instilled in me and my siblings. I appreciate the opportunities, but deep down it's the encouragement they gave me to be confident and open to those opportunities, that I'm truly grateful for. 

Me at 6 years old, in my mom’s flower garden.

On-site at various events over the years.  

    

   

  

   

 Me and my mom on-site, (insert all the Gilmore Girls references) xoxo

 

"Hi!

 I (Haley), am a passionate 3rd gen florist with almost 20 years of experience, and Olivia and I, along with the rest of our wonderful family, are the faces of Inhale.

 Our family has deep roots in floristry; Julia, my grandma (and Liv's great-grandmother), was a florist for 25 years in Terrace, BC, and she still designs for her church today, in her 80's! My mother, Jackie-Marie, is a florist in a lovely community in the Kootenays. Over the years she, and my dad, have traveled to help Olivia and I set-up and design on many large events. With our family's combined 75 (crazy, I know!) years of experience, expertise and passion for flowers, we are confident that we can make your floral dreams a reality. 

   

The tribe around Great, Great-Grandma Julia, who started our love for all things flowers. Five generations altogether!!

 My journey began as a young, stay-at-home mom, with three beautiful babies in a lovely little flower garden. As I learned to arrange my home-grown blooms into bouquets for brides at church, my personal love for floral design and entrepreneurship was ignited. Somehow, I transitioned from selling gerbera daisy stems in my tiny flower stand by the road, to designing for movie stars and movie sets, and flying to remote private islands to design for corporate retreats. Inhale has now been a part of award-winning, multi-day, multi-themed, multi-million dollar events, with celebrity performances, for thousands of international guests. (I just reread that sentence for the dozenth time, and forgive me as I choke up.) What an unbelievable journey it's been so far.

          
Humble beginnings ~Olivia helping me at our flower stand, age 10.

 

Whistler, BC & Maui, Hawaii event set-ups. 

   

Inhale bouquets in the "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" Netflix series

 I'm thankful for this "About Us" page. I'm not one to journal, so writing this, and looking through past event photos, has forced me to sit still and reminisce about where we've come from, and I'm so in awe looking back. I feel overwhelmed with gratefulness for my life, and my family. who has supported me and worked alongside me. I wouldn't have wanted to do any of this crazy life without them! 

 

                     

The kids thru the years, happily helping mom. My joys!

 

  

              

My mom and dad at various events with me over the years. To this day, always as involved as possible, supporting me with the brainstorming, logistics, building, prepping, loading, styling, designing, coffee runs, and bringing the Taylor guitar to supply the background music. Love them to bits!

 So that brings us to fall, 2024. My husband, Dean, had a work opportunity in Red Deer, so I have found myself back where I grew up. My parents pastored a church here when I was little, and I am happy to have come "home", but I wondered where Inhale could fit into this new landscape. There are some absolutely fabulous fresh florists in Central Alberta and after making some wonderful new relationships in the industry, we saw the need for faux florals. Fresh flowers are absolutely wonderful, but there's many people here who prefer the ease, cost savings and simplicity of renting faux. Rental decor companies are getting asked all the time for flower rentals, and there just weren't many options available. Knowing that we have the skills to share, we are happy to have found a need in the community that we can serve. Needless to say, we are so inspired!

   

Dreamy Dean~ our Rock and the backbone of the business. The guy who never applied for the job and works for free, but can’t quit, even though he jokes about it constantly...never seriously, lol (right babe?) Love him like crazy!

The seed for a business pivot has been planted. I remember back to when we were planning our own wedding and realizing that the lush, romantic floral arch and aisle flowers were beyond our budget...even as a florist, buying wholesale, and doing the work ourselves, not that we wanted to! 

 Besides the expense, knowing that it would all end up in the trash at the end of the night is the absolute WORST feeling for a florist!! Over the years, seeing the waste after every event, our family has become more active finding and using more sustainable practices. I read somewhere that the average wedding of 100 guests generates 400-600lbs of garbage. Sounds right as we've seen it first hand, and the idea of a circular economy (renting, instead of one-time use) is a big move in the right direction.

 Secondly, knowing how absolutely INCREDIBLE faux flowers have become over the last few years, we are excited to embark on the challenge of transferring all of our expertise in fresh floral installations over to faux, rentable pieces. The designing and building of the actual arrangements is the easy part. For us, it's the sourcing of the best quality, most REALISTIC flowers that was the big challenge. We have ALWAYS had very high standards for quality, and that's not going to change. Refusing to put our name behind anything that even remotely says 'cheap' or poor quality, we began tracking down the flowers that are exact replicas of real flower varieties that we know and love.

 We found most wholesalers had limited options and insane markups, so we went right to finding the manufacturers. Some of them have great hydrangeas, but fake-looking roses. Some make excellent roses, but poor-quality greenery. Well, now the research has been done, the orders placed, and we are confident in the quality that what we are going to work with. The flowers that took foreeeever to source from around the world, are finally on their way, and we should be elbows deep in blooms December 2024. The most Christmas boxes to open EVER, whoop whoop! In the meantime, we are building our structures, planning our mechanics, launching the business side of things and taking bookings for 2025/2026. Our aim is to have all floral designs completed by early February 2025, so we recommend you book now, since we'll only have one set of each collection available to start. 

      

  Inspired by our deep roots in this gorgeous wild west, you'll recognize our Collection names, for sure. We're planning to offer an option in every popular style and color theme eventually, so let us know what you're dreaming of! We can't wait to work with all the local wedding vendors, and venue owners to serve you and have you all join our family. 

 I hope you will follow our wonderful life on social. Look for all five generations behind the scenes; from our adorable Grandma Julia to our mischievous granddaughter, Adaline, it truly is a family biz!

We are all creatives, so expect lots of dancing, bad karaoke (except Dean's dreamy baritone), tons of emotions and joyful messiness along the way!" 

 

——————————xoxo, Inhale——————————-