When I got married in the summer of 2012, I got fresh flowers. I wanted to symbolize a new beginning and welcome hopes of fertility, happiness, and fidelity. I splurged on the flowers and they arrived at our wedding venue wrapped in plastic and carefully laid in a new corrugated icebox. Our vendor wrapped the flowers with the proper packing material inside. In all the excitement of our wedding, we did not stop to consider using alternative flowers. But even if we did, I doubt we would’ve chosen silk or plastic flowers for 1 reason. I thought that they look fake.

But ordering fresh flowers for events and celebrations is costly - both to our pockets and to the environment. Reports state that sending the roughly 100 million roses of a typical Valentine’s Day produces some 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from field to U.S. florist with flower delivery flights burning approximately 30 million gallons of fuel.

In this episode, I talk to Megan Rapacz about how to protect the environment and our purse strings with reusable high-quality silk flowers. Today’s faux flowers are both beautiful and cost-effective. To meet the demand for these flowers in the wedding space, Megan, together with her sister Amanda, started a socially conscious business that offers beautiful silk flowers to engaged couples planning a wedding. We talk about starting a socially conscious business, finding the right partners to work with, staying true to the mission, finding the funds to start a new business, and setting bigger and more inspiring goals to aspire to as the business grows. 

About Silk Stem Collective 

Sisters Megan and Amanda Rapacz founded Silk Stem Collective to deal with these problems. Silk Stem Collective is a rent-and-return wedding floral service offering sets of quality silk flowers to environmentally and economically conscious couples. Newly married couples rent these flowers and pass their set off to the next couple after the wedding. Since the company started, it’s grown to offer 8 unique collections, with more on the way, of the highest quality silk flowers. More brides and grooms are getting beautiful flowers at a reasonable cost.

Megan and Amanda design bouquets that they would want at prices they would pay, with the goal of making these flowers versatile enough to fit every wedding vision but special enough to make their clients feel like a treasured bride or groom. Megan and Amanda also created a blog called “The Greenhouse” which is filled with original thoughts on flowers, trends, and tidbits they’ve learned throughout the wedding planning process.

Contact Silk Stem Collective

Facebook: @Silkstemcollective Instagram: @Silkstemcollective Website: https://silkstemcollective.com/