Two sisters who run a florists' and once delivered roses to famous singer Taylor Swift are closing their shop after 12 years – because the business is blooming.
The firm run by Michelle Boon and Megan Thaxton, known as Swaffham and Fakenham Florist, will be shutting its doors in the Market Place, Swaffham and rebranding as Floral Sistas. The business is actually expanding - but with no need for a shop anymore.
Miss Boon and Mrs Thaxton, who run the florists with their mum Oonah Boon, an aunt and friend, wanted the new name to represent all the ladies working together - even though dad Kevin Boon also helps out in the business too. The shop isn't closing until after Mother's Day, March 22, next year but the sisters are getting the word out now.
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The sisters took over the florists from another family member through tragic circumstances they prefer not to talk about, and it has been a huge success, particularly with wedding flowers. They do flowers for around 100 weddings a year and are having to turn away requests for 30 or so more because of the demands of running the shop. In fact they've got 97 weddings booked in for next year and 10-20 for 2021.
"We'll really miss our shops and our regular customers but 60-70% of our business isn't local and we usually go out to wedding venues and sometimes we don't even meet our clients until their wedding day, so we don't need the shop. Much of our business is through word of mouth, repeat business and social media," said Miss Boon. "It will be sad to close but relying on footfall in a town for a florist is hard, we really only see a handful of people a day although we do have some lovely customers - we have one couple who come in every Friday and the man buys a bouquet for his wife and they have been doing that for 12 years."
The business has done some of the biggest summer weddings ever in Norfolk - one with 350 guests seated for dinner and requiring moveable chillers to keep the flowers fresh in the heat until the reception started.
But their biggest claims to fame was delivering white roses to the hotel room of Taylor Swift when she was performing in Norwich for the Big Weekend gig and providing the flowers for Stephen Fry when he was filming the television series Kingdom.
The business will then move to a new studio being built at their parent's house in Wormegay near Swaffham, which will not be open to the public, but will enable them to store the flowers, mostly supplied from Holland.
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