Q&A with Angela & Demelza of Afterall Floral Design
meet demelza
Nickname: Mel
Sign: Sun in Taurus, moon in Pisces, Cancer rising
Favorite color: Orange
Favorite drink: Aperol Spritz
What I’m listening to right now: SUPERBLOOM by MisterWives
What inspires my design work: Walking around my family’s farm, noticing what plants grow together and how they interact. Feeling very small in a big, beautiful world.
If I wasn’t a florist I would be: A radio host!
The place I most want to visit next: Antigua, Guatemala
What I’m most looking forward to: Spiked apple cider, Crunching through the top frozen layer of snow, my (postponed) wedding in July 2021!
…keep reading below for more on why they started their business and what it’s like working with a best friend
Meet angela
Nickname: Ang
Sign: Sun in Cancer, moon in Virgo, Cancer rising
Favorite color: Purple
Favorite drink: A second glass of Gamay
What I’m listening to right now: Our flower van, Max, predates bluetooth tech, so my singalongs are limited to the few CDs we have up front, usually Upstate or 90’s Sheryl Crow . Go blast ‘Love is a Good Thing’ while cleaning your kitchen and thank me later.
What inspires my design work: Color & line, babyyy!
If I wasn’t a florist I would be: In law school, lol.
The place I most want to visit next: Lisbon, Portugal.
What I’m most looking forward to: A really rad upcoming retail collab with We Thieves, a laidback holiday season with my homemade glühwein, and next July - I’m turning the big 3-0 and my best friends are (finally) getting married!
What prompted us to launch afterall floral design…
D: I decided to pursue my lifelong love of things that grow through a professional florist training program from the Cass School of Floral Design, and freelanced with some of Boston’s best floral studios for years. I felt ready to break out on my own, but knew I didn’t want to start a business alone. Angela and I grew up working on my family’s fruit farm in rural NH, dreaming of owning a business together one day. With our effortlessly collaborative working style and complementary talents, I knew I wanted her by my side for this leap. When the retail flower shop I was managing in the Prudential Center closed its doors in late 2018, I jumped on the opportunity to talk Angela into a joint venture.
A: When I was in college, I gave up a double major in studio art and political science to pursue my pre-law appropriate degree more fully. After a few years into my first corporate job post college, I found myself at a personal crossroads - considering grad school, yet aching to the core for a creative endeavor. Demelza had floated this idea past me before, but this time around it just felt right. I’ve loved flowers since I could walk, so I agreed to dipping my toes in. It wasn’t long before I was head-over-heels and we were filing for an LLC in early 2019.
About the name “afterall”…
A: Demelza and I put ourselves through the tough exercise of picking a baby name really early in our business planning process. We pared down a now cringe-worthy list of candidates through an email exchange which I won’t share here, before eventually creating a sort of visual mood board for our brand. Images of Kat Wright adorned in flowers, feathers, lipstick, and glitter were all over that thing, and we realized we had a sort of muse evoking everything our friendship loves: Vermont, live local music, and the pure magic of oozing, unapologetic femininity. We both liked the name of Kat Wright’s song “Afterall” for its simplicity and fairytale similarity to the phrase “ever after” for a brand built around weddings. The full name of the song is “Afterall (Glad We Made It)” and for us, the second part eludes to our gratitude for finally taking the plunge and creating our business, as well as our newfound roles as full time creatives, glad for everything we get to make. We asked Kat for permission to name our business after her beautiful song and just like that, Afterall was born!
WHAt we love about working together…
D: Angela understands me on a friendship level which allows for our brainstorming sessions to feel more like shared hopes and dreams. Together we can divide our work evenly and lean into our complementary strengths. At the end of the day, even a tiring one, we can find joy in the moment and in sharing it together.
A: Demelza and I have been working hard and playing hard together since our early teens. At this point, we’re like bees in a hive - a seamless team at our best and at our worst, still easier than any other working relationship I’ve had. We always joke that growing this business together is like raising a child, and I honestly can’t imagine being a single parent/solo entrepreneur. We have each other to lean on in the hard times and to share all the many joys, big and small.
What is our Favorite part of wedding florals…
A: At late o’clock the night before you’re wedding when we’re exhausted and fingers and feet are sore - there’s often this moment where one of us stops what we’re doing and says “omg a little girl is going to wear this flower crown tomorrow and feel like a real princess” and suddenly we’re back in love with the flowers, with the love they they symbolize, and that it’s actually our job to create them. We’re both total saps and I hope that feeling never goes away.
D: I love ceremony installations because the marriage ceremony is what weddings are all about. Ceremonies condense all the excitement of a wedding into one sacred moment of commitment shared between you, the love of your life, and the people you hold dearest to your heart. These floral memories are what linger in your keepsake photos for generations to come.
ANY TIPS FOR ASPIRING FLORAL DESIGNERS OR HOBBYISTs?
D: A lesson I learned from Cass School of Floral Design: touch flowers everyday. It’s true! The more you work with flowers, the more open you become to their lessons. Each flower has something to teach you and learning from them will be a lifelong practice.
A: Learn from the wisdom of the floral community: Kelly at Team Flower has some wonderful free YouTube tutorials, Sue Mcleary (@passionflowersue on Instagram) has a great downloadable guide of cut flowers that hold up out of water (invaluable when you’re learning to do big installations and don’t have time for trial and error) and @sheanstrong posts punchy Q&A’s about the floral biz in his Instagram stories. Have specific questions and don’t know where to turn? Reach out! We’re more than happy to pass on some knowledge :) Lastly, remember that in art and in life, rules were made to be broken.