In January of 2010 I received the below letter from a young lady named Janice Wong. Her letter warmed my heart and made me totally grateful that I was active in social media. Due to my blogging Janice found out about me and my business. I am sharing with you the letter she sent to me over a year and a half ago. Because of that letter we stayed in touch and finally met in March of 2011 in NYC at a gathering we called the Chapel Designers.  The picture above is of me and Janice at Times Square. Since that time Janice has sent me yet another letter which explains how she initially found me. It was a blog post about my bride Allison, that brought Janice to me.  I will also tell you that I LOVED Allison’s wedding, loved the bride, loved the mom, and I loved designing the flowers. It is several years past Allison wedding, in fact Allison just delivered her first baby a few weeks ago. This story is truly amazing to me because not only did Allison’s wedding fulfill me as a designer, it brought my bride & my MOB’s vision to life, and it brought me Janice. Janice now owns and operates a floral design studio called precious pear and I simply call her precious.

Dear Holly,

I was in awe when I first looked at your work and I still am!  I think it is rare in life to find someone that truly inspires you.   And you are a true inspiration to me and this motivated me to try and connect with you.   I absolutely adore your style and your approach to your floral art and your business.   I was thinking “wow, this is exactly how I want to be, if I were to become a successful floral designer”.

Please allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Janice Wong.  I came to Vancouver Canada to study all by myself from Hong Kong 14 years ago.  I graduated from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver with an Engineering degree in 2003, and have been working as a design engineer since then.  I’ve always thought I had a good career, the job is interesting and respectable, but I’ve always felt that something was missing and in the back of my mind wondered if that was my true passion.

Last September my landlord passed away from cancer.   He was an incredible man, kind and gentle and brave, even during his last days.  My land lady is absolutely amazing and treats me like her own daughter.  We talk about just anything and everything, and it was heartbreaking for me to see her so sad.  A few days after my landlord passed, instead of ordering funeral flowers, I went to a flower shop and hand-picked the flowers and a basket that I wanted, and I explained to the florist how I wanted the arrangement to look like.  I stood there for an hour and a half, paying a lot of attention to how the florist put together the arrangement while we chatted.  I left the basket on my landlady’s coffee table along with a card.  That evening, my landlady called me and told me that it was the first time that she smiled in a long long time.  There was a lump in my throat and I could not believe how much the little floral arrangement touched her heart and soothed her sadness.  At that moment, I knew I had found my passion.

Since then, I attended a floral design school in Vancouver and finished all levels of floral design there including wedding floral designs.  I found myself especially intrigued by wedding flowers, and I just can’t describe the satisfaction I get when I create a great piece of floral work.  I just can’t stop thinking about how I could improve, and how wonderful it would be if I get to work with flowers every day.

I recently got married in August, and I did all the floral arrangements myself.  Even though I got very very little sleep before my wedding, I’m so glad that I did it.  It was very memorable and I’m sure I’ll look back on it and be proud.

My husband has been extremely supportive, and is pushing me to pursue my passion.    He even helped me to purchase a floral fridge, register my business and find multiple suppliers (including flower auction).  He’s an engineer with some small business experience and he is into photography, so he helped me take pictures of all my work and created a simple website for me to display my portfolio.   Since my wedding, I’ve done a couple other weddings and have signed a few more for next year.  My floral business name is Precious Pear Floral Designs and my website is www.preciouspear.com.  Right now I am doing this part time, but I hope to change to full time by next year.

I really want to take a chance and change my career.  After all, who doesn’t want to wake up every day and be able to do what they love to do, and be successful in doing it?  You are exactly who I want to strive to become; a super talented and innovative floral designer, who never stops coming up with new ideas, loves her family and also has time to care for other people and the community.  I know you must have come a long way to get where you are at and I know it would be a very long road for me too.  But I’m up to the challenge!

It would really mean the world to me to find a mentor who I truly look up to and be inspired by.  Could you be so kind to be my mentor and give me a few pointers and share your experience with me once in a while?  It would mean so much to know that there is someone that I look up to, that would be there for me to share my stories with, and can provide me with some guidance and tips to help me fulfill my dream.  I would be forever grateful if you were willing to become my friend and mentor.

Sincerely,

– Janice

Seriously when I read that email I simply cried, in fact I am crying right now. I work each day, all day. I know I make my brides happy but to know I am impacting other designers is huge!!!!!!!! It also makes all of that blogging worth the effort.

Here is a fun picture of Janice at the Martha Stewart show, yep when we met in March all of the designers got to go to the MarthaStewartShow. Below is my most recent letter from Precious (Janice) and this one really surprised me as well, I had no idea until I received this letter  that it was Allison’s wedding that brought her to me. I am so glad the hard work I did on Allison’s wedding is still paying off. I am gaining new friends because of that wedding and heck Allison just got a baby out of it. Also in Vancouver a new designer was born and another bride got bright happy yellow flowers inspired by me and Allison, via Precious. How cool is that?

Dear Holly,

How have you been lately?  I follow your blog whenever I have time and I miss you!  I hardly have any free time these days with a full time job and a wedding almost every week or two.  I feel overwhelmed occasionally but at the same I am so happy because I am learning so much with all the weddings and I enjoying designing for them so much!

I just wanted to share something with you Holly.  Last Saturday I did a wedding at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club.  The bride was actually the first one to sign me to a full wedding….and the whole reason I reached out to you!!!  This bride, Aileen chose blue and yellow as her theme color because of your beautiful work, and sent me this link.  That was the first time I visited your blog and fell in love with your work and I’ve been hooked ever since!  =)

This bride had a lot of faith in me even though she knew I was new to floral design and I didn’t have a shop.  I expected a lot of myself and I wanted to make her wedding beautiful because she brought me to you and because she trusted me so much.  I took a day off on Friday, and in one day, I made 4 ceremony arrangements, 15 table centerpieces (8 tall, 6 low), guest sign-in table arrangement, signing table arrange, 5 cocktail table arrangements, bridal bouquet and 3 maides bouquet, plus 9 bouts and 3 corsages all by myself.  I worked until 2:30am and boy was I exhausted!!!

The bride sent me a thank you email the next day thanking me for everything I did for her, and also made a special post on her facebook wall to thank me!  It was such an incredible feeling and it made all the hard work worthwhile!

I know it’s still amateurish, but I just wanted to share with you the work from this wedding because you were both me and my bride’s inspiration!

I also launched my new website recently.  My awesome husband designed the website and took all the photos  http://www.preciouspear.com/

Thanks again for everything Holly!  You continue to be my inspiration.  =)

Love,

Janice

Holy Holly,  I can barely believe how cool all of this is. I am so proud of Janice , simply honored by this. Here are the amazing designs Janice created  that were inspired by my wedding from several years ago. Janice you absolutely knocked this out of the ballpark.I am beyond amazed by you.

I am going into this day and this weekend with faith and courage, and knowing that what I do matters in a bigger way than I imagined. I would appreciate a little prayer though, we have huge and very important events this weekend, it will be over 105 degrees, and I will admit I am still afraid every single weekend.  Thank you my precious Janice and thank you Allison for allowing me to do your wedding flowers and for bringing me Janice. When you do what you love, with love, it pays off big time.

Many thanks also to Janice’s husband Aguilar Lam, who shared this incredibly kind note with me shortly after our trip to NYC. He was also kind enough to send over a wedding picture of him and Janice. I can’t believe the first wedding Janice designed for was her own.

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Aguilar Lam wrote:

Hi Holly!

 

This is Aguilar, your precious’s (Janice) husband.  =)   I really wanted to personally thank you so much for everything that you have done for Janice.

 

You have no idea what your friendship and the Chapel Designers NYC trip has meant for Janice.   She now feels she has an amazing support group and a group of wonderful life-long friends.   She also sees how successful you are and she can strive to achieve that same success, both in family life and in business.

Each night of her NYC trip she would call me up and tell me of all the amazing and unforgettable experiences that happened each day and how she couldn’t believe she was a part of all of it.   You made her feel so welcomed and loved, it was like a wonderful dream.          And hearing all the stories about you and the rest of the amazing ladies, I feel like I already know all of you so well!

It warms my heart to see her so happy and see her with this new-found drive to succeed in her floral business.   She now has that jump in her step and that gleam in her eye with a renewed confidence and determination.   Every time we see new pictures on your blog from the Chapel Designers NYC trip, or tell our friends about her amazing trip, she can’t help but smile widely and feel so lucky and blessed.

I think this was a life-changing experience for her and it’s all thanks to you Holly.  I owe you great gratitude and I hope one day to meet you in person and give you a huge hug myself!   We both feel truly blessed to have found you Holly.

Truly Yours,

– Aguilar

Here is that fabulous wedding picture!!

That is a very pretty bride and a very pretty bouquet!!!