The Journey Behind Each Bloom
My path to floral design wasn't exactly traditional. Back in 2019, I was working in structural engineering, spending my days calculating load-bearing capacities and stress points. But evenings found me in my grandmother's garden in the hills outside Baku, learning how she chose which roses would complement her dahlias, and why certain combinations just felt right together.
What started as weekend curiosity became something deeper when I realized I was approaching flowers the same way I approached engineering problems. There's real science behind why some arrangements work and others don't – color theory, proportion, even the physics of how stems support different bloom weights. But there's also pure intuition, the kind my grandmother had developed over fifty years of gardening.
The turning point came in early 2022 when a colleague asked me to design arrangements for her daughter's engagement party. I spent weeks researching Azerbaijani cultural flower meanings, sourcing specific varieties, and creating five different centerpieces. Watching guests actually stop their conversations to examine the arrangements – that's when I knew this needed to become more than a hobby.
By late 2022, I was taking weekend clients while still maintaining my engineering work. Each project taught me something new about working with clients' emotional connections to specific flowers, managing seasonal availability, and solving the logistical puzzles that come with creating something beautiful on deadline. The engineering background actually proved invaluable – turns out project management skills transfer surprisingly well to coordinating vendors, delivery schedules, and multiple event timelines.
Making the full transition in 2024 meant building relationships with local growers, developing reliable supplier networks, and honestly, learning how to run a business. But what excites me most is how each arrangement becomes a collaborative process. Clients often come with an emotion or memory they want to capture, and together we figure out how to translate that into something tangible and beautiful.
