Today we’d like to introduce you to Gerry Rogers.
Hi Gerry, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Petal’s Edge started in 2004, although becoming a florist was definitely not part of my original career plan! I have a background in art history and spent about ten years working in art museums before making a pretty significant career change. I’d always been drawn to flowers and design, and eventually decided to take that interest seriously and see if I could build something of my own.
What began as a small floral design business grew largely through weddings. Being in the Washington, DC area gave us the opportunity to work in some incredible spaces, and over the years we’ve designed flowers for more than 3,000 weddings and events throughout the region. We’ve also been incredibly fortunate to be named one of Washingtonian’s best wedding vendors every year since 2006.
The business has changed quite a bit along the way. In 2018, I launched the retail side of Petal’s Edge in Alexandria, which added everyday flowers and flower delivery. While we had offered classes here and there, in 2021, we launched a full throated class schedule and a more accessible way for people to experience what we do outside of weddings and events. That part of the business took on an entirely new importance during the pandemic and has continued to evolve since.
More than 20 years in, I still love the actual work of being a florist. I love flowers, obviously, but I also love the problem solving, the mechanics, the logistics, and figuring out how to make an idea work in a real space with a real budget and a real deadline. No two weddings or events are exactly alike, and I think that constant combination of creativity and practicality is a big part of what has kept the work interesting to me for all these years.
Today, Petal’s Edge is both a wedding and event floral design company and a neighborhood flower shop, based in Old Town Alexandria and serving the Washington, DC area. It’s certainly not where I imagined I’d end up when I was working in museums, but looking back, the path from working with art to designing with flowers actually makes a lot of sense.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not! I’m not sure there is such a thing as a smooth road when you’ve owned a small business for more than 20 years.
We opened in 2004, so we’ve weathered the 2008 recession, the pandemic, and all of the smaller economic ups and downs in between. COVID was obviously an extraordinary moment for a business built largely around weddings and events. Almost overnight, an entire calendar of weddings disappeared or was postponed, and we had to figure out what the business could be when gatherings simply weren’t happening. Fortunately, we had already opened our retail shop, and flower delivery became an unexpectedly important part of getting us through that period – especially when a wedding gap emerged inspired by inflation and increasing product and labor costs.
The years since have brought a different set of challenges. The cost of flowers, labor, transportation, rent, and just about everything else involved in running a floral business has risen dramatically. At the same time, the way people plan weddings and shop for flowers has changed. Social media has completely transformed how clients find us, what they expect, and even how trends move through the industry. You have to keep adapting without losing sight of what actually makes your business good.
And then there are the everyday realities of working with a perishable product. Flowers arrive wrong. Trucks are late. A particular variety suddenly isn’t available. Weather changes everything. You can plan meticulously for months and still have to solve a problem at 6:00 on a Saturday morning because the wedding is happening that afternoon whether you’re ready or not.
I think one of the biggest lessons for me has been that longevity isn’t about figuring out the perfect formula and then repeating it forever. The business I started in 2004 is very different from the business I run today. You have to be willing to change, sometimes because you see an opportunity and sometimes because circumstances give you absolutely no choice.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Petal’s Edge Floral Design?
Petal’s Edge is really two sides of the same floral business. We’re a full-service wedding and event floral design company, and we also have a retail flower shop in Old Town Alexandria. The common thread is that we approach flowers as designers rather than simply as a product.
Our wedding and event work is highly customized. We work primarily in Washington, DC, Alexandria, Arlington, and the close-in surrounding area, and we know many of the region’s venues extremely well. We design everything from personal flowers and centerpieces to large-scale ceremony and reception installations, with a particular love for color, texture, and flowers that feel natural and garden-inspired. We’re just as happy designing an intimate wedding where flowers are a priority as we are transforming a ballroom.
The Shop at Petal’s Edge gives us a completely different way to work with flowers and with our community. We offer everyday flower delivery and pickup, subscriptions, plants, workshops and classes, a flower bar, and flowers for smaller celebrations. It also means you don’t have to be planning a wedding to work with us. You can send someone flowers on a Tuesday, come play with flowers at a class, or stop in and make something yourself.
I think what sets Petal’s Edge apart is the combination of creativity and experience. After more than two decades in business, we understand that great floral design isn’t just about making something beautiful. It has to work for the room, the occasion, the people, the budget, and all of the practical realities that no one sees in the finished photographs. We take the flowers seriously, but we don’t take ourselves terribly seriously.
Brand-wise, I’m probably most proud that Petal’s Edge has never had to become something it isn’t in order to stay relevant. We’ve evolved enormously since 2004, but we’re still a local, independent business. I live here, our studio and shop are here, and the vast majority of our work happens right here in the DC area. There’s something increasingly important to me about being genuinely local.
Ultimately, I want people to know that Petal’s Edge is for people who really like flowers. Whether that means spending months with us designing the flowers for your wedding, ordering an arrangement for someone you love, or coming into the shop and sticking your hands in a bucket of flowers yourself, that enthusiasm for flowers is at the center of everything we do.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I’m probably less organized about this than this question would suggest! I don’t have a particular business podcast or productivity system that I swear by. I tend to pull ideas from lots of different places, and often from outside the floral industry.
My background is in art history and museums, so I still look at art, interiors, fashion, gardens, architecture, and decorative arts for inspiration. I think looking only at other florists is one of the quickest ways to start making work that looks like everyone else’s.
That said, Instagram has become an enormous visual resource. I love following other designers and florists whose work makes me stop scrolling and actually look at what they’ve done. I’m particularly interested in people who are generous about showing the thinking, mechanics, mistakes, and experimentation behind the finished photograph rather than just presenting a perfectly polished final product.
I’m also very much a paper-and-pen person. I love notebooks and journals and probably own far more of them than any one person reasonably needs. There’s something about physically writing, sketching, making lists, collecting ideas, or working something out on paper that my brain responds to differently than putting it into an app.
And I read. A lot. Not necessarily business books, either. Fiction is my genre of choice. Running a creative business requires you to constantly have new things rattling around in your head, and I think reading widely, being curious, going places, looking at things, and learning about subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with your job are ultimately just as useful as anything specifically labeled a “business resource.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://petalsedge.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/petalsedgedc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/petalsedge/
- Other: https://instagram.com/shoppetalsedge
