By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University
“Bloom where you are planted” goes a common saying.
Today we’ll meet an entrepreneur who is using floral blooms to create a beautiful life for herself and others – even as far away as the White House.
Sara Larson is the entrepreneur who is providing these beautiful decorations. She is founder and owner of the business known as Wild & Blooming Floral and Events.
She grew up on a place between Junction City and Chapman. As a young Geary County 4-Her, she discovered a passion for floriculture. “Our 4-H leader taught me a lot about floral design,” Larson said.
In college, she became the go-to person to provide flower arrangements for friends and family members who were getting married. Meanwhile, she earned a degree from the Washburn School of Business and then worked at Walt Disney World in Florida.
She helped put on numerous weddings, EPCOT Flower & Garden shows, food & wine festivals, and more. She even produced and directed several movie premieres and private celebrity events in Florida, California and New York. She worked with the Disney florists and, in food service, with master sommeliers.
Wanting to be closer to home, she moved back to the Kansas City area and worked in marketing for a large distillery in northeast Kansas. Here she met and married Andy Larson and ultimately moved to his family ranch north of Manhattan. After their daughter Clara was born, she was thinking about what to do with her career.
“Well, you always enjoyed flowers,” Andy said.
Larson decided to pursue her dream of owning her own business. It began with a floral studio on the family ranch.
“We took Grandpa Larson’s old tractor barn and converted it to our studio,” Larson said.
The building was old and weathered.
“You could see through the walls,” Larson said. They poured a concrete floor, fixed the walls, and put in new windows.
One question included what should she name her business? “We went out to check the cattle in the fall and the wildflowers were blooming,” Larson said.
Thinking about the beautiful wildflowers and modifying some words from a country song, she named her business Wild & Blooming, LLC.
Wild & Blooming was founded in November 2021. “I went to a bridal fair and started booking weddings,” Larson said. As the business grew, Larson opened a floral studio in downtown Manhattan in January 2024.
“We started with weddings, but now we’re providing floral arrangements for other events, such as large fundraisers or K-State events,” she said.
“I think we’ve mastered purple flowers,” she said with a smile.
Larson holds multiple certifications, such as the from American School of Floral Design – Wedding Floral Program, Floral Certificate from Johnson County Community College, Court of Master Sommeliers Level II Sommelier, Certified Event Planner and more.
“We work hard to make sure we accomplish what the bride wants,” Larson said. “We do previews (of decorations) so we can meet the bride’s preferences.”
For example, she recalls showing a design to a bride and the bride said, “I like it.” Larson replied, “No, I want you to love it.” She kept working until she found the ideal design for the bride’s preference.
“Flowers make people happy,” Larson said. “It can be the most important day of a bride’s life. I love seeing the joy which flowers can bring people.”
In December 2024, she will do floral arrangements for a wedding on the island of St. Lucia. One year she had the opportunity to decorate Christmas trees at Constitution Hall for the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington DC. She has even been accepted to do the holiday decorations for the White House.
It’s an impressive record for a business which began near the rural community of Randolph, population 159 people. Now, that’s rural.
For more information, see www.wildblooming.com.
“Bloom where you are planted,” says the proverb. We commend Sara Larson for making a difference by making her business bloom.
And there’s more. The Larson family is now offering not just bouquets, but beef. We’ll learn about that next week.
Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at https://www.huckboydinstitute.org/kansas-profiles/. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit http://www.huckboydinstitute.org.
