We wanted to share a little bit about our company and also Vanita with you all today on International Women’s Day.
Vanita is a mother of three girls, Jaineesha (that’s me), Devika – a doctor by day, and Vidya an International Kathak Dancer. Vanita got married and moved to UK from India. She spent her time with family, making new friends and also volunteering at the local nursery. She later became a full-time mother and looked after us all till our youngest sister Vidya went to school full time (that’s nearly a decade of her life). Having some extra time to do something for herself, Vanita went on to study Childcare and later opened her own nursery. She thoroughly enjoyed nurturing the children and watching them move on to Primary Schools. Even to this day parents have kept in contact with her to let her know their child’s progress. Vanita then took early retirement and took on a new hobby – floristry. She enjoyed learning, and being creative and bring people joy through flowers.
During this time, I was establishing myself as a hair and makeup artist specialising in Destination Weddings and Asian Brides, Devika was busy training to be a doctor, Vidya was busy travelling the world performing Kathak and training further. Now that we were becoming independent and didn’t require as much contact time with our mother (as we did when we were younger,) we saw our mother losing a sense of purpose. This sparked the thought that we had to do something for her and Blooms By Vanita was born.
Being a makeup artist and specialising in Brides, the plan was to make fresh hair flowers available for my Brides that wanted the extra touch. We then started getting inquiries for garlands which then led on to buttonholes and bouquets. From a small venture, this was turning into something much bigger. We had many inquiries from outside Birmingham which meant we couldn’t take on the order due to fresh flower delivery restrictions, hence the idea of working with faux flowers was born.
In January 2018, I realised that this was turning into something big and we had to give it a larger platform to be able to flourish. We launched our website in March 2018 and haven’t looked back since then. Not only did we manage to give our mum her purpose back, but also financial independence and self- worth too. She has given us so much in our lives, so we are glad we can make a small contribution to her life. Blooms By Vanita even won an award at Midlands Asian Wedding Awards for New Business Initiative 2018.
She now works on the business full-time to keep up with demand as we have orders coming in from all over the world! She works on all the creative parts of the products, designing and creating them. We’re the first company in UK to specialise in making Faux Wedding Blooms accessories which are customised and hand-made for our Brides and Grooms-to-be. She’s ever so touched when she sees other making similar designs that have been designed by her. Vanita was chuffed when Jo Malone wanted us to use their scents to scent our Blooms products. So not only do our products look like fresh flowers but smell like them to if not better!!
My role within our female run business – I look after the admin, marketing, PR, social media platforms and how to take our business forward. I’m thankful to all my contacts within the wedding industry who have helped to get our name out there!
Devika, is in charge of orders, logistics, and client consultations. She’s also a doctor full-time so incredibly busy. She is getting married this year so we’ll be giving you a little sneak peak of her Blooms journey over the next few months.
Vidya being busy travelling the world and building her brand means she’s not home much therefore helps us at shows to help customers choose their products. She has a very good eye for styling and also is the face of our brand. You’ll see her on our Instagram and website wearing products made by our Mum.
Even though we are a female run business, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do without the support of the men in our life. Our father has let my mum and three of us flourish and do what we love without putting limitations on us because we’re women. Our partners have also been supportive from day one.
We wanted to share our story because we think its special. There are no limitations in life apart from what we put on ourselves. If you love something and want to have a go, go for it. We hope that our mum Vanita, and the rest of the Bloom Team inspire you in some way.
Thank you for your on-going support and love!
The Blooms Team
xxx