Daily Mail

MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT

Celebrity florist Sue Barnes

- DAWN EMERY

THE 57-year-old is the founder of Lavender Green Flowers, whose wedding clients have included Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones, and Pippa Middtleton and James Matthews. The company has decorated venues such as Kensington Palace, Westminste­r Abbey and the Natural history Museum. Sue lives in Berkshire with husband David, and they have five children between them. MY LIFE wasn’t always all about flowers. I’d worked in banking and marketing, but I wanted a job that would work around my children.

My mum had been a florist, so it was in my blood. I learned the trade and, in 1990, turned a property in Maidenhead into a florist’s.

Our light bulb moment arrived two years later. A man came in and said: ‘My boss wants you to decorate his niece’s wedding but he will not spend more than £32,000.’

I went to the back of the store, punched the air, came back and said: ‘I can do something.’ In that moment I realised that we’d need to sell 1,280 bouquets to achieve the same turnover. There and then the event side of our business was born.

Seven years later, I was asked to do Prince Edward’s wedding. I went to Windsor Castle and he poured me a cup of tea; I was pinching myself.

Of course, the job comes with stress. We were putting up 25ft-tall designs in St George’s Chapel, and when you know that if one falls it could wipe out the Royal Family, it keeps you awake at night!

We now supply flowers for more than 1,400 events a year and employ 40 staff; many have been with us for 20 years.

Weddings are special as it’s important to us that treasured photograph­s should have a backdrop of lovely flowers. It’s an incredible feeling when we’ve finished — we know we’ve created the couple’s idea of heaven.

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