Our Philosophy

Floral design was the first thing I loved enough to not quit. For 18 years I tried sports, arts, jobs, and extracurriculars galore, but each of them failed to capture me beyond a few years. I didn't know it then but I was holding out for a much bigger purpose for my life. When floral design came into my life on a whim, it gripped me in a way I could tell was different than anything before it. Semperflora was born from that transformation, leading us into the world of weddings where I found an even deeper calling in designing for meaningful events with meaningful materials. 

Looking back, it makes perfect sense that floral design ended up being the discipline to ground me in purpose. As a neurodivergent child that struggled with verbal communication, I learned to speak by identifying flowers and plants on walks with my mom. Some of my first words were "daffodil," "bleeding hearts," and "coral bells." I wouldn't come to fully understand how much the "language of flowers" would mean to me until I started infusing it into every design for our wedding clients. Two decades later, flowers are still the most meaningful way I communicate with the world, and now I help our clients do the same with their wedding flowers.

Floral design was the first thing I loved enough to not quit. For 18 years I tried sports, arts, jobs, and extracurriculars galore, but each of them failed to capture me beyond a few years. I didn't know it then but I was holding out for a much bigger purpose for my life. When floral design came into my life on a whim, it gripped me in a way I could tell was different than anything before it. Semperflora was born from that transformation, leading me into the world of weddings where I found an even deeper calling in designing for ephemeral events with ephemeral materials.

Looking back, it makes perfect sense that floral design ended up being the discipline to ground me in purpose. As a neurodivergent child that struggled with verbal communication, I learned to speak by identifying flowers and plants on walks with my mom. Some of my first words were "daffodil," "bleeding hearts," and "coral bells." I wouldn't come to fully understand how much the "language of flowers" would mean to me until I started infusing it into every design for my wedding clients. Two decades later, flowers are still the most meaningful way I communicate with the world, and now I help our clients do the same with their wedding flowers.

Hi I'm Kels!                    

In the early days of Semperflora when we spent our summers designing our first installations together, well-meaning wedding guests would frequently make jokes about me being Kels' helper. The handyman, the one to carry the heavy buckets, the stem picker-upper. But that was never our dynamic. Those guests had no clue that Kels had been calling me her "flower boy" since high school. Long before we started a floral design business, I was the one to tend to my family's flower garden, growing cuttings into thriving indoor plants, and pressing wildflowers to send Kels in the mail during a period of long-distance in our relationship. 

I've been expressing love and care with flowers all my life. It's a distinct privilege to now be able to express that love and care to each and every one of you, our clients. Not only do the flowers speak for themselves as a gift, but the nature of floral design allows me to show love through acts of service. As a florist I have secured a wooden arch to stay standing during a ceremony in 40 mph winds, bloodied my fingers hand tying hundreds of stems to tiny metal picks and stabbing them in the ground, changed a flat tire at lightning speed to deliver a flower order on time, and gotten more creative with zip ties and tent stakes than I ever did as an Eagle Scout. Something about floristry has a tendency of revealing the holes in plans on wedding days, and I have a tendency to patch them up before you even hear about it.

Hey! I'm Michael