A TSG Fairytale Featuring Forage and Truly Haute

Jun 18, 2022 Uncategorized

Once upon a time, Forage Floral Co. and Truly Haute Candles crossed paths at a Baton Rouge Scout Guide event in November 2020, marking the start of something magical. Less than one year later, the two entities opened a combined studio and shop storefront in October 2021, providing a unique and collaborative experience for their clients. This story speaks to the power of community and the opportunities that The Scout Guide has to offer our local businesses and individuals. Let us take a moment and dive into the history of Forage and Truly Haute to further explore this Scout Guide fairytale.

FLORAGE FLORAL CO.

Meredith Cooper, Owner of Forage // Image courtesy of Caitlin B Photography

(Her)story: Meredith’s love for flowers stems from childhood. When Meredith was asked as a little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up, her answer was always “florist.” She considers floristry as her art form. Thankfully, Meredith now has the blessing of practicing her creativity and passion for florals daily.

Her journey as a florist began with her being recognized as the “flower friend.” For baby showers or wedding showers, Meredith would create beautiful flower arrangements for her friends and family. Eventually, these small projects gained recognition from those she knew in the event-industry. In 2018, a wedding photographer and friend asked Meredith to be the florist for her wedding. As this was a large project catering to an industry professional, Meredith decided to obtain her business license in order to purchase wholesale flowers for this event. This was the real deal, and Meredith soon felt her career of being an ICU nurse fade away as her dream of becoming a florist began to bloom into reality.

What sets Forage apart from others in the industry: Forage focuses strongly on sustainability and supporting local businesses. Flowers are reused and recycled as much as possible. Forage also sources flowers locally when possible. Additionally, Meredith is a strong believer in creating custom works of art. She loves leaning into her creativity in order to construct something completely unique for each customer.

Forage’s flower subscriptions: Creating the flower subscription service program provided Meredith the confidence to leave her full-time nursing career and solely focus on floristry. This program offers weekly, biweekly, and monthly deliveries of medium size arrangements. Meredith likes to call these “the perfect coffee table arrangement.” Every week, the arrangements differ in some capacity. A believer in reducing waste, Meredith strives to reuse florals from events in order to create the arrangements. This also allows her to create totally unique designs as she is able to use more unique flowers that are not your “typical” everyday flower. Forage is currently fully booked for flower subscriptions, but stay tuned… plans for expansion are in the works!

How TSG has impacted her business: Meredith shares that The Scout Guide has positively impacted her small business in many ways. Forage has been commissioned for larger bookings through being a part of TSG, thanks to the wide circulation and distribution of Scout Guides in the Baton Rouge area. However, the largest impact has been the network and sense of community. “Scouted businesses support one another.” After all, this is how the fairytale of Forage and Truly Haute came to be! Prior to sharing a studio with Truly Haute, Forage was operating out of Meredith’s home. She is now able to create more freely, and she is able to do so while collaborating with her friends at Truly Haute.

TRULY HAUTE CANDLES

Rachel Baron & Lauren Barbalich, Owners of Truly Haute // Image courtesy of Caitlin B Photography

How Truly Haute came to be: Five years ago, Truly Haute was originally operating as an event coordination and rental company. The previous owners decided to sell the business, and Rachel and Lauren (employees at the time) saw this as a golden opportunity to adopt Truly Haute as a business of their own. Together they decided to drop the event planning portion of the operation, and focus purely on the candle rental aspect. Recognizing the need for candle rental services in Baton Rouge and beyond, they dove in head first.

Types of Services: Truly Haute typically works an average of 5 to 6 events per weekend. However, a recent record breaking weekend for them consisted of 9 events! When it comes to reserving their services, it goes without saying: the sooner the better! There are two main types of services offered:

Full Service: “We will work closely with you and your vendors to design rentals to fit your vision, venue, and budget. The day of the event, we take care of everything from delivery to set up, styling, lighting, and post-event breakdown.”

Customer Pickup: “We will package everything up for you to come pickup from our warehouse before your event at a scheduled time, and then you’ll return after your event.”

Interested in Purchasing Candles? Truly Haute offers many retail items for customers to enjoy. Their inventory consists of floating candles, taper candles, and a wide variety of colorful candles. Aside from candles, customers can purchase accessories such as matches, wick trimmers, and most notably, their wooden taper bases. Conveniently located directly next to Gov’t St. Taco, you’re welcome to stop by their showroom Monday through Thursday from 9am – 4pm, and be sure to grab a copy of Volume 6 before you leave!

What sets Truly Haute apart: Offering an impressive inventory of thousands (yes, THOUSANDS!) of candles and accessories, Truly Haute and their team of “hauties” are truly experts when it comes to executing a client’s vision. They are able to create something beautiful and unique to each client based on a multitude of factors such as budget, venue, table sizes, etc. From set up to clean up, Truly Haute takes care of everything.

Rarely do we get to hear about pandemic success stories for small businesses, particularly in the event industry. However, we were happy to hear that Truly Haute was able to grow and prosper even during this challenging time. The growth stemmed from many events being hosted at residential homes rather than event centers, and Truly Haute capitalized on creating intimate settings for clients at their homes.

Image Courtesy of Emily Fuselier Photography // Candles by Truly Haute

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

Individually, the talents behind Forage and Truly Haute are unmatched, therefore, when the two businesses collaborate on a single project, the result is always *chef’s kiss* perfection. We would like to think The Scout Guide acted as fairy godmother in this tale of two wildly successful and wonderful businesses, and we look forward to “waving our wand” for future scouted businesses as well.