The first bouquet junior Samantha Herrera Reyes ever made was initially never meant to create a business, but rather to make a present to celebrate a friend’s birthday.
Sitting in her bedroom, Reyes spent hours cutting ribbons into 14 tiny pieces for each petal, growing stressed and exhausted as day turned into night.
By the time she finished the dark-blue bouquet wrapped in black paper, she didn’t realize she had just created a blueprint for the future.
“It was never something I was thinking off the bat like, ‘Oh, I’ma make this a business,” Reyes said. “No, I just wanted to do something nice for a friend.”
Her stepmother, already experienced in bouquet-making making, encouraged her to try more. However, it was her friends who pushed her from being a hobbyist to an entrepreneur.
When Mother’s Day approached, they urged her to take orders and those early requests gradually grew into something bigger.
“That’s when I started to see it more as something more of a job or profession,” Reyes said. “It wasn’t a hobby anymore (because) now I was doing it because I had clients that actually wanted to buy off of me, just like any sell store or flower place.”
As orders began increasing, so did Reyes’ skills. While she initially glued her petals initially glued her petals together in earlier designs, she now does each one individually to add more volume.
She replaced rubber bands for taping methods, learning to fill gaps with cut petals and mastered cleaner wrapping. Not only did her work grow with her patience but so did her pride.
“That’s what definitely has improved my bouquets a lot,” Reyes said. “It has made them a lot better than they used to look.”
But behind every late night and every new order was someone quietly pushing her forward: her biological mother, Amanda Reyes.
extremely proud of her…,” Amanda said through a translator. “(I) hope she continues to be in (the) business path, and (I’m) happy to see how satisfied her customers are with receiving her work.”
Another person who witnessed Reyes’ early growth was her friend, junior Stephanie Rodriguez, who collaborated with her on Valentine’s Day bouquets.
She believes that Reyes showed strong focus even back then. Rodriguez said.
Reyes hopes to study law, but she plans to keep growing her craft as a side hustle. She has hopes of expanding it into picnic and proposal arrangements or maybe even opening up a shop someday.
Just like the first bouquet in her bedroom, she’s still building her business one petal at a time.
