Mary Coombs: Flowers, Family, and Entrepreneurship

Name: Mary Coombs

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her

Hometown & Current Town: Woodstown, NJ/Elmer, NJ

Graduation Year: 2006

Major & Minor: BS Horticulture, Minor in Agribusiness Management

Current Professional Title: Co-Owner

Name of Employer: A Garden Party LLC

Brief Description of Your Role: We have multiple sections to our business. Our main business is A Garden Party Florist, and a big chunk of our work has always been doing offsite floral design for weddings. We have a retail store where we offer everyday arrangements and gift items and we focus on supporting other local artists or Made in the USA businesses that look like ours, including women-owned or minority-owned. These products are displayed in our large retail space.

We also own and operate two venues. We have A Milk House Party, which was our original venue, in an old milking parlor. We also have A Garden Party. We renovated a barn, which seats 80 guests, and we’re currently putting in heating and air conditioning.

Why did you choose Penn State?

I knew I wanted to go to a land-grant university with a foundation in agriculture. We're a farm family. My sisters had the same interest in pursuing agriculture. Our foundation of FFA and 4-H aligned with what Penn State was doing. My sister, Sarah, also attended Penn State and earned a degree in education. My sister, Dawn, attended SUNY Cobleskill, where she also got a degree in horticulture.

I think Penn State was a nice challenging step for me because it was so large. There were a lot of opportunities there for me to focus on my interests.

What inspired you to pursue your degree?

When we were in high school, my sisters and I were in the horticulture program, and we did floral design as fundraisers for holidays. We made arrangements and sold them to the teachers and others. I really liked it. I'd skip lunch to work on floral design. I was on the Floral Design Team and when I did one of the contests, the judge was a local flower shop owner, and he invited me to interview for a job at his shop.

My dad took me down to the interview and waited in the car. He wanted me to do this on my own as I was 16. I took my resume and did the interview. Those were things 4-H and FFA had prepared me for. I got the job and worked at that flower shop for three years. I just loved it and knew I wanted to do wedding floral design. I was a teenager getting Florist Review magazine. I was just flower obsessed.

Working there was a great foundation for how to run a family business and it gave me a really great connection. From that point on, I knew I enjoyed this and could see myself doing this as a job with my sister, Dawn. The first wedding we did was her wedding. That was 21 years ago. Our business started out with just family and friends, but we just kept on plugging away. And here we are. We've officially been in business for 19 years. We keep moving along fueled by caffeine and a team effort.

What clubs and organizations were you involved in at Penn State?

I was in the Hort Club. The Hort Club really helped me make friends. It was hard coming to a big school and so I saw the poster and decided to attend the meeting. I met my best friend Diane at the meeting, and we still talk every single day.

I was also in the floral design class with Dr. E. Jay Holcomb. He saw that I was interested in it, which opened a door for Diane and I to rotate weeks doing the floral arrangements for the Nittany Lion Inn for all seasons.

What is a favorite Penn State memory?

I remember freshman year I lived in McKean in East Halls. My parents moved me in and they were very excited. I remember being so close to the stadium and more importantly, the Blue Band's rehearsal area. I remember studying and doing my homework with the Blue Band rehearsing in the background. My dad always got a big kick out of that. I also had a really beautiful view.

I was also an Ag Advocate. I met so many people through that. Dr. Marianne Fivek gave us a lot of opportunities to network and connect with people from other departments and other areas of the college. I made some great friendships through that.

How has your Penn State education influenced your career?

When I went to college, I already had a vision for what I wanted to do. Once I voiced that I wanted to own my own business, I knew I was going to have to do it with my own two hands, well, four hands, because it was me and my sister.

I started writing my business plan. I wrote it in college with Dr. Jeff Hyde and Dr. Kathy Kelley. They really held me accountable for this two-year project, where I earned extra entrepreneurial credits.

For my business plan, I researched and created a business name, determined what we would sell, who our competitors would be, where we would be located, what the layout of the store would be, and more. I felt like when I graduated, I really had to do it. I think that’s pretty awesome. The property that I wrote my business plan on is the property we currently use.

Thanks to my sister and her perseverance, through COVID, we were able to make the purchase of this three-acre property. For the first 14 years, we were based out of my home.

In the beginning, I didn't feel as legit since we were working from my home. But I advise a lot of entrepreneurs to start out with low overhead. I think that's important. Sometimes people get excited, and they forget you're going to be low on money for a long time.

Did you foresee your business growing into what it is today?

It certainly has evolved. At one point, I wanted to be a garden center. I love to garden. But it didn't develop for us in that way because we got onto this wedding run. You can really make a great living in this industry if you know what you're doing, and you don't need a lot of sleep. The wedding and event industry really took care of us. When I was tinkering with opening a garden center, it was a whole other business plan I didn’t have.

I didn't expect to own two venues. As our grandparents passed away, I was cleaning out one of the barns at the dairy farm. I really liked the space. I would go there on my days off and clean it out. I liked the lighting. I liked the size of the space. This building didn't have a purpose anymore. At the time, I was hosting workshops out of my garage, so we started hosting workshops there. You don't make a lot of money doing workshops, but I liked hosting them.

I also understand that healthy businesses have multiple revenue streams, which saved us during COVID. Our retail was busy at that time, where our events were nonexistent. It was a great time for small businesses that had money saved to make moves, to start fresh and refocus on what you love. We were doing everything we could to turn a dime and keep our employees working.

We also realized we didn't have to make every client pick us. If people don't love flowers and we have to convince them to love flowers, it's going to be a struggle to work together. Now we help people fall in love with flowers. It's a better vendor/client relationship. They're people who love flowers and want to support a family business.

What are one or two of your proudest accomplishments in which your Penn State education played a role?

I'm so proud of the team that we have. We have a lot of staff who have been with us for a long time. We've all grown together to rely on each other and our strengths. I would say that I probably could have taken some more leadership training on how to be a good boss and how to communicate. These are things entrepreneurs struggle with and often learn the hard way. It's been an important part of our business that we've had a mostly women-run team. It's like a family; we call it the Flower Family. I think that it's really rare for people to feel that way about their team. That's wonderful.

Growing flowers isn't always easy, and sometimes I wish I could do more. I always feel very proud of whatever flowers we can produce, harvest, and design with. They're my most special stems. For example, we made this magnificent chuppah for a wedding. It was made with lilac and viburnum that were grown on our property. The whole room was scented with lilac. Everyone noticed it. They were so engulfed in this flower scent, and I was so proud of it. I know it's not changing the world, but it made me feel good to be able to share that with them.

We did start this new offering for our clients where we make bouquets on-site at weddings repurposing ceremony flowers. We have a bouquet garden cart, and we take the aisle flowers and flowers out of the chuppah and make bouquets to go. We're off to the side with a little sign. People love it. It's a unique offering.  

What has been the best advice you’ve ever received?

My dad always said the worst four letter word is "debt." We spent a long time saving money so we wouldn't have a lot of debt. I can be very impatient, and I wanted to build a store, buy property, and move faster than maybe the rest of the family wanted to. We waited it out, and we were able to save money to put a down payment on our property, and it has made us very financially secure. The mortgage is manageable. The renovations to the barn we're able to do without adding more debt.

I may be going without some things, like fancy wallpaper, for example. I may buy fixtures off Facebook Marketplace. I think it's important that we stay the course, and we don't burn out on all ends.

We've always said that we need to make do with what we have. There's no reason to always buy new if there's something out there that's made way better than the stuff being made today. I always love the thrill of the hunt. Hopefully, our look inspires other people to feel the same way. Repurpose, reinvent, switch around what you have already.

What collegiate advice or professional development tip would you give to a current student?

If you want to start a business, you have to get a contract. When I go to lecture with Dr. Kelley in the horticulture marketing course, I'm very open about the contract we have developed.

The contract secures your safety as well as managing the expectations of the client. I think anyone can relate to hiring a contractor and there's not a lot of stuff written down and then you're caught off-guard or disappointed in the end result. We put so much effort into writing down everything for events in a line-item proposal with a three-page contract so everything is in black and white. There's less confusion about what we're providing.

I really encourage people to start somewhere with your professional invoice and contract. People will really respect you for spending time on that. 

Why are you proud to be a Penn State Ag Sciences alum?

I think there's a big Penn State family out there. So many people have done so many cool things, whether they go back to their family business and reinvent it, or they're like us and plant the seeds and grow this dream they had. There's a lot of respect for all of it. I think it's great that you can find someone that's blue and white to the core and they’re willing to help.

I was just at an event. We're backing up to the loading dock and a man met us at the loading dock in a Penn State t-shirt. It was great to see a Penn Stater there helping us get this done. We're all doers!

The Ag Sciences program gave me a lot of opportunities. My dad said, "This is an all-you-can-eat buffet. You better go up more than once. If people are investing this much money into your education, you better leave with a full belly." I encourage that for my own children and my nieces and nephews who are making college and career decisions.