Business owner ‘overwhelmed’ by love for giant floral installations following viral social media videos

A business owner says she has been “overwhelmed” by the love for her giant floral installations, following a number of viral social media videos.

Holly Simmons is the founder of Bloom Bea, which was set up off the back of making giant flowers for her wedding from her home in Brackley.

Now, Holly’s creations are used for events, photoshoots and weddings – as anyone from across the world can buy or hire them.

This venture began back in January, when Holly started creating the giant flowers for her wedding in June.

Having documented the making process on social media platform TikTok, she gained thousands of followers from her first viral video – which has been viewed more than a million times.

Since creating the installation for her wedding, Holly has taken part in an editorial photoshoot and had many people approach her to make custom orders.

The variety of flowers Holly makes is always expanding, but currently ranges across poppies, single and double hibiscus, roses and lilies.

Peonies, which are a customer favourite, are between 340mm and 460mm in diameter and the height of the stem once fully assembled is between three and five feet tall.

The lighter flowers, such as the hibiscus and poppies, can even be taller than five feet.

Holly says she has always been arty and creative, and her earliest memories are playing with playdough and painting at the age of three to four.

“I’ve always gravitated towards creative things,” said Holly, who studied fine art at Loughborough University.

“My art has always been centred around flowers and my final degree show was handmade ceramic flowers in a dome. This was the natural next step for me.”

Having made the ceramic flowers, Holly wanted to upscale her previous creations to something “giant and special” – with her upcoming wedding in mind.

Holly started making her wedding installation in January and documenting the process on TikTok, and it took around two to three months for it to take off.

Though it was never her intention to go viral, a tutorial on creating the flower stems amassed more than 1.4 million views and her followers began to increase.

When asked how it felt that her creations were proving so popular on the app, Holly said: “It gave me such a confidence boost and that’s the reason why I started the business.

“People were reaching out to say how beautiful my work was. They’d followed the journey from January to the wedding and I’d created a community that loved followers.”

Ahead of going on her honeymoon, Holly asked those interested in her work to fill out a form to express their interest.

She returned to more than 80 emails in July, which is when the business was set up and Holly hit the ground running.

Bloom Bea now has more than 65,000 followers and nearly 500,000 likes on TikTok, which Holly says “doesn’t feel real”.

“It’s overwhelming to have that community and I’m hoping it’ll continue to grow,” she added.

The flowers, which Holly says are three times the size of her head, have had interest from people as far afield as America.

Though hiring the flowers is the more popular choice, Holly says it is easier for international customers to purchase them.

Holly balances running Bloom Bea alongside a full-time job and said: “I started doing this for fun and making flowers and TikTok content doesn’t feel like work.”

The business owner’s biggest achievement to date was being invited to a studio in London by a photographer, to collaborate on an editorial shoot with models that they hope to get placed in a magazine.

On the flip side, the biggest challenge Holly has had to overcome was developing a way to make the flowers easier to post.

As this all began as Holly making them for her wedding, to having to ship them all over the world, she had to find a flexible material that would flatten down like a spring in a box – which she has successfully done.

Holly’s long-term aspiration is to take Bloom Bea on full-time, making installations for shops, collaborating with more photographers, and creating beautiful displays for more weddings and events.