Black & Blossomed: Owner of Denver flower shop shares her journey of opening a business
On this Valentine's Day, local flower shops are blooming with business including the shop, Black and Blossomed. It's a Black-owned business in Denver that has spent the past week getting ready for today. That included preparing more than 100 flower orders and making nearly a dozen deliveries of flowers.
Dr. Breigh Jones-Coplin is the owner of the business, and she said the shop is one of three Black-owned flower shops in Colorado. She started the business out of her home in 2020.
"I was going through my doctorate program and throughout the pandemic, I was just really having a lot of mental health concerns, just feeling unmotivated," said Jones-Coplin.
During that time, she picked up a new hobby of arranging flowers. She began going to farmers markets and making arrangements for around her home. Then, her husband bought her a floral certification class.
"They teach you how to start a flower business and everything, and so I was just like, 'a side hustle doing flowers shouldn't be like that hard,' like, 'let's do it,'" said Jones-Coplin.
In 2023, she opened the brick-and-mortar location. The name of her business is intentional and a sign of Black flourishing and trusting her own journey.
"It was going from this survival mode of trying to get my doctorate and my grind mode, to stepping into a creative venture that I didn't know was going to make any money and it just made me happy," said Jones-Coplin. "That's how the business was born; through the pandemic, self-care, endeavor of my own, and here we are."
Momentos of "flowers for the culture" are found in the shop. Plus, three murals of Black people have been painted.
As a business owner, she found what's most important is paying it forward and providing representation for others in the Black community.
"Everyone doesn't have this experience of being able to like go and be immersed in their own community, people who look like them have similar values to them," said Jones-Coplin.
Jones-Coplin who has a background in sports and clinical psychology, also works as a professor at the University of Denver, and with the Broncos. She now hopes sharing her story of making a change in her life will motivate others.
"I think Black people, especially in my family and my community, we never give ourselves a chance to step out on our creativity, or do things that actually fill us up," said Jones-Coplin. "If you can inspire somebody to like take a leap of faith on themselves and be able to see that anything is possible for them as well, so they don't have to limit themselves."
Valentine's Day is typically the second busiest day of the year behind Mother's Day. Jones-Coplin said her and her staff processed more than 1,500 flower stems ahead of the day.
