SAF National Convention Recap & Our Takeaways
Fresh off the Society of American Florists annual convention in Orlando, Vonda and Lori are joined by Ellie for a full-team debrief. Flower Clique showed up in force — teaching sessions, working a booth at the supplier expo, and collecting a few awards along the way — and each of the three brought back a different set of takeaways worth stealing for your own shop.
The one-on-one conversations are the real curriculum
Lori admits she barely made it to three sessions because she was teaching, but her biggest takeaway didn't happen on a stage. It was the one-on-one conversations — with longtime friends, total strangers, and Flower Clique members she'd never met face to face who "feel like we already have a relationship." Those conversations, she says, are her caffeine.
One moment got her genuinely emotional. She and Vonda ran an open-area "experience zone" session called See What You Sell, the kind of drop-in format where you never know if one person or twenty will show up. Instead, their members filled the front rows — people who already knew the material but came anyway, along with wholesalers and software folks who would never be members but showed up purely to support. Her bottom line: this is just a really good industry, and we're lucky to be in it.
Mental health had a seat at the leadership table
The one session Lori did attend was Barry Gottlieb's talk on mindset and mental health — and what struck her wasn't the statistics on burnout, which she'd seen before. It was who was in the room. A late-afternoon session, the time slot everyone skips, was full of business owners, wholesale house owners, and CEO types. Her read: leaders at the top of the industry are taking their employees' mental health seriously, even when it's hard to talk about. (She was too starstruck to ask Gottlieb onto the podcast in person, but she wasn't giving up.)
The 2023 trends, in one quick rundown
Ellie's favorite was the trend forecast from Talmadge McLaurin. Her recap of the six directions for 2023:
- Ephemeral — soft greens, grays, pale blues, pinks and yellows; light, fleeting, lots of texture and openness.
- Utilitarian — earth tones like rust, dark corals and dark creams that read "fall without being fall," so you can sell those colors year-round, often lifted with a touch of pink.
- Voluptuous — deep pinks, deep reds and oranges; volume, drama, romance.
- Atmospheric — blues, greens and earth elements, extending to the vessel itself.
- Green Space — the garden trend on steroids: pinks, purples and lush foliage.
- Historic — classic elements done fresh, with lilies, muted drama, and even painted foliage for a modern edge.
The overarching thread across all of it? Pink — specifically that dark hot pink you're already seeing in athletic wear and home decor. Look up the Pantone shades Cabaret, Bossy Pink and Pink Yarrow for the visual. (Lori, whose signature color has been hot pink for decades, was accidentally ahead of the curve.) A follow-up session with Deborah De La Flor, Jenny Thomason and Adam Havrilla translated the trends into designs you can actually put on your sales floor.
A celebration of members and milestones
Vonda's highlights centered on people: watching Flower Clique members talk about how the program changed their businesses — smart, hardworking owners who figured out they don't have to do everything themselves — and seeing her all-women team in action. The awards banquet was a big night, too: Lori and Ellie were inducted into PFCI (Professional Floral Communicators International), sharing the stage with a row of members and friends receiving AAF honors, including Cameron Pappas of Norton's, who also took home the Century Award for a business over 100 years old. Jet Fresh won Marketer of the Year, Kelsey Thompson won the Sylvia Cup, and the hosts sent a special thank-you to the design team who flowered the entire convention.
Key takeaways
- The hallway conversations at a convention are often worth more than the sessions — go, and talk to everyone.
- Mental health is now a leadership topic; the top people in the industry are showing up for it, and so should you.
- Use the 2023 trends — especially year-round earth tones and that dark hot pink — to refresh what's on your sales floor.
- First-timers never regret going. Around 150 attended for the first time this year, and next year is in Phoenix: put it on your calendar and bring your team.