Sharing Some Exciting News with Renee Tucci AIFD PFCI
A quick note from Vonda to open the show: the third installment of the sympathy series — an interview with funeral director Jesse Partington of Dixon, Illinois — has been postponed because, well, funeral directors get called away by the very work we want to ask them about. It's coming soon. In the meantime, Lori catches up with a returning favorite: Renee Tucci AIFD, PFCI, who has some genuinely exciting news to share — she wrote her first book.
From a writing assignment to a book deal
Writing a book was never in Renee's five-year plan. The seed was planted at a fall 2019 design retreat in Dallas led by Stacey Carlton and Shawn Michael Foley — a soulful, introspective retreat where one assignment was a piece of writing. When Renee read hers aloud the next day, the room was so complimentary about her writing style that the idea started germinating. Then March 2020 cleared her calendar completely, and she decided to take it seriously.
Living right outside Philadelphia put her close to Schiffer Publishing, a publishing partner of AIFD that has produced many floral design books. She called the owner expecting to be laughed off the phone — "I think I want to write a book, but I have no idea what I want to write it about" — and instead walked away weighing options. A coffee table book? A party style book? The moment an educational book came up, it felt right. Floral education is her direction, after all.
Inside Framing Floral Techniques
Framing Floral Techniques: Skill Building Inspirations and Explorations is a visual companion to the AIFD guidebook — the industry "Bible" that Vonda references constantly, which is full of wisdom but light on photos. Renee went through the guidebook's techniques and built the book around 42 projects, each focusing on a different technique, photographed and written out step by step with more than 500 photos.
Every project includes a recipe of the flowers used, plus "tech tip" boxes (tips, alternative outcomes, and learn-from-my-mistakes warnings) and "tech talk" sections that put a magnifying glass on the other principles and elements at work — a banding project might also highlight its strong line and color harmony. There's even an interactive layer: QR codes throughout the book link to a dedicated YouTube channel of companion videos, covering everything from advanced moves down to the correct way to soak floral foam (no pushing it down!). It's written in Renee's voice — methodical but lighthearted, heavy on alliteration — and, as Lori notes, it reads like the best kind of cookbook: not just recipes, but the reasoning behind them.
The book publishes October 29 after a small COVID delay, at a price point reasonable enough to gift to your whole design team — think lead designers and employees hungry to learn. Renee will personally pick up the print run from the publisher, sign every pre-ordered copy, and ship them right out. Pre-order at ReneeTucci.com, and share your own attempts with the #framingfloraltechniques hashtag.
Honey bees at the Philadelphia Flower Show
Lori also rewinds to Renee's exhibit at the Philadelphia Flower Show, which moved outdoors this year under the theme "Habitat." Renee built an eight-foot honeycomb filled with miniature honeycombs of dried florals, jars of honey, and honey bee facts — with an oversized pair of flower-dressed bee wings on the front as a photo op, her husband's brilliant idea. Ten days of show plus three days of setup meant designing for whatever Mother Nature threw at them — and she threw everything, from 95-degree heat to thunderstorms to a 60-degree Friday. That's exactly why Renee designed strictly with dried flowers, and why she and her team maintained the exhibit every single night. Her helpers took unpaid time off work just to be part of it. It takes a village.
Community over competition
Next up: Renee attends her first-ever SAF convention in September in Orlando — a deliberate step outside her design-heavy comfort zone into business education. She and Lori land on the same theme Renee championed back in episode 36: community over competition. Whether it's SAF, AIFD, or your state convention, the real learning happens shoulder to shoulder — at the expo table where another shop owner tells you how they actually use that new product, and around the dinner table where the industry recharges itself.
Key takeaways
- Renee's Framing Floral Techniques (42 projects, 500+ photos, QR video links) publishes October 29 — pre-orders ship signed, just in time for holiday gifting.
- The book translates the AIFD guidebook's techniques into visual, step-by-step projects — perfect for developing designers on your team.
- Say yes to opportunities outside your lane: a single writing assignment at a retreat became a published book.
- Design for your conditions — dried florals made an outdoor, two-week exhibit survivable.
- Community over competition: conventions and industry events pay for themselves in shared ideas and renewed energy.