Kat and her story of Giraffe 🦒

It's time to meet another member of our wonderful team! This time we caught up with our founder and director, Kat...

Hey Kat - tell us a little bit about you?

Hi! I'm Kat Farys - I was born and raised in Poland but have lived here in England for the last 16 years. I moved to Manchester in 2006 and fell in love with this city - I'm now a British citizen, but most importantly, an adopted Mancunian!

What do you love?

I love anything to do with flowers, it has become my true passion over the years. Apart from that, I love reading and anything to do with Lord of the Rings - I've read the books a few times and watched the films more times than I can count...

Anything you dislike?

I dislike deliveries - the team knows this and they will always offer to do them before asking me. I don’t know why but I always seem to get lost on the way and stressed out. I'm much better behind the scissors than behind the wheel!

What's your background with Giraffe?

All things events. After spending years as a hotel Events Manager, I built some fantastic relationships and decided to set up Giraffe in the area of events that excited me the most: visuals and design. Adding the magical touches to events and parties gave Giraffe a really good name in the region.

So how did Giraffe adopt floristry as a service?

Well as our event décor work grew, and demand for theming increased, we branched out into venue décor to offer a more permanent solution for hotels and hospitality businesses, to enhance their spaces, as well as the events side. This soon led to fresh flowers and plants as the key decorative pieces, so we started working with blooms on a daily basis.

How did you adapt to the floristry demand?

In 2016 we decided to officially offer corporate floristry as a service, as we were already seeing the demand in our venue and event décor work. I signed up to college and completed two levels of floristry qualifications, which gave me a solid base of knowledge and skill that I've continued to grow by working on lots of exciting briefs and projects.

I've trained the team on all the joys of floristry - from fast-paced rose prepping for events, to bespoke show-stopping bouquets and floral props - there's nothing like on-the-job training and I'm proud of what our team can produce.

Tell us about the change to Giraffe 'Flowers'

In 2019 we launched 'Giraffe Flowers' - a sister brand to Giraffe Event Solutions. This gave us a separate platform to sell our lovely creations to the people of Manchester, as well as becoming a better fit for the corporate floristry work we were already doing.

In October 2020 we took on our first shop - our lovely little home is just at the entrance of the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel in Manchester City Centre.

Last year we decided to merge everything under one name - Giraffe Flowers - as all of our services are now solely plant and flower based - whether that's restaurant table flowers, selling bouquets and plants, or even installing floral-based decorative items.

We are now one of the city's leading florists in both corporate and gifting.

Thank you to all of my lovely clients and customers who have supported us on our exciting journey so far...