Peonies from an upstate New York garden, enough to fill a plane, were flown in for a wedding at the Dallas Country Club. Proteas, picked on the side of a California mountain by a woman who happened upon the out-of-season flower, were shipped to East Dallas. Hydrangeas and roses from Ecuador arrive on the doorstep of a 100-year-old Lakewood Heights home each Monday.
Every bloom has its own story.
The 3,500 flowers stored in the industrial refrigerators in a cottage shed tucked in the back of Kristee Rouse’s home show up, some way, somehow every week.
Rouse, a former social worker at Genesis Women’s Shelter, had decided to stay at home to take care of her daughter, who had colic. When Rouse took her daughter to her first dance recital, she made a little bouquet to gift after the performance. Other parents were making pitstops at grocery stores to grab flowers, and she wondered why small bouquets weren’t available at dance studios.
She asked Studio B’s director if she could sell bouquets (plus candy) at the recitals. Rouse figured she’d sell about 30 but ended up selling 110 at one recital. She started asking other businesses if they’d like bouquets in their studios, too.
“And they said, ‘Yeah, you can try it.’ ‘Sure lady.’ And so that’s how I started the business, just doing a little recital that day,” she says.
Then she started doing flowers for father-daughter dances. By September 2010, En Fluer was officially a business.
It made sense. Tom, her husband, had talked about Kristee having a side hustle. And she’s always loved flowers.
“I was the kid who would ride my bike and steal flowers out of the neighbor’s yards, and make little bouquets for my mom. And that’s a really big no-no, because I’m from Amarillo, Texas, where there’s no flowers,” she says. “So these are people’s yards that are like, ‘Oh my God, we got one tulip to grow and that Kristee came and stole it.’”
Her love for flowers only grew, evolving from childhood mischief into a full-fledged passion. What started as a small idea at a dance recital quickly turned into something bigger—proof that the right opportunity can bloom in unexpected ways. She realized that people didn’t just want flowers for big events; they wanted them for everyday moments, too. That’s when she started thinking beyond local recitals and dances, exploring broader ways to share her floral creations.
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In the beginning, Rouse was making arrangements in her kitchen. As their family and the business grew, an addition was put in, giving her more space to work. She went to Brookhaven to get her floral design certificate. And by July of 2011, she started doing weddings.
“That first wedding was a giant wedding,” Rouse says. “Like I really had no idea how to start, but we pulled it off. It looked great.”
Her instructor, Peggy, would spend time after class helping her tackle projects.
“And she was just so good to me,” Rouse says. “Sometimes people order strange things. ‘Like can I get a corsage for my purse?’ So I’m like, ‘Sure.’ And then I’d be like, ‘How do you make that? What does that mean?’ And she’d be like, ‘You know how to do that.’”
Betty Lafour and Lori McKee had children at St. Thomas, like Rouse. Lafour was transitioning from being a hairdresser and loved working with her hands. She started working with Rouse and McKee, a former teacher, also started helping since En Fluer needed extra hands.
From left to right: Lori Mckee, Kristee Rouse and Betty Lafiour. Photo by Yuvie Styles.
It was a perfect setup. They all live within five minutes of each other. Their children were about the same age, so sometimes they’d alternate pickup.
Lafour’s specialty is creating large arrangements. McKee runs their social media and adds finishing touches like “creating the most beautiful bows.”
“Our style, — we’re so varied — I guess if I had to pick one, I would say garden party,” Rouse says. “Elegant. I think that’s a good one. Our natural bend is not modern or rustic.”
But it really depends.
“Just think about how different all the weddings work, even when they have the same flowers,” Rouse says.
“A lot of times there are hydrangeas. If you make them a symmetrical ball or if you make them wild and crazy — It’s the same flower, but it looks different,” Lafour says.
(For the record, if your hydrangeas are wilting the pores are most likely clogged and they’re dehydrated. Rouse recommends cutting the stems and putting them in warm water to revive them.)
During their peak seasons, they’re doing events throughout the weekend, from prom bouquets to garden parties to 200+ weddings. Some nights they’re working to the wee hours of Saturday morning before getting up by 6 a.m. to prepare for the day. They each get a clipboard with tasks and plans for their assigned weddings. Ivan Moscatto, the fourth member on the team, helps with whatever needs to be done.
Between setup and teardown, they’ll grab a movie or nap. If the newlyweds opt to leave behind the florals, they’ll disperse the arrangements among the other vendors.
And then comes Monday. There’s the clean-up and storage. And the flowers that have arrived from Ecuador have to be processed.
“We’re exhausted,” Rouse says. “We’ve been out on the weekend.”
To date, they’ve done more than 1,500 events. They already finished 87 this year, at the time of the interview. Flowers spill out of the cottage, into the patio and back into the house during the busiest weekends. Their high school and college-aged children, who are all friends, often help their moms at events.
One day, they worked on four separate weddings simultaneously at the Dallas Arboretum. (Rouse says making it to that vendor list was one of the biggest accomplishments.)
“That’s never happened again in a day. But all of us were at the same place …” Lafour starts.
“So that we could go see each other’s stuff …” McKee continues.
“And help each other out,” Rouse finishes.
Every weekend is different. Every wedding is different. But every day they’re working together, they’re going to break midday, to have lunch together. And En Fluer will keep making recital bouquets.
