An Interview with NYC-Based Wedding Florist Nicole Ko of e_p_h_e_m_e_r_a

Nicole Ko’s journey from student and painter to distinguished New York City florist and wedding vendor has been anything but linear. Nicole’s brand, e_p_h_e_m_e_r_a, has grown exponentially in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, making her a standout figure in the NYC wedding industry and beyond. To get the best sense of her journey, I sat down with Nicole to discuss her path and the impact pursuing floristry has had on her life.

What inspired you to go into floral design?

I moved to New York City in 2011. I was previously doing painting with a fine arts background. And I found, being in the city, I was completely deprived of nature. So I found myself kind of gravitating toward the Botanical Gardens, and then wandering into flower shops— just being really curious about flowers. And it was giving me life. I was in a void of sorts. I wasn’t inspired; I couldn’t paint anymore. I had burnout, and this was a new medium for me. It was very exciting. And, I think after about six months of just wandering into flower shops, I was like, why don’t I give this a try? I picked up a book on ikebana* at a bookstore, and I remember going to my local bodega and trying to make my own Ikebana-style arrangement. And it looked terrible, but it was— you know, that excitement of something fresh and new. I’ll never forget the feeling.

*According to professional organizer and consultant Marie Kondo, ikebana is the “centuries-old Japanese art of arranging flowers.”

I read on your website that your style of floral design is grounded in various artistic approaches, like the Baroque and the sublime. Could you tell me a bit more about that?

So, I became obsessed with ikebana, and this idea of wabi-sabi* and how things— in Japanese culture, they really appreciate beauty in decay. But I also started to understand and do research into the Dutch Masters*, and they had this idea of vanitas, which- the vanitas was also sort of a memento mori*. And so you’ll find that often they had skulls designed with these elaborate flower displays around them. And so even though these two cultures were separated by such a huge difference in time, they shared this sort of bittersweet recognition of seeing beauty in decay and in each passing moment. So, you know, they kind of both informed each other.

And then, in terms of painting, I loved oil painting. I really love the Impressionist time period and their use of color. And I find that color palette of the Impressionist era, the lavenders and oranges and peaches and things, very exciting. I just continue to gravitate toward that color palette and it has kind of remained part of my work. I think of the flowers as— kind of like painterly brush strokes, if you will.

*Per the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, wabi-sabi is a concept which “encourages us to appreciate that nothing is truly perfect or permanent.”
*Per the Rijksmuseum webpage, The Dutch Masters were a group of accomplished artists during the Dutch Golden Age.
*According to The Daily Stoic, memento mori refers to an ancient Latin practice of “reflection of our own mortality.” Skull imagery is prominent in discussions of memento mori.

What makes working as a wedding vendor distinct from working as a florist generally?

So, I managed a flower shop in the West Village for eight years before I started my own company. It was just day-in-day-out, kind of very repetitive, doing the same thing.

When you’re doing wedding floristry, it’s really great for the creative soul, because it allows you to take breaks between projects. And then you’re intimately meeting with clients one-on-one, and it allows you to really dive in and create these custom experiences for people. When you’re working in a flower shop, it’s almost like making cupcakes— versus, now we’re working on creating something a lot more individualized.

Where do you get your inspiration for your designs? Does it come to you in conversations with different couples, or is it based mostly on color palette?

Great question. I sometimes will see a vase and the structure itself will inspire me— it’s like a flash of inspiration. And that happens sometimes, but most of the time when I’m speaking with a couple— I am very client-centered in my work— I just get to know them and talk to them. They’ll pick up on certain nuances that will be in the mood boards or design decks or even in my previous work. So, I find them kind of gravitating toward these things. And it’s like this little sponge. I really soak into that little detail. Like, they’ll say they like the certain character of a certain flower, and I’m like, did you know that it does this and this and this? And I kind of zoom in like a microscope on that thing that they picked out and I try to expand upon it.

What is your favorite part about living and working in New York City?

Ease of access. I have been to other flower markets all over the world, and it often requires a drive out to somewhere a little bit more industrial. But, you know, right here, we’ve got our flower market right in the center of the city. It’s in the heartbeat of the city, and I just feel like that really informs the way we work and live. I also love about New York City— the difference of cultures. I don’t think my work ever looks the same for any wedding we do. We work with a lot of different religious backgrounds, too. And so I— what I really appreciate the more I do this work is that it’s so ceremonial and it serves the community. I just love getting to learn about all these different touches in each community and how different families operate. So I think that’s it. It’s just this beautiful collective, New York.

What inspired you to choose the name “e_p_h_e_m_e_r_a” for your brand?

So I was in college studying psychology, and had come across the work of Carl Jung. He is a psychologist who worked under Freud, but he kind of departed from those ideas.

And he had a quote that was talking about the “ephemeral nature of life”, and how life seems to live on the rhizome, and you only see it— it only appears for a single summer and then it withers away. But he actually likened life to be more like, we are the seed that remains underneath. We remain strong and resilient. And so that was when I discovered what the word “ephemera” meant, and I had to look it up right away. I was like, what is this? And I think this kind of came up again when I was studying ikebana and the Dutch Masters and wabi-sabi and the vanitas. And so, “ephemera” just seemed like the perfect word— it means something that’s short-lived, that only lasts for a little while. And so for me, it was kind of a calling for people to live in the moment. I hope that if people are not familiar with what the word means, they can look it up and then be kind of touched by the sentiment.

Do you have a favorite floral installation you’ve done?

That’s a hard one to pick! There was a wedding that we did at the Foundry where the color palette just worked so well with the venue. It was very rusty and, I don’t know, there was just something about it. Every little piece just fit perfectly. I loved working with the blush and the creams. And the couple seemed really intent on having a dark burgundy kind of appear as a motif. And so I think the combination of light and peach and sweet with that little bit of something dark was a magical moment for me. That one will always stand out. But honestly, truth be told, I love all of our weddings. And anytime we get to do an installation that’s on a larger scale, I really appreciate the challenge. It normally means that we’re working with a large team and a limited amount of time. So it’s all pure animal instinct. And I think that’s what’s exciting about doing these installations. It kind of engages the mind, body, and soul. So I appreciate those moments. I hope we get more of them in the future.

Speaking of your team— what is the structure of your team?

Right now, I’m moving more toward doing creative direction, focusing on the mood boards and bringing in the clients. And I’ve had to— our company just grew so big after the pandemic that I now have a manager who helps manage just the day-to-day, like the payroll, the inbox, that stuff. And then we’re going to have a producer who’s focused on actually physically getting all of the items together— sourcing the material, sourcing the vases, and then being able to kind of think about how we’re moving our team. When I started my company, I tried to do it all. I think most people, when they’re small, are doing it all. And I found myself crumbling because of the scale at which we had grown. I was like, I don’t know how I can do this anymore if I don’t separate it. So now I’m handling sales and being very client-facing, giving all of our incoming clients the attention that they need. And my supporting staff is helping to actually make it happen now.

I also read on your website that you are happy to travel “anywhere your shears take you”; which I loved, by the way! What is your favorite place this work has taken you?

Yeah, I did a wedding —a wedding planner who we like to work with a lot, she had her wedding in Arizona. And I think the change of pace— doing something in the desert, it was incredible to be inspired by the environment and to think about color palette and texture differently. I think in New York we can kind of default to an East Coast, vibrant green, something very lush. But with this one we were intentionally using the negative space and the bareness of it to work with that kind of austere desert environment. So that one definitely stood out to me. I would love to go somewhere tropical and try out some more tropical designs!

How has your recent marriage — congratulations, by the way! — impacted the way you work on wedding floristry, if at all?

There is a lot of sympathy, I think, when being on the other side and navigating vendors. I think it helped inform my process of trying to be as transparent as possible with pricing up front, and then also, just— like, it’s good to have healthy boundaries. So I think when I was able to educate and inform my clients, like, for example, Hey, we shouldn’t do bud vases in an outdoor reception, they will blow over. We need to concentrate on having different vessels. I think going through this process and seeing how other vendors can also hold boundaries was very helpful for me to be like, Oh no, this is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I think we offer our clients something that maybe other wedding florists aren’t able to offer by just being transparent with pricing up front. I think it helps us be a little bit more flexible. And I have a wide range of what we take. I’m not shy to take a wedding that’s had a 15k budget, but, you know, ideally we’ve got people who have 35k or 65k budgets that are getting those really big installations. And so, I don’t feel shy about taking anything in that range. I also feel like I appreciate some of our smaller clients when they do come in, because they still love the work. And so I find now that I’m in this later stage, having a more developed look, that I just resonate so much with all of our clients.

What does the future of the “e_p_h_e_m_e_r_a” brand look like for you?

I think more delegation, and potentially doing more installations. I think as we break into that sphere— the real challenge lies in the technical aspects of doing something on a larger scale. There’s manpower required to do that. It takes expertise, for sure. So I kind of see us evolving in that way, where we’re taking on larger projects and maybe not as many projects in the next few years. Just concentrating on those few. I also got really inspired last year and started illustrating a lot of the designs that we were doing. That requires a lot of time, and that’s something that’s really exciting to me. I’m hoping that we can take on those larger-scale projects and that’ll allow me to dive in and create more customized work. I also do a lot of photography of my work, so I would love to publish a book in the next few years. I’m already creating the content for it. Hopefully!