Meet Teena Parker of Ampersand Flowers & Events
Teena Parker opened Ampersand Flowers & Events in the summer of 2019 at 5594 North High Street, offering customized floral designs, event hosting, and even wedding planning services. We chatted with her to learn about how she came to open the shop in Worthington, what they offer, and how they’ve adapted to COVID-19 shutdowns.
How did you come to open Ampersand in Worthington?
I initially started Ampersand out of my home in 2017, but it wasn’t until the summer of 2019 that everything finally fell into place. My wife and I live in Worthington, so it just made sense to open the business here too. We love how passionate the community is about shopping local—and how supportive Worthington is of women-owned businesses in particular. This is our home, and we love it here.
I’ve been in the wedding industry for 10+ years now. I primarily worked as an event coordinator and a wedding planner, but I’ve always been drawn more toward flowers. So I started taking every class and reading every book and watching every video I could get my hands on. My goal is to never stop learning—and to someday be able to afford to go to “Design Days” in California. It’s this incredible four-day event that brings in the world’s foremost floral designers to conduct educational workshops and training.
For those who don’t know Ampersand, can you tell us what you offer?
Here at Ampersand, we offer flowers on our Bouquet Bar “by-the-stem,” starting at $1 each. You can stop by the shop and pick out as many or as few flowers as you’d like. Then we simply wrap your stems in butcher paper to take home—because everyone has at least one vase under their sink, right? But we sell vases here as well, and we gladly design and create floral arrangements. You can even drop off your own vase for us to choose and arrange your flowers for you—and there’s no extra charge for this service. We also have a brand-new online order form, and we’ll deliver flower arrangements anywhere in Franklin County. We offer free delivery in Worthington and Clintonville!
In addition to walk-ins and online flower sales, I’m also still involved in the wedding industry. I’m a licensed wedding officiant, and I offer wedding planning and day-of coordinating services to couples throughout Ohio, too. And, of course, we can create bouquets and boutonnieres and corsages and centerpieces and so much more for weddings and special events.
What led you to hosting events in the shop?
When I was the director of a wedding venue, I constantly turned away business for groups of 25 to 40, give or take, because they couldn’t reach the venue’s food and beverage minimum—without spending, like, $300 a person. Whether they wanted to host a baby shower or a birthday party or even an intimate “micro wedding,” the venue simply couldn’t accommodate them. Most venues aren’t set up to host these kinds of smaller events. So I realized there was a gap in the market and a real need for this type of event space.
So that’s why we host small events on-site in our flower shop. There are no minimums, and clients can bring in their own food and beverages. We like to keep things simple—and affordable. It’s currently $85 an hour to rent the space, and there are zero minimums or hidden fees.
The only “fine print,” if you will, is that our maximum capacity has been reduced to 20 guests due to COVID-19.
How else has COVID-19 changed things around the shop?
We follow all social-distancing protocols, and we take this pandemic seriously. I voluntarily closed the shop in early March—about a week before Governor DeWine told everyone they had to close. It was admittedly difficult, financially speaking, but I’m so lucky that I found a way to reopen in time to do deliveries for Mother’s Day—which is, pardon the pun, the mother of all floral holidays. So that helped. A lot.
It’s been amazing working in the shop again. The Worthington community has been so welcoming on the reopening of Ampersand. We’ve seen familiar faces—half of them anyway (thank you for wearing masks!)—and we’ve seen a lot of new faces, too. So many of our customers tell us how buying fresh flowers is important to them, especially now, when we’re all spending so much time in our homes.
Flowers really do make you happy.