About Us (me really)

For years this page was just the basics. Where we are, what we do, you know the drill. But my name is Ayu and I thought it was time to actually tell you how this whole thing started, and by this whole thing I mean a flower shop in Seminyak run by a girl from Gianyar who had no idea what she was doing. I must admit that my friend is an English teacher and she helped me a little with this!

Growing Up in Gianyar

Most people drive through Gianyar on their way to Ubud and don't really see it. Just that place between the airport and the rice terraces that only so called 'influencers' have heard of. But I grew up there, so to me it was everything.

My grandmother made canang sari every morning, I loved to watch her, mostly in envy of her skill and patience, all dreamy like. You know, those little palm leaf baskets with flowers and incense you see everywhere in Bali (and often a sparrow hanging around trying to eat the offerings). She'd be up early doing it, before anyone else in our home was awake. I'd watch her sometimes when I couldn't sleep, half awake on the floor near her. The smell of jasmine was always there, gosh I loved those days.

That's just what you did in Bali. I didn't think much about it then.

School and What Came After

School was fine. I wasn't brilliant at it, wasn't terrible. Pretty good actually, especially in maths. But I knew I didn't want an office job, I knew that much, and it's not easy finding them on my island. The thought of sitting in a cubicle somewhere in Denpasar made me want to cry.

When I finished school my family kept asking what I was going to do. My aunt thought I should be a nurse. My uncle said teaching. Safe jobs, steady jobs. But I kept thinking about my grandmother and those offerings.

So I studied hospitality & floristry. My mother thought I was mad. "You're going to make flower arrangements? That's not a career." But I did it anyway. Cost about $3,200 USD for the course, which back then felt like a fortune, and still is, it took me over 5 years to save for it.

The Hotel Years

After I finished studying I got work at a resort near Nusa Dua. Then another one. Then a really fancy one in Ubud where celebrities stayed and you weren't allowed to talk to guests unless they spoke to you first. That one paid 1.8 million rupiah a month, which sounds like a lot but it wasn't really, that is around $180 AUD!

The work was repetitive. You'd get an order for a wedding, 200 centerpieces, all identical. Or a VIP room, same arrangement we always did, just bigger. Everything had to look perfect and also had to look exactly like the photo in the brochure.

I got good at it. Fast too. I could make twenty identical bouquets in an hour without thinking. But that was the problem.

One time, must have been 2011 or 2012, I made this arrangement for someone's anniversary. Huge thing, took me two hours. Peonies, which we had to import and cost a fortune. I put it in the room myself, made sure it was perfect. Later that day I saw the couple walk past it to go to dinner. They didn't even look at it. Not once, groan, all that work, gosh.

That stuck with me.

Meeting Kadek

Kadek. I met him at Wulan's wedding in 2016, he was visiting from Denpasar with his cousin. Working construction at the time. He had this sunburn on just one arm, I never asked him about that. Looked uncomfortable in his ceremony clothes I thought to myself with a smile.

We talked for maybe five minutes. Nothing special. He asked where I worked, I told him, he nodded. That was it.

But then I kept seeing him. At the market in Gianyar when I was visiting my parents. At another friend's birthday. At the warung near my place. Years later he told me he was kind of stalking me, but in a non creepy way (his words).

We got married in 2018. Small ceremony, just family. His mother cried the entire time, I'm still not sure if she was happy or sad about it. Kadek is the practical one. When I have ten ideas, he's the one saying "okay but how are we going to pay for that?"

Annoying sometimes. But he was right about most things, which is more annoying.

2013: The Shop

By 2013 I'd been working hotels for years. The money was steady, I knew what I was doing, could probably have kept doing it forever.

But I was so bored. And tired. Tired of making the same arrangements. Tired of flowers that nobody looked at. Tired of tourists asking me where the pool was while I was carrying an armful of orchids, which happened more than you'd think.

I kept having this thought. What if I had my own place? Nothing huge, just small, just mine.

Kadek thought I was crazy. "You want to quit a good job to start a business? In Seminyak? Do you know how expensive rent is there?"

Yes, I did know. But I couldn't shake it.

Finding the Space

We looked at maybe ten different spaces. All too expensive or too small or in weird locations. One had pigeons living in the ceiling. I was starting to think maybe Kadek was right, maybe this was stupid.

Then we found the place on Jl. Camplung Tanduk, a few doors down from a very loud Aussie bar. Small. Needed work. The previous tenant had been a laundry service and it still smelled like detergent which was rather gross. The ceiling had a stain from some leak that may or may not have been fixed. Also the front door stuck when you tried to open it, you had to kind of shove it with your hip.

But it had big windows. Good light. And it was close enough to the main tourist areas without being right in the middle of the chaos.

The rent was 18 million rupiah a month. Kadek said we couldn't afford it. I said we'd make it work. We signed the lease the next week.

Opening Day

I spent three weeks getting the place ready. Painted the walls myself, badly, you could see the brush strokes if you looked close. Kadek built the display shelves. My brother helped me install better lighting. My mother kept saying I should have just stayed at the hotel.

The night before we opened I made about forty arrangements. I had no orders, just made them because what if people came and we had nothing to show them? I didn't sleep. Too nervous. What if nobody came? What if they came and laughed?

We opened at 9am. By 9:30 we'd had three people come in. Two were friends. One was a lost tourist looking for a cafe' called Revolver, they were way, way off, I told them to jump in a Grab and will take around 5 minutes to get there, of course, depending on the traffic.

But then people actually started coming. A woman who wanted flowers for her villa. An expat who said she'd been looking for a good local florist. Someone's assistant ordering for their boss. By the end of the day we'd sold maybe half of what I'd made. I was exhausted and exhilarated and terrified all at once. Also my feet hurt, I'd been standing for like eleven hours straight.

The First Year Nearly Killed Me

You know how people say starting a business is hard? They're not lying.

I was there every day. Seven days a week. No days off. Kadek still had his job so it was just me most of the time. Some days we'd get ten orders. Some days we'd get zero. I never knew if we'd have enough money to pay rent that month.

There was this one week, maybe four months in, where we had three orders total. Three. I sat in the back room and cried because I thought we were going to have to close. All that work, all that risk, for nothing.

The landlord came by that week asking about something with the lease, I can't even remember what now, and I had to pretend everything was fine while my eyes were still red from crying.

But then the next week was busy. Then busier. Slowly, people started finding us. Expats would tell their friends. Hotels started calling for smaller events. We got our first wedding order and I nearly passed out from stress. The wedding went fine, in case you're wondering.

We Went Online Too and Things Changed Fast

It took over 6 months of working on it, hours and hours on end but I built a website and went online with the prayer that I would get more orders and...well..oh my. This changed everything. Now, we were not only appealing to local hotels, locals and tourists, but we could possibly get flower orders to places in Bali from people living outside Bali. I can deliver in Seminyak, but as far as Ubud, Uluwatu and other areas, so I built pages telling customers so, and wow, it opened up a whole new world to be and I am so grateful.

Then We Had Wayan

In 2022 I got pregnant. I was 30, we'd been married four years, the shop was finally stable. Kadek was thrilled. I was terrified.

How do you run a flower shop with a baby? Flowers don't care that you're exhausted. Orders don't stop because you're dealing with a screaming infant. I thought about closing for a few months but we couldn't afford it. Our savings had maybe 30 million rupiah in it, which sounds like a lot but rent alone would chew through that in two months.

So we figured it out. For the first year Wayan just lived at the shop. There was a bassinet in the back room. When he cried I'd feed him between orders. Customers thought it was charming. I thought I was losing my mind.

He's three now. Still comes to the shop most days. He "helps" which means he makes a mess and occasionally tears up flowers. Last week he told a customer that her order was "boring" and I wanted to die. She laughed, thank god. Ordered it anyway.

Him being here though, seeing this, it's part of his childhood the same way making offerings was part of mine.

What We Do Now

Sunny Florist Bali is still small. We're not trying to be huge. Not trying to compete with the big hotel suppliers or those Instagram shops in Canggu with the neon signs.

When you order from us, it's me making your flowers. Not an employee, not some production line, me. Kadek does deliveries when he's not at his day job, yeah he still works construction, we're not rich. Wayan supervises, sort of.

We use local flowers as much as possible. Not because it's trendy, because they're better. They last longer. They're fresher. And honestly they're more Balinese. I can get you imported roses if you really want them but I'd rather give you frangipani and jasmine that were growing two days ago. In fact, one of most popular categories are our local Balinese Flowers.

Our customers are all over the place, Australia, America and many in Europe as well. Expats who live here. Tourists who want to send something to their villa. Locals celebrating something. Hotels for smaller events. Someone's assistant ordering for their boss's wife's birthday. It's different every day.

Yesterday someone ordered flowers for their dog's birthday, it's name was Ben, and he had the coolest bandana around his neck that I had to laugh. That was a first. I made them though, why not.

Why Are We Still Here?

Good question. Lots of flower shops open in Seminyak. Most close within a year or two. The rent is high, the competition is tough, tourists are unpredictable.

I think we're still here because we actually care. Not in a fake customer service way. Really care. When someone orders flowers for their mother I think about my own mother. When it's for a wedding I remember how stressed I was at mine. When it's funeral flowers I take extra time because I know how that feels.

Maybe that sounds too sentimental for a business. Flowers are sentimental though. Nobody orders flowers because they need them.

About Being in Bali

Everything we do is shaped by being here. The flowers we choose. The way we arrange them. The colors.

In Bali flowers are everywhere. Not just for special occasions. My grandmother made offerings every single day. Ceremonies use thousands of flowers. You see them on dashboards, in doorways, on statues, everywhere. Even the petrol stations sometimes have offerings on the pumps.

So when I make an arrangement, even for a hotel or a tourist, there's always something Balinese in it. Maybe they don't notice. Maybe they just think "oh nice flowers." But it's there.

What Happens Next

Wayan starts proper school next year. I have no idea where the last three years went. He's excited. I'm pretending not to be terrified.

Kadek and I talk sometimes about getting bigger. Maybe hire someone part time. Maybe open another location. But honestly I like what we have. It's manageable. We're not getting rich but we're okay. We have time with Wayan. The shop works.

When I was in school I thought I'd do something big, something impressive. Now, having a small business that survived twelve years in Seminyak, raising a kid, still being married to Kadek (which honestly deserves an award some days), that feels pretty big.

If You Made It This Far

Thanks for reading. I know it's long. I'm not good at being brief, Kadek always tells me that.

If you're thinking about ordering flowers from us, great. If you're just bored and reading random websites, also great. Either way, now you know we're not some faceless company. It's me, Ayu, from Gianyar. Kadek from Denpasar. Wayan, who's three and thinks he owns the place.

We're just trying to make good flowers and not mess it up too badly.

That's the whole thing really.

Sunny Florist Bali 8557+88J, Jl. Camplung Tanduk, Seminyak Kec. Kuta, Kabupaten Badung, Bali 80361, Indonesia

Open daily. Call ahead for large orders. If Wayan answers, just ask for his mother.