I've always had a love for flowers. Some of my fondest memories are gardening alongside my grandma — hands in the dirt, just enjoying her company, learning everything she'd learned from her own grandmother.

That love never really left me. So when my grandfather offered me a section of the field by our house to use as a vegetable garden, I told him I'd think about it. Between all the home projects that come with starting out on our own, I honestly didn't feel up to maintaining a garden full of food — and beyond the actual growing, your time after that is filled with canning, freezing, and storing.

A few days later, it hit me: why not plant flowers instead?

With flowers, there's no pressure to preserve anything. And besides — I love flowers.

My husband Aaron supports pretty much every dream I bring to him, and this one was no different. Still, I had some doubts about what it would actually look like in practice, so I called my mom to talk it through.

With a little inspiration I found online, I told her that if I could land on a name and a logo I truly loved, I'd turn this from an idea into reality. While still on the phone, I created the Swaye & Co branding we all know and love — and before we ended the call, I'd filed the paperwork to make it official.

After that, it was time to get to work.

I'd like for there to be some glamorous, heartfelt origin story — how as a little girl I always dreamed of selling bouquets and being part of people's special moments. But that wouldn't be true. Swaye & Co was never a goal of mine. I just have a passion for the way flowers make people smile, and an entrepreneurial bone in this body that needed scratching. But with a name like Lilly… I mean, it was always meant to be, right?