Today we’d like to introduce you to Carly Blair.
Hi Carly, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I came from a troubled home, and my teenage years were especially difficult. During that time, art became one of the few places where I could find peace. I eventually dropped out of high school but later earned my diploma so I could attend art school, where I studied fashion design. One of my professors designed wedding gowns for a well-known bridal label, and through her encouragement I became fascinated by the wedding industry. I immersed myself in it, studying everything from couture gowns to floral design, cakes, and tablescapes. I fell completely in love with the world of celebration.
After moving to Austin, I pieced together a living by working several minimum-wage jobs at once. I worked at a small bridal salon, a neighborhood flower shop, and as an assistant to a wedding planner. One day, during a wedding, the floral delivery arrived frozen. Since I was the only person on-site with any floral experience, I was handed the impossible task of saving the day. Somehow, I did. That moment unexpectedly became the beginning of my career.
In the fall of 2009, I officially launched my own floral business. At a time when soft creams and blush palettes dominated weddings, I found myself drawn to vibrant oranges, saturated pinks, and lush blooms that looked as though they had stepped out of a Dutch Master painting. Over time, that distinctive style became our signature, earning us a reputation for wedding florals that were both whimsical and unexpectedly bold.
Those early years were anything but glamorous. I often worked four jobs while building the business out of my home kitchen. People assumed I worked that hard because I loved flowers—and I do—but the deeper truth was that the business represented something much bigger. It was my chance to build a life that looked nothing like the one I had grown up in.
As our weddings became more elaborate, clients began asking us to design more than just the flowers. They wanted guidance on furniture, linens, lighting, and the overall creative vision. With encouragement from colleagues, I expanded the company from Margot Blair Floral into House of Margot Blair, a full-service event production studio where planning, production design, and floral artistry all work together under one roof.
After years immersed in weddings, I found myself craving another creative challenge. I realized there was a gap in the everyday floral market. Most flower shops offered traditional bouquets, but very few approached everyday flowers with the same artistry and romance reserved for luxury weddings. I wanted to change that.
That vision became our retail flower shop, where we introduced what would become our signature Margot Minis Collection—daily arrangements featuring the same premium blooms we used for our event clients. It was everything I had dreamed of.
Then COVID arrived.
Like so many event businesses, ours was legally prohibited from operating. Overnight, weddings disappeared and our future became uncertain. During that time, a woman named Sumaya, whom I had never met, reached out through social media with an idea: teach floral workshops over Zoom. She generously offered to help publicize the concept, and what started as a survival strategy quickly became one of the most meaningful chapters of our business. We shifted our focus to virtual workshops and local flower deliveries, and the response was overwhelming. Looking back, that season still feels like a blur.
Eventually, we outgrew our original space and opened what I still believe was the most beautiful flower shop in Austin, nestled in Bryker Woods. Events returned stronger than ever. We designed everything from intimate lakeside concerts to luxury brand activations, while our workshops consistently sold out month after month.
Then, in what felt like an instant, everything changed again.
In May 2025, my partner and I were driving between meetings when another vehicle crossed into our lane and struck us head-on. I suffered a severe concussion, required 25 stitches to my head, and shattered my leg in five places. Reconstructive surgery left me unable to walk for months. Yet only two weeks later, I flew to Tennessee to oversee production at Bonnaroo, navigating the festival grounds on a motorized scooter because the business still depended on me. At the time, I believed that would be the hardest season of my life.
I was wrong.
As I slowly learned to walk again, I noticed that something still wasn’t right. No matter how hard I worked to recover, I continued to grow weaker. In October 2025, I landed in the emergency room, where I was diagnosed with Stage IIIb rectal cancer.
The months that followed tested every part of me. I endured sixteen weeks of FOLFOX chemotherapy, followed by twenty-eight rounds of radiation that sent my body into medically induced menopause at just thirty-eight years old.
In the middle of treatment, another devastating blow arrived. My investors informed me they were withdrawing from the business and dismantling our flower shop, effective immediately. While fighting for my life, I found myself reading legal documents, speaking with attorneys, and making impossible decisions on days when I barely had the strength to lift my head from the pillow.
That chapter is still difficult to put into words. The grief is complicated, and in many ways, I’m still processing it. But one thing became painfully clear: my only job was to survive.
Closing the flower shop was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, but it also gave me the space to focus entirely on healing.
What happened next reminded me why I built this business in the first place.
While I underwent treatment, my incredible team transformed House of Margot Blair into an online-only business. They began creating our signature arrangements from my home kitchen, continued teaching workshops, partnered with brands including Kendra Scott, and became the exclusive florist for Cartier’s flagship Austin boutique. We also continued producing a select number of events for longtime clients who graciously allowed me the flexibility to heal while still creating meaningful work.
Last week, I reached a milestone that once felt impossible: my doctors told me my cancer is cured.
Looking back, it’s easy to frame this story around loss—the accident, the diagnosis, the shop we loved. But that’s not how I see it.
I see resilience. I see creativity. I see a team that refused to let a dream disappear simply because life became unimaginably difficult.
House of Margot Blair has never really been about flowers. It’s about creating beauty in seasons that don’t always feel beautiful. That belief carried me through nearly twenty years of building this company, and it carried me through cancer.
As we approach two decades of this wild little flower dream, I’m more excited than ever about what’s next. After everything we’ve survived, it feels like we’re just getting started.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Explained in detail on the slide before… even though I left out that I also broke my back at one point, but somehow kept going, giving instructions to my employees while I was stuck in bed on bedrest
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I think what sets me apart is an unwillingness to settle for the status quo. I think a lot of people in my industry spend a lot of time on Pinterest, looking for ideas they want to replicate. And while, I’ve certainly built replicas of things when requested by clients, my goal is now and has always been to make events and flower arrangements that are works of art, unique to that specific client in that specific moment in their lives.
What are your plans for the future?
“Scaling” is the big word being used in most of our meetings these days. I’m not sure exactly what that’s going to look like just yet, but taking Margot to different markets — both nationally and internationally — is definitely where my mind is headed.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://houseofmargotblair.com
- Instagram: @margotblair
