My name is Sal Pavia, founder and creative director of Flora + Dean, a boutique floral studio based in New York City. 

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For more than a decade, I worked in the performing arts, touring the country as a performer, director, and choreographer. Theatre taught me how to tell a story, create an atmosphere, and—most importantly—make people feel something.

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Then, in 2020, everything changed. My career came to a halt, and my wife Kaitlyn and I found out we were becoming parents. I took a chance on something new, and what started as grocery store flowers on my kitchen table turned into a small business with a big heart. Today, we’re raising our two kids while continuing to build this dream of ours.

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Today, I bring that same theatrical eye for storytelling and production to every event I design. I don't see flowers as simply decoration—they're part of the experience. The color, movement, scale, and unexpected details all work together to tell the story of the people at the center of it.

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To me, events are a lot like shows. There are hundreds of moving parts happening behind the scenes that guests never see. My job is to bring all those pieces together so that when the curtain goes up, everything feels effortless—and your guests leave with a little bit of magic they won't soon forget.