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Since April, Mallory DeNuzzia has been painting, prepping and praying for her big moment, which finally took place on Friday.

Surrounded by family and close friends, DeNuzzia officially opened her florist shop, Wildflower MJ, on Hill Street. Her shop was moved into an old and vintage house, that DeNuzzia and her family to had to make major renovations to get it up to date.

“The bones of this house are and have always been beautiful,” DeNuzzia said. “But due to the walls and everything being so old, it took us a while. We painted every room. We kept a lot of things as they are, but the main room is where we had to do a lot of work. It took a lot of time, but it has been worth it.”

Everything goes back to her grandmother’s garden, and how she felt at the old farm house growing up. That is the feeling she wants to impose onto every person who walks into her shop.

“I want to serve our community and do it in a way that honors the Lord,” DeNuzzia said. “When I first started this five years ago, even Luann Jones in high school teaching me in the beginning, was a part of the Lord’s plan. We want to have people come in, and we serve them. We can serve our community by honoring the Lord by being kind, good and fair.”

DeNuzzia said she wants to be there during exciting times, such as for when brides are planning their weddings. She also wants to be there when people are going through tough times, such as the loss of a loved one.

“Things like that are extremely hard,” DeNuzzia said.

DeNuzzia began her florist career after graduating from Louisiana State University with a degree in Horticulture. DeNuzzia’s passion for flowers started working in her grandmother’s garden, where she spent hours learning how to care for plants and really appreciate what it takes to make a garden grow.

“We all have worked hard to see this happen, and it’s just nice for it to come to fruition,” DeNuzzia said. “It is awesome to see the crew that is my family and my friends who have gathered to like just help me in here. We’re just really thankful for the amount of people who already showed up.”

Wildflower MJ will serve as more than just a flower shop for the community.

“I think I can offer people a one stop shop, which has been a main goal of mine,” DeNuzzia said. “Five local vendors have their items in here. You can come in and grab something for your mom, sister or daughter. Grab earrings, grab a card, grab a t-shirt and then obviously grab flowers.”

Designs by AB will offer custom art prints, Dutch Clay offers hand crafted clay earrings, Buy Goldie’s will offer a few small retail items, sewing and embroidery items will be sold from Southern Signature and custom t-shirts from The Awkward Teacher will also be sold.

“We’ll have wildflower of the month, where you can order a subscription and get it every month, and we’ll do that on a certain day of the month,” DeNuzzia said. “You can order online or even come into the store. I will always have individual stems you can buy. We will wrap them up for you and you can take them home put them in your own vase. We will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Wednesdays and Sundays. On Saturday, we will be open 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.”

DeNuzzia offers three general shapes of flower arrangements. For fun, each one is the namesake of one of her sister’s middle names, Christine, Ruth and Kate.

The shop is located 609 Hill Street in LaGrange and can be reached at (706) 333-7846.