The decision Jamie Rehm and Susan Reynolds made to go into business together was nothing if not intuitive.
“We decided that we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Reynolds says, “so let’s give it a shot.”
In late 2019, Rehm and Reynolds opened Bud Floral + Home in Red Bank. And while Bud was a startup, Rehm and Reynolds were hardly beginning empty-handed. Rehm had built and was running a successful floral business on Signal Mountain.
“I got my love of flowers from my grandparents,” says Rehm, who adds that she named the business for her grandfather. “They had big gardens and a greenhouse in the backyard. To this day, the smell of a gardenia takes me back to my childhood.”
A native Texan, Rehm says she and her family moved to Chattanooga in 2003. In trying to get established, she says, she volunteered for various local organizations.