Ypsilanti’s Bridge Community Cafe is collaborating with Detroit-based pop-up event planner Swanky Lady Couture for a series of hands-on bouquet-building events throughout July. The series, called Lattes and Bouquets, will allow guests to enjoy drinks from Bridge while creating a custom bouquet from a "flower bar" of locally grown blooms to take home.

Swanky Lady Couture founder Monique Marshall has been organizing pop-up events like Lattes and Bouquets throughout the metro Detroit area since she began to focus her business on community connection following the COVID-19 pandemic. This will be her first time hosting an event in Ypsi, although she has vended in the area before. She says she often looks for venues that "hold space for their communities" to host her pop-ups. After meeting Bridge owner Sierra Lambert, Marshall realized that the cafe was a perfect fit for her needs.

"Sierra embodies what I embody," Marshall says. "There are a lot of quality places in the area to create community in, but at Bridge you just feel welcome the moment you walk through the doors. You aren’t expected to be a certain way. That’s why I picked that space for this event."

Marshall says Lattes and Bouquets will take a holistic approach to self-care and mindfulness. In addition to enjoying Bridge drinks and making bouquets, attendees may also visit henna artist Shahrin Azim. Marshall hopes that attendees are able to apply the event's theme of self-care to other facets of their lives, and to move forward feeling rejuvenated and ready to engage with their community in meaningful ways. 

"Once you get the sensory components of touch, taste, smell, you can transfer it to other things," she says. "The meat of it is, ‘How do I experience joy in small ways so I don’t lose my mind because of all the pressures around us?’"

Marshall says both she and Lambert value emphasizing joy and self-care at a time when "the human craving to connect is getting lost." Her experience planning the event has given her ideas for possible future events in the Ypsi area, whether at Bridge or another local business.

"Ypsi will always be a part of what I do now," Marshall says. "It’s such a unique spot with lots of good people that have a very humanist point of view. They want you to do well, and they want to provide the tools for you to do well for you."

Lattes and Bouquets will take place on July 6, 13, and 27. Purchase tickets here. More information on this event and others by Swanky Lady Couture can be found here.

"You have to go to the local level. That’s where you make the most impact," Marshall says. "We want people to understand what they can do for their community, but also themselves."