Today we’d like to introduce you to Sage Marcella.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My journey with flowers started more than 20 years ago, somewhat organically and before I really knew it would become my career. I grew up on Martha’s Vineyard, and while I was home from college during the summers, I started flower farming. I was growing flowers, working with my hands, making hand-tie bouquets for the farm stand, and beginning to understand seasonality and the beauty of using what was growing right around me. I loved working with my hands, getting dirty, and the connection to the earth it gave me. Looking back, I think those early experiences really shaped the way I still approach flowers today.
I’ve always been drawn to creativity, color, texture, and the way beautiful spaces make people feel. I studied Visual Media at RIT and later attended the Floral Design Institute, eventually turning that combination of creativity and flowers into a career.
Over the years, I’ve experienced many different sides of the floral industry, designing weddings and events, working in flower shops, freelancing locally and across the country, and learning the business from the ground up. Flowers have been this constant thread throughout my adult life, even while raising a family and moving through different seasons of life.
Eventually, I reached a point where I wanted to create something that felt completely my own. In February 2024, my husband, Jered, and I opened SAGE. flowers in Multnomah Village. I wanted it to be more than a traditional flower shop. I envisioned a neighborhood space that felt creative, welcoming, a little unexpected, and constantly evolving , a place where someone could stop in for a beautiful bouquet, experience flowers in a new way, take a workshop, discover something special, or trust us with the flowers for one of the biggest moments of their lives.
Since opening, SAGE. has grown into a mix of retail flowers, weddings and events, workshops, installations, plants, gifts, and community. One of my favorite parts has been developing our own design voice. Our work tends to be seasonal, textural, a little wild, and less concerned with following traditional floral rules. I love letting the flowers themselves help dictate where a design goes.
Owning a small creative business has stretched me in ways I never expected. I’m still learning constantly: about flowers, business, creativity, and myself. But I think that evolution is also what I love most about it. SAGE. feels like the culmination of more than 20 years of working with flowers, while at the same time feeling like we’re only just beginning to discover what it can become.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not, and I’m not sure any small business journey really is!
Opening SAGE. Flowers was a huge leap for me, and one I spent a lot of time dreaming about, researching, planning, and probably overthinking before finally realizing I was never going to feel completely ready. At some point, I just had to take the jump.
I had spent years working with flowers, managing a high-volume flower shop here in Portland, freelancing, attending workshops, and continuing to learn and develop my own style. But owning your own shop is an entirely different experience. Suddenly you’re not just the florist, you’re the buyer, marketer, salesperson, delivery driver, event producer, problem solver, and everything in between. Learning how to hold all of those roles while still making space to be a wife, a mother, and simply a person outside of the shop has been an ongoing lesson.
Somewhere along the way, SAGE. really became like our third child. We’ve poured so much of ourselves into it…our time, energy, creativity, and hearts. Like raising a child, it has been incredibly rewarding, occasionally exhausting, and constantly evolving. And because you care about it so deeply, learning when and how to step away can be one of the hardest parts.
That became especially real this year when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I went through chemotherapy while continuing to run SAGE., followed by surgery this summer, with more treatment still ahead. For someone who was accustomed to being involved in nearly every detail, being forced to physically step back was incredibly challenging.
At the same time, flowers took on an entirely new meaning for me. Throughout treatment, they became a form of healing and a place I could return to when so much else felt outside of my control. There were days when simply walking into the shop, putting my hands on flowers, and creating something beautiful made me feel a little more like myself again.
This experience has also required me to lean on my husband, fellow flower friends, and our incredible community in ways I never had before. It taught me that SAGE. could continue to grow even when I couldn’t personally hold every piece of it.
This season has changed my perspective in so many ways.
So no, it hasn’t been a smooth road, but I wouldn’t expect it to be. Every challenge has shaped me and taught me something along the way. SAGE. is very much the place I imagined and hoped it would be when we opened, but like anything creative, it continues to evolve. I’m excited to see where that evolution takes us, and to continue growing alongside it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
At SAGE. Flowers, we really do a little bit of everything floral. We’re a neighborhood flower shop, but also a design studio, creating weddings and events, installations, daily deliveries, workshops, and everything from a single stem to completely transforming a space with flowers.
I think the way I approach floral design actually started long before I realized it. In college, my final project was a series of photographs I took while driving. . The images were abstract and less about the actual objects I was photographing and more about color, texture, movement, and the feeling those things created in me. I am always look for colors inspiration in everything. Looking back, I think I approach flowers in much the same way.
Color is probably one of the things I’m most drawn to. I love the way colors interact, how putting one color next to another can suddenly make it pop or sparkle in a way it wouldn’t on its own. I love taking a palette and pushing it just a little further, adding an unexpected tone or texture that makes the whole thing more interesting. Even when we’re working within a simple palette, I’m thinking about movement, shape, texture, and the emotion the flowers create.
Because I started out flower farming on Martha’s Vineyard, I also have a deep appreciation for seasonality and locally grown flowers. I love sourcing from local growers whenever possible and then peppering in a few unexpected or exotic blooms. Nature is probably my biggest source of inspiration. I think about how things would actually grow, the movement, the imperfections, different heights and stages of bloom, and try to emulate some of that in our work. I want our flowers to feel intentional and elevated, but still loose, natural, and alive.
What’s sweet about SAGE. is that we specialize in so many different aspects of flowers. First and foremost, I wanted the shop to be something that brought people together and made having flowers in your life feel easy and approachable. We have a stem bar where people can choose individual blooms, a curated selection of ready-to-grab arrangements, and we encourage people to bring in their own vessels for us to fill. We also create daily deliveries, corporate and residential installations, weddings and events, and everything in between.
One of my favorite parts, besides simply getting to create with flowers, is connecting with our community through workshops. There’s something incredibly rewarding about watching someone who starts by saying, “I’m not creative,” sit down with a bucket of flowers and leave holding something they made and are genuinely proud of. I love getting people excited about flowers and giving them permission to play without worrying about doing it the “right” way.
What I’m most proud of is that we’ve created a shop that feels distinctly like SAGE. I wanted people to walk through the door and feel inspired, but also comfortable and welcome. Flowers can sometimes feel like a luxury reserved for major occasions, and I love that we get to be part of both the really big moments and the completely ordinary ones.
I think what sets SAGE. apart is the combination of a high-end, thoughtfully curated floral experience with the warmth and familiarity of a neighborhood flower shop. We work with beautiful, premium flowers and really care about the details, but we never want flowers to feel intimidating or reserved only for special occasions. At the heart of SAGE. is how flowers make people feel. There’s something about walking into a room filled with flowers, or bringing home a beautiful bunch that gives you an instant serotonin boost and makes you smile. I love that flowers can transform a space, connect people, spark creativity, or simply make an ordinary Tuesday feel a little more special. If SAGE. can offer beautiful, unexpected flowers and thoughtful design while still being the neighborhood shop where you feel comfortable stopping in to say hello and grab a few stems on your way home, then we’re creating exactly the kind of place I always wanted SAGE. to be.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
When I was searching for the right home for SAGE., nothing seemed to feel quite right. I knew I wanted to be on the west side of Portland, here were fewer flower shops over here, and I felt like there was sa real need for morel, but I couldn’t find a building that matched what I had pictured in my head.
Eventually, I started to wonder if maybe I was waiting for something that didn’t exist. Maybe I was supposed to choose a space I didn’t completely love and grow from there.
I was actually getting ready to sign a lease on the east side when I asked the universe for a sign. I needed some reassurance that I was moving in the right direction and not, figuratively, leading my family off a cliff by opening this little flower shop.
And then, almost immediately, something happened.
I was picking up some vases from a client when she told me, “I think I know the perfect place for you.”
At first, I told her I couldn’t possibly change course at the eleventh hour. But she encouraged me to at least drive by.
So I did.
I drove into Multnomah Village, I hadn’t been to this part of town in a few years. I loved the charming streets with such a fun variety of local businesses, and this beautiful corner building sitting right at the crossroads of the Village and I immediately called my husband.
I told him “We’re pivoting. And when I bring you here, you’ll understand.”
There was something about the energy of this little pocket of Portland combined with this incredible corner location that felt exactly like what I had been imagining all along. It felt like the sign I had asked for.
And somehow, the story became even more serendipitous.
While Jered was painting and we were getting the shop ready to open, he had the front door propped open. A woman walking by stopped to talk with him and told him that we needed to go down to Annie Bloom’s, our neighborhood bookstore. They had an old black-and-white photograph showing that our very building had once been a flower shop in the 1950s.
Jered immediately called me. He knew how much I had been looking for signs.
Before we even had a chance to go get the photograph ourselves, someone from Annie Bloom’s walked into the shop carrying it. She told us a woman named Alice had purchased the photograph, and asked them to bring it to us as a gift.
We framed it, and it still hangs on our wall today.
For me, that photograph represents so much more than the history of this building. It’s a reminder of the strange and beautiful way we found our way here, of trusting the little nudges that change your direction, and of the incredible generosity of this community.
There is something deeply special about getting to return this corner to a flower shop all these decades later.
Jered and I still talk all the time about how lucky we feel to be in this building and to be part of Multnomah Village. We didn’t just find a place to open SAGE. We found a community that welcomed us before we had even opened our doors and I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling grateful that I listened when the universe told me to take that drive, and so lucky that this is where we get to build our business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sageflowerspdx.com
- Instagram: sageflowerspdx
- Facebook: SAGE flowers Pdx https://www.facebook.com/people/SAGE-flowers-PDX/61559292381643/
- Other: tik tok: sageflowerspdx. email:sageflowerspdx@gmail.com
