meet leah

Owner, Creative Director and founder of Black Swan Floral Design

Leah McDaniel is the Owner, Creative Director, and Founder of Black Swan Floral Design, a boutique floral design studio in Upstate New York. Her journey in floristry began as a collaboration with her mother, Pamela Miller, who owned Black Sheep Barn and Gardens—an organic flower and vegetable farm that thrived for over 30 years in West Chazy, NY. United by their shared love for art and nature, the mother-daughter duo combined their talents to focus on event design across Upstate NY and Vermont. Though Pam has since retired, she remains an integral part of the studio, lending her expertise to wedding designs. While the family garden now flourishes primarily for personal enjoyment, Leah continues to source blooms from local farmers in New York and Vermont, prioritizing sustainable and seasonal selections.

A mother, wife, designer, and devoted animal lover, Leah is passionate about continuous growth—constantly refining her craft through workshops, life experiences, and the inspiration she draws from her clients. She is always seeking fresh ideas and creative ways to showcase the natural beauty of flowers, all while being mindful of sustainability by using eco-friendly products and mechanics whenever possible.

Leah is a self-taught florist with a background in Art and Biology. During the “off-season,” she dedicates time to expanding her expertise through workshops and virtual studios, having had the privilege of learning from world-renowned designers such as Passionflower Sue, Hitomi Gilliam, Ariella Chezar, Holly Chapple, Nicolette Camille, Lucy the Flower Hunter, La Musa De Las Flores, and Max Gill.

For Leah, every wedding is a new adventure—an opportunity to tell a couple’s love story through the language of flowers. She considers herself incredibly fortunate to have found and married her best friend, built a family, and pursued a career that continuously fuels her creativity and passion.

The Experience

Your luxury floral design experience starts here…

All inquiries start by completing our questionnaire on the “Contact” page. Once we receive your questionnaire, we will contact you to let you know if we are available. If so, we will then set up a phone consultation to talk your questionnaire out in more detail.

The Inquiry

The Consultation

This will be our time to get to know each other and dive into the details that you shared in your questionnaire. After, we’ll craft and share a custom proposal that will outline how we’ll transform your floral vision to reality.

You loved your proposal and want to secure your date!  Simply sign and return our contract along with the required retainer.  Once both are complete your date is secured.  Further payment terms will be outlined and shared with you based on your custom proposal. Around the six month mark we will connect once again about your design and other details.  To ensure we are able to provide the highest quality in florals and services all details are finalized 8 weeks prior to your wedding.  Throughout this nurturing process we ask that you freely share your inspiration, new thoughts or ideas.

The Process

The Creation

It’s your wedding day… and we’ll be starting as early as possible to bring your intentional floral design to life. Our dedicated team will work our magic to transform your venue. As often as possible, we will personally deliver your personal flowers - we love to see first hand the joy on your face when it arrives.

FAQ’s

How do I get started?

Please head over to our contact page, submit your information through our detailed questionnaire. We ask you to fill out this questionnaire before we set up a consultation. It will also speed up the process if you send along days/times that would be best for you to set up a consultation. We try to be as flexible as possible knowing that most people have busy schedules. Sending photos of inspiration and/or your pinterest page to Leah@blackswanfloral.com is a great way to put us all on the same visual page before chatting. From there we can schedule a consultation to talk over the phone! Most of our clients are destination couples, so it’s actually rare we meet the couple until the day of the wedding.

Do you have a pricing sheet or packages you offer?

We do not offer packages or a pricing sheet. We are an event floral design studio and not a conventional florist. Our studio hours are by appointment only. Every wedding or event we create is tailored for that specific couple. Any one bouquet or any one centerpiece is never the same. Pricing depends on so many factors that it would be inaccurate to provide you with a list of prices before we spoke. On average, you should expect to spend about 10 -12% of your budget on flowers, however this could be higher for tented weddings. Once we have your consultation, we send a detailed proposal with pricing that includes set up and installation for your wedding or event, along with our contract We generally do have a minimum purchase investment (before tax and delivery) that can range from $5,000 - $10,000. The minimum investment is determined by various factors such as event date, event size, location and style. In rare cases there may be an exception, so please contact us and we can talk it out. It never hurts to ask!

How do I reserve your services and can I make changes once I do?

The first step is to fill out our questionnaire. You will be directed to it once you have submitted an inquiry through our website. Once we receive that, we contact you to set up a consultation. After our consultation, I’ll send you a detailed proposal. To officially save your date, we require a retainer and signed contract. Couples often worry that they won’t be able to make changes once they reserve their date. Changes and additions can be made up until 30 days prior to your wedding. We do only allow a 15% REDUCTION of services that is agreed upon on the original proposal. This means that if we agreed on a $5000 proposal, you have about $750 you are able to subtract. We do this so we know the work load we can expect for every event. Months of planning is required to create a successful event, so this just gives us a little assurance of our workload.

What areas do you service?

We are located just north of the Adirondack Park in Plattsburgh NY. Most of our weddings tend to be in the Lake Placid and Saranac Lake region (including Keene). However, we also do weddings in Lake George, Saratoga, VT and occasionally just outside of NYC.

Why should I choose local vendors?

Supporting local is important to help little towns like ours prosper. Not only are you supporting the community, but you are also working with professionals that know the area and venues. This is a very special area and outsiders might not know the hidden treasures, the best styles for each venue or where in that venue decor should be focused, or the best places to spend your time for a particular event. Not only do the local vendors know the town and the venues, but they know each other. This is incredibly important to help make an event run as smoothly as possible.

Where do you source your flowers?

We started out as an organic flower farm, so sourcing locally is especially important to us. We still provide a couple local blooms from our own gardens, but we get as many blooms as possible from local farms out of VT and NY. If it’s not the right season, or there isn’t a particular bloom available, I source other foliage and flowers from a wholesaler out of Burlington VT.

What floral services do you provide?

We are a floral design studio that specializes in weddings and large events. We offer full wedding design and installation. In rare cases, we may be available for elopement bouquets or smaller pick up orders. We love a good challenge of something unique and creative.


Testimonials

  • Leah was an absolutely incredible person to work with and is insanely talented in her craft. From the moment I saw Leah's work, I knew I would be so lucky to have her as our florist, but from the moment I spoke with her I knew this was exactly the right fit for us.

    -Katherine R.

  • I had to take a walk around the venue with my mom for a very special 10 minutes just to marvel Leah's beautiful, stunning, awe-inspiring work.

    -Ariane S.

  • Leah is an artist. Our wedding turned out better than any of the pinterest "inspiration" photos I had. I know nothing about flowers or candles or tablescapes - Leah was incredibly patient and kind while helping me figure out what I liked and didnt like. She was super informative and had so many ideas and examples - she came with beautiful plans for our wedding that were beyond my wildest dreams.

    -Kristin S.

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