We are over the moon to share this month’s WPIC Planner of the Month with you: It’s Kim Mayo. Wedding Planner, Lead Designer & Owner of Poppin’ Petals. This girl has got it going on! Brains, beauty and a true passion for the wedding industry. She is humble but fierce, she is kind, and mighty, and she is going places!
Equal parts strategist and creative, Kim Mayo brings an unexpected combination of operational expertise and artistry to the wedding industry as the Owner, Wedding Planner and Floral Designer behind Poppin’ Petals.
Before weddings, Kim built her career in wealth management, eventually serving as a Director of Operations. Her background in client relationships, project management and operations continues to shape the calm, thoughtful approach she brings to every celebration.
After discovering floral design in 2019, Kim found the creative outlet she had been missing and later expanded Poppin’ Petals into wedding planning after becoming WPIC-certified.
Today, Poppin’ Petals provides wedding planning and floral design throughout Toronto and the GTA, bringing logistics and creativity under one roof to create celebrations that are thoughtfully planned, beautifully designed and authentically reflective of each couple.
1. What made you decide to become a wedding planner, and when did you realize, “Yep, this is what I’m meant to be doing”?
To be honest, it started because I needed some extra cash! I was already working as a floral designer, and my friend’s sister was a wedding planner. I volunteered to help her with a wedding and remember thinking, “Ohhh… this is fun. I can do this!”
Once I started leaning into wedding planning, I decided to take the WPIC course. I knew I had transferable skills, but WPIC gave me the core foundations of the wedding industry and helped me understand how to apply those skills specifically to planning weddings.
Before weddings and florals, I was a Director of Operations for a wealth management company, so my world revolved around project management, timelines, problem-solving, communication and coordinating across different departments. I also spent many years consulting with clients as they planned for some of the biggest milestones in their lives—retirement, funding their children’s education and, yes, even weddings. The relationship side of that work was something I always thrived in. I loved getting to know my clients, understanding what mattered to them and helping them navigate important moments in their lives.
As I learned more about wedding planning, I realized I was using many of those same skills, just in a completely different industry. I had essentially swapped accounting, marketing and corporate teams for DJs, florists, décor companies, photographers and venue coordinators—and instead of helping clients plan financially for a milestone, I was helping them bring one to life.
That’s when it really clicked. WPIC gave me the industry foundation, my previous career gave me the operational and relationship skills, and floral design gave me a creative outlet. Wedding planning brought all three together.
2. What is one thing you know now about running a wedding planning business that you wish you had known when you first started?
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One of the biggest things I wish I had understood earlier is just how cyclical this business is.
When I first started, the slower seasons would make me nervous. If the inquiries weren’t coming in or my calendar suddenly felt a little too quiet, I’d think, “Okay… where did everybody go?” I’ve since learned to trust the cycle and not panic. The clients will come.
Now, I actually look forward to those quieter periods because they give me an opportunity to reconnect with myself. It’s when I tend to be at my most creative, when I make my biggest gains in the gym, and when I have more time to travel and spend with family and friends—which, for me, is fuel for the soul.
I still use that time to work on my business, improve systems, create and prepare for the season ahead, but I’ve learned that not every quiet moment needs to be filled with more work.
There’s a season for pushing and a season for recharging—and both are important.
Photo: Five Feet Above
3. Every planner has that one wedding, moment or client experience that sticks with them. What’s one of yours, and why has it stayed with you?
One that has always stayed with me happened at a wedding where I was both the planner and florist.
The couple was doing their first look and portraits in Yorkville when, completely unexpectedly, a large protest started making its way through the area. The photo and video team were getting ready to stop shooting, and I remember looking at my bride, who was visibly uncomfortable and on the verge of tears, and thinking, “Absolutely not. Not today!”
So I walked into the street and started redirecting people around our couple like an officer directing traffic when the lights are out—and it worked! As people passed, some noticed the couple, yelled “Congratulations!” and started clapping for them.
At the same time, my planner brain was thinking about road closures, vendors potentially being delayed and how this could affect the rest of the timeline.
That moment has stayed with me because I felt incredibly powerful and confident while also knowing I had to keep it together for my couple. It reminded me that we can plan for almost anything, but we can’t control everything. What we can do is communicate, adapt and be the calm our couples need when something unexpected happens.
Photo: Five Feet Above
4. What do you think couples need from their wedding planner today that they didn’t necessarily need five or ten years ago?
I’m only in my third year of wedding planning and my seventh year of floral design, so I can’t necessarily speak to what couples needed ten years ago. But even in that time, I’ve noticed a shift.
Between AI-generated images, filters, Pinterest, Instagram and content creation, couples are consuming an incredible amount of inspiration—and not everything they see reflects reality.
I have these conversations both as a planner and floral designer. An image may not be true to colour or may be completely AI-generated, while a 15-second reel can make an elaborate installation or perfectly timed moment look effortless without showing the hours of planning, production, staffing and coordination behind it.
I think couples increasingly need us to help bridge that gap—not to discourage their ideas, but to explain what it takes to bring them to life. And once we know we’re aligned on the vision, sometimes there also has to be a little leap of faith and trust in the professionals they’ve hired.
Photo: ASC
5. If you could sit down with a brand-new wedding planner over coffee and give them ONE piece of advice, what would you tell them?
I would tell them to spend time learning about the other vendors they’ll be working alongside.
Connect with a handful of professionals within each area of the industry—photographers, hair and makeup artists, florists, DJs, venue coordinators, caterers—and learn what a wedding day looks like from their perspective. Everyone works a little differently, so hearing from multiple people gives you a much better understanding of what they need to do their job well, how much time they realistically need, and the challenges we may never see from the planner’s side.
Understanding a “day in the life” of another vendor can be incredibly humbling. As planners, we’re often leading the day, but that doesn’t mean the day revolves around us. We’re one piece of a much bigger puzzle—an ecosystem of talented professionals, each bringing their own expertise to create the experience for our couples.
The more I’ve learned about what other vendors do, the more respect I’ve gained for their craft—and the better planner I’ve become. It helps me build more realistic timelines, communicate better and lead from a place of collaboration rather than simply telling people where they need to be.
You don’t need to know how to do everyone’s job, but you should understand and respect what it takes for them to do it well.
BONUS (because apparently I can’t stick to just one!): Build a great support system around you. Have people who remind you to rest, make you laugh, listen when you’ve had a hard day and celebrate the wins with you.
For me, that includes my incredible team—Lo, Liv and Mariam, affectionately known as my “work wives.” I’m incredibly proud of the way they show up for our clients, for each other and for me. Without my work wives, Poppin’ Petals would not be the success it is today.
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