Fruits of Labor, Inc. was born on July 2, 2001 in beautiful Grassy Meadows, West Virginia. We began with an idea in mind, and through hard work, the help of our wonderful family, and the grace of God, many of our ideas have taken shape.
Our business is in Greenbrier County, located in the southeastern part of the Mountain State. The beginning of our corporation came from the sale of items out of our garden. Soon our garden became fields, and area produce markets and restaurants now enjoy our peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, and berries, as well as many other items along the way.
The next step of our business was having the opportunity to provide beautiful weddings for those that have fallen in love. We now offer a complete floral, catering, and cake service for a wide service area. This part of our business is quickly taking off, and our garden just adds to it?from providing fresh vegetables in the summer, to pumpkins and gourds for fall decorations. Our goal is to offer a one-stop business to give you everything you have dreamed about for your perfect wedding day.
2004 was a wonderful year for our business. The year started with our booth winning "best floral design" at the Tamarack Bridal Show in Beckley. We had the opportunity to provide services for over a dozen events, from a small, private wedding all the way up to the cake, flowers, and food for over 400 people. With the success of our weddings, we created this website as an opportunity to showcase our work and let you have a glimpse into our dreams, and hopefully to allow your dreams to become a reality. Beyond the weddings, our garden produced bushel after bushel of peppers through the summer, leading into picking over 1500 pumpkins before the frost hit.
2005 surpassed the previous year by a wide margin. The year started with our booth again winning the award for the "best floral design" at the Tamarack Bridal Show. Two weeks later we hosted the Lewisburg area's own bridal show, which was a monumental undertaking but a great event, not only for us, but for other businesses and many wonderful brides-to-be of our area. Through the year we had the opportunity to provide services at ~25 events, doubling our previous high, ending with a beautiful service on New Year's Eve. We also tailored our garden to provide things for our weddings as much as possible, and had a good growing season for many things out of our fields.
2006 was more of the same for Fruits of Labor---the business just continued to blossom. We hosted the 2nd Annual Greenbrier Valley Bridal Expo in Lewisburg, where we presented the debut issue of "Weddings: Fruits of Labor Style", our very own wedding magazine. The magazine was created as an extension of our efforts to make brides have their dreams fulfilled on their wedding day. We also had another wonderful day at the bridal show at Tamarack, and the shows just jumped us right into a very successful year full of weddings. Our company began providing coordinating services for brides, and also offering a wide variety of favors that they may wish to choose as a special gift for their guests. We worked with a graphic designer to obtain our very own logo for use in advertising (see our new logo on our web site and future ads and magazines!). We even expanded our produce sales to the Beckley Uptown Farmer's Market over the summer to bring some fresh food to our local community. We found that even early on we were rapidly booking weddings for 2007, and it kept us trying to figure out the proper direction to steer our company.
So what did 2007 hold for Fruits of Labor, Inc.? The 2nd edition of "Weddings: Fruits of Labor Style", our company's very own magazine showcasing our weddings from the previous year, made its debut at the 2007 Tamarack Bridal Show on Feb. 24. The 2nd edition of our magazine was bigger and better than ever, a full 96 pages to give brides all across our area a glimpse of what Fruits of Labor is all about. Our web site proved to be a huge success for our company, and we have expanded our services to our own online wedding store. Our store provides personalized wedding items such as tiaras, veils, guest books, ring bearer pillows, flower girl baskets, toasting glasses, favors, ribbon, monograms, invitations, gifts and much more for brides all across the country. We attempted to narrow the focus of our garden to further help our weddings, and to provide for our best produce customers. We also gradually added a variety of rental items for our wedding business. Tammy also had the opportunity to write articles this year for a couple of statewide publications, West Virginia South and I DO, part of the West Virginia Executive Magazine. Her article in West Virginia South (October 2007 edition) centered on a Thanksgiving theme for your decorations and dinner table setting, while her article in I DO laid out the importance of good contracts being to the bride & groom, as well as the company they are dealing with.
2008 brought perhaps the biggest undertaking of all for our company in expanding our corporate headquarters to include a full commercial kitchen, which would allow us to expand our catering business into other markets, especially corporate catering. Construction is finished (check our home page for updated pictures!) and are now offering a wide variety of food and bakery items (cookies, cakes, breads, soups, salads, and much more). We also have expanded our catering to breakfast meals, lunches, etc. for corporate businesses and pharmaceutical reps. We again hosted the Greenbrier Valley Bridal Expo in Lewisburg, as well as attended the bridal show at Tamarack in Beckley. At these shows we had the debut of the 3rd edition of "Weddings: Fruits of Labor Style" for our area brides (please see our magazine page if you would like a copy sent to you). And from those shows we had a large number of weddings that we provided services for.
2009 has arrived quickly and we have high expecations for the continued expansion of our business. We wish to thank our loyal customers and all of those that have made this possible for us. Many other ideas float through our minds, but only time will tell on what takes bloom. We thank you for your time and interest in our company. However we may help you, please do not hesitate to ask. May God bless you and your family.
Tammy Robertson