Niwot florist provides flowers for the TV show "Married at First Sight"

While Niwot has long enjoyed the beautiful flower arrangements from Sarah Cioni and Belle Terre Floral, the local florist has recently been in a larger spotlight. Belle Terre provided the flowers for weddings in Season 17 of Lifetime's television show, "Married at First Sight." Cioni was referred to the show's team by the owner of the venue where the weddings would be filmed. "About the second week of January, I got an email from someone on the show team asking me if I would be interested in designing the flowers," Cioni said. "Of course, I was thrilled and over the top," she recalled, adding that she was nervous about taking on the job due to a recent surgery. "I'm so thankful I said 'yes.'"

The season premiered on Oct. 18, 2023, featuring couples who are meeting and marrying in Denver. Episodes will air throughout the year, showing how the relationships work out – or don't.

Given the integral role flowers play in every wedding, the choice was a powerful compliment to Cioni's skills. She was asked to design flowers for three out of five weddings for the show, a task that came with some challenges. Not surprisingly, Cioni made it work.

"Normally when I design flowers for a wedding I get six months to a year. This time I got two weeks. There was a lot of excitement about doing this beautiful work, pulling together my team, ordering the flowers, producing it that fast. There was a lot of adrenaline." Cioni followed the parameters the producers provided, including color schemes and ideas provided by each bride. She said it was both unusual and interesting for her to design flowers for brides whom she had never met. "We were given the most beautiful mood board I have ever seen for each bride," she said. "Then I had to come up with ideas on how to create the effect and the color scheme." The spotlight not only included exposure on the show, but in other media outlets that covered the series, including People Magazine, Us Weekly Magazine, IMDB, and on social media. Now that her work is completed, Cioni looks back at what happened with excitement. "It was thrilling. We're still on cloud nine. It's been such an exciting journey, just watching it on TV has been so much fun. We had friends come over. We all watched it together." Members of the larger Niwot community have shared their excitement with her. When she was first hired by the show, Cioni was not allowed to share the news publicly, but once the series began to air, the popular florist could let people know that her floral arrangements were on TV.

Shoppers now approach her in Niwot Market letting her know that they watch the show for her flowers, and she's even had someone call her, unexpectedly, offering support. This isn't the first time Cioni has had such exposure, as she has provided arrangements for high-profile celebrity weddings and award shows in Los Angeles before coming back to Niwot. Part of what continues to fuel her past and future work is her persistence to work towards her goals, and following up on the permission she was once given to, as she said, "dream it again."

"It's always been mind boggling to me," she said. "You never give up, you work really hard. You never know what's going to happen in your life. You never know who's going to be on the other side of the door, or on the phone."