It’s Acadiana: Out To Lunch

Hosted ByChristiaan Mader

OUT TO LUNCH finds journalist Christiaan Mader conducting business Acadiana style: over lunch. Each week Christiaan invites guests from Acadiana's business community to join him. Beyond the foundations of the Acadiana economy - oil, cuisine, music - there is a vast network of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and even some of the country's largest companies who call Acadiana home. Out to Lunch is the cafeteria of the wider Acadiana business community. You can also hear the show on KRVS 88.7FM.

Rental Flowers and The Happiness App – Out to Lunch – It’s Acadiana

July 31, 2019 Out To Lunch Comments Off on Rental Flowers and The Happiness App – Out to Lunch – It’s Acadiana

No matter who you are, what you do, or where you live, there’s no doubt that you’re looking for same thing out of life as every other human being in the world: Happiness. Happiness is the stated goal of almost every societal organization in recorded history – from ancient Hindu writings to the United States Declaration of Independence. Here in Acadiana, Taylor McMahon is doing his part to increase the sum of human happiness. One App at a time.

Taylor McMahon, Aileen Bennett 

Taylor has created an app called Hope Mindfulness and Prayer. You can download it for free, on either Android or Apple devices. And thousands of people have. The Hope Mindfulness and Prayer app is guided meditation. It has a wide range of choices of music and spoken word. Each meditation focuses on a specific issue, like stress, disappointment, healing a broken heart, and many more. The app’s unique niche in the self-help market is its combination of mindful meditations and Christian principles.

Although most of us accept that finding happiness is our own individual responsibility, we also seem to believe that our individual happiness has a greater chance of lasting if we’re with someone else. That’s why we get married. Ironically, in a search for life-long happiness, most marriages begin with the ultimate stress test: a wedding.

If you’ve ever been in a wedding, you’ll know the seemingly endless layers of drama involved. If you’ve ever planned a wedding, or had to pay for it, you’ll know how expensive it can be. The current generation of marrying Americans – millennials – are getting married later, and when it comes to weddings, they’re reportedly more cost-conscious than their parents or grandparents were.

Aileen Bennett, Lauren Bercier

That’s why Lauren Bercier’s company, Something Borrowed Blooms, is a gigantic success story. Something Borrowed Blooms is a wedding flower rental company. Yes, you heard that correctly. Instead of buying expensive flowers for your wedding, you can rent artificial flowers that look real, and even smell real. Lauren has a staff of 16 people. They‘re currently providing flowers for 400 weddings a month.

 Taylor McMahon, Aileen Bennett, Lauren Bercier

Photos over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette by Lucius Fontenot.