One Year In: A Letter From Mary & Matt

If you've ever wondered about the name, here's the truth of it.

“Love, Olive Co.” is meant to read like the postscript of a love letter. The way you sign off to someone who matters. That's the feeling we want you to have every single time you open one of our emails, walk into one of our stores, or open a package on your doorstep. That you're loved. Every time.

This month marks one year since the two of us became the owners of Love, Olive Co. And the honest truth is, this year only worked because of you. So before we say anything else: thank you.

But maybe we should start at the beginning.

We never planned to buy it

Owning Love, Olive Co. was never on our radar.

We knew Bryce and Steph had been hoping to sell for a while and just hadn’t found right buyer. When Steph found out she was pregnant, I think they decided they were even more ready to transition away from the business to focus on their family. That’s when we felt like we could come in and help add some value to the company.

We weren't necessarily looking to buy a business, but when the opportunity presented itself, we felt like it was worth exploring. We already knew the LOC community, and after getting to know the team, we felt strongly that this was a business that we really connected with. After a lot of research (and a good amount of praying), the idea took root  and we decided to jump into the world of small business ownership.

We were fans first

Here's the part that still makes us laugh.

Long before Matt ever met the Tarnaskys, he had used Love, Olive Co. as an example in his social media marketing class, a case study in how to build a loyal community online. He admired the brand from the outside without being part of it. And Mary was a fan in the most genuine way possible. She owned nearly every fit set the brand had ever designed before we owned the business.

The two families eventually became friends when our daughters, Lucy and Olive, started hanging out outside of school. Fans before owners. Friends before buyers. That was the foundation we built this chapter on.

What we're protecting, and what we're building

What we love about this brand is simple: it's a place that curates and designs cute, modest, trendy clothing for women at every stage of life.

We believe modest and trendy go hand in hand. You can't really have one without the other. We're not interested in frumpy, “pioneer-era” clothing, and there's already plenty of trendy fast fashion out there. We want to live in that specific, hard-to-find space of modest and trendy, building timeless wardrobes that are high quality and hold their value for years.

It's personal for us, too. We have two daughters, and we want them, and you, to know you can feel confident in what you wear without conforming to whatever the typical retailer is pushing.

What's new under our ownership? A deeper investment in designing in house. Matt didn't even realize the brand designed its own clothing until we started looking at buying the company, and it's become one of the things we're most excited about. We can't wait to see where LOC is in five years as we create more and more thoughtful designs we hope you'll love. Honestly, our dream is that one day half of what we carry is designed in house, and that Love, Olive Co. becomes one of the best places to work in southeast Idaho.

The moments that make it real

We'll be honest. Small business ownership is a rollercoaster. There have been hard days, the kind you'd never guess from the outside, learning the realities of payroll, taxes, and navigating manufacturing as first-time small business owners.

But then there are the moments that answer the question of why we did this at all.

At our recent tent sale in Idaho Falls, we noticed an older woman pulling dress after dress on over her clothes, beaming at herself in the mirror while her husband stood by, nodding in approval. They'd come in from Blackfoot. She told us she usually has a hard time finding plus-size clothing she feels good and confident in, and here she'd found a whole stack of it in one place. Seeing her happy made her husband happy too. Those are the moments we love most. Women coming together in a place where they can feel good about how they look and feel.

That's the heart of what Love, Olive Co. brings to its community. It always has been.

To you, directly

We'll let you in on something: neither of us has any interest in being influencers or the face of a brand. We've chosen, on purpose, to work behind the scenes and let this community be the star.

When ownership changed hands, there was real concern. Steph had become the face of the company, and some wondered whether it would work without her out front.

It did. Because of you.

There's no version of this year that works without the customers who stuck with us through the transition. We feel so grateful to be part of this inspiring, positive community, and we appreciate every single person who chose to take this journey with us.

So here's to year one behind us, and to year two, designed with more love, more intention, and more excitement than ever.

With so much gratitude,

Love, Mary & Matt and, as always,

XOXO, Love, Olive Co.