Floral designer Suzanne Bellanger will be hitting the road this spring — and she’ll be taking her flowers with her. 

Last year, a family vacation to Nashville inspired Bellanger to operate her own flower truck. While navigating the southern city last April, the Bedford native noticed someone selling floral arrangements from the bed of a Volkswagen truck. 

“A lightbulb went off in my head,” said Bellanger, a Marion resident. “I absolutely loved the concept and I knew right away that it was something I could do.”

Bellanger, a UMass Dartmouth graduate, said she discovered floral design only after taking a professional course on a whim 15 years ago in Boston. “I wasn’t thinking about turning it into a career, but I really loved the creative outlet it offered me,” she said.

She started a small flower business on the side, arranging flowers for weddings here and there. After setting up the flowers for her brother-in-law’s wedding, Bellanger said that she returned home to almost 18 emails from brides looking for wedding flowers.

From that moment on, her business exploded and she was doing almost 40 weddings a year.

Bellanger has been providing flowers for weddings and special events since 2004, first in the Boston area and more recently on the South Coast, Cape Cod and Rhode Island. 

After moving to Marion four years ago, however, Bellanger said that she hasn’t been as involved in floral design. Currently, she works at Brown University as a manager of direct marketing and fundraising. 

Bellanger said that though she loves her current job, she’s been eager to get back into the flower business. 

“I’ve missed owning my own thing, and creating something,” she said. “I really miss having that creative outlet.”

She just needed to find the right truck. 

With some help from her husband, Marc, Bellanger hunted for the perfect truck before settling on a 1965 Volkswagen Single Cab. Though she consider a few other vehicles, this truck was the ideal fit.

“You can build something so patrons can grab the flowers — it’s accessible,” she said. “The truck is set up really well for a mobile business.”

Outfitting the truck was a pretty simple process, said Bellanger. The main focus of the conversion is adding a canopy over the bed of the truck, a new frame, and a structure for flower buckets. 

After introducing the flower truck concept to her friends and neighbors, Bellanger said that many of them offered to help with the conversion. One friend offered to do some of the welding and a neighbor helped with the interior frame of the truck. 

To Bellanger, the flower truck is about much more than just the business. 

“As a parent, I always want to model the behavior I want to see in my children,” she said. “I want to show my kids that you can do anything if you set your mind to it and work hard.”

She added that she hopes to be a role model for her 15-year-old daughter, and to show her that a it’s possible to do anything with the right mindset. 

Once the truck conversion is completed, Bellanger will be hosting a truck-warming event at the Town Wharf General Store in Mattapoisett on Dec. 22. The preview of the flower truck will celebrate the business and introduce the tri-town to Bellanger and her Volkswagen. 

“One of the reasons we moved here was that we wanted to be a part of the community,” said Bellanger. “It’s really important for me to do something that is community based, so I’m going to try to source all of the flowers locally.”

She added that she has been in touch with flower growers in the Rhode Island area, and that about 90 percent of her product will be local. 

Bellanger plans on operating the truck seasonally, beginning at the start of this spring. 

She has a goal with the truck: to make “people feel good.”

“I’m excited about it. I think that because it is an interesting and new concept people will also be excited,” she said. “It’s really nice to have something joyful and happy and to spread cheer — flowers make people happy. It’s a feel good thing, and I think that everyone needs to feel good these days.”

The truck-warming event will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Town Wharf General Store in Mattapoisett.