What began as a seasonal decorating idea between two friends has grown into a Triangle business, bringing pumpkins, greenery, and holiday cheer straight to homeowners’ front doors.
When Ashley Ward and Lauren Goins launched Porch Party in August 2025, they had a fairly modest goal: decorate 20 front porches for the fall season.
Three weeks later, they had quadrupled that number. Suddenly, two friends with a creative idea were running a business that was growing faster than they ever expected.
“Our goal was to do like 20 porches, and we did quadruple that in three weeks,” Goins recalled. “We had to cut it off. We were just so overwhelmed in all the right ways.”
Now in their second season, the Raleigh-based duo is bringing their seasonal decorating services to homes throughout the Triangle, turning ordinary front entrances into festive displays filled with pumpkins, mums, wreaths, and fresh greenery.
And the best part? Homeowners don’t have to lift a finger.
Two Friends, One Big Idea
The inspiration came from Porch Pumpkins, a Dallas-based company offering elaborate seasonal front-porch decorations.
Goins had considered bringing a similar concept to Raleigh for years but knew the physical demands would be hard to manage alone. That’s when she approached her longtime friend, Ward.
The two decided to give it a shot.
Both already had experience running creative businesses. Goins operates a stationery business, while Ward has a monogramming business. Their different strengths turned out to be a natural fit.
Goins handles much of Porch Party’s business operations, while Ward oversees social media and content creation. Both collaborate on designing the displays.
“We’re both equally designing porches, coming up with porch scapes that work for that individual porch, the architecture of that house, the coloring, all of that,” Goins explained.
What started primarily in Raleigh has expanded into Apex, Cary, Garner, Morrisville, Rolesville and Wake Forest.
And remarkably, the two handle the decorating themselves.
Working around their children’s school schedules, they load their SUVs with seasonal decorations and head out across the Triangle. On their busiest day, they completed 12 porches.
From Pumpkins to Christmas Greenery
During the fall, Porch Party offers packages featuring pumpkins, gourds, mums, and other seasonal accents, with designs tailored to each home’s entrance.
For Christmas, customers can select a basic decorating package and customize it with additional garlands, wreaths, bows, mailbox greenery, and lantern accents.
The process is designed to be simple. Customers browse examples and pricing online, choose their package, and select an installation week. Ward and Goins coordinate their routes, schedule the installation, and take care of everything.
“They don’t have to be home. They don’t have to do anything,” Goins said. “It’s like we’re kind of like ninjas.”
The women also work with Needmore Farms, a family-owned operation in Fuquay-Varina that supplies their pumpkins and creates handmade Christmas garlands featuring cypress, fir, and magnolia. Optional additions include berries, dried oranges, and cinnamon sticks.
Basic fall packages range from approximately $250 to $850, with larger customized installations sometimes reaching $1,000 to $1,500. The business also offers seasonal pumpkin removal.
But for Ward and Goins, the goal is more than simply arranging decorations. It’s creating something that makes homeowners smile when they pull into their driveways.
A Small Business With Family at Its Heart
While Porch Party has grown rapidly, both women remain focused on what made the business possible in the first place: their friendship, their families, and a community willing to support a new local venture.
The women have five children between them, and their husbands and kids have become part of the Porch Party story.
“I think just that this is very much a, you know, two friends that were adventurous and wanted to try something new,” Goins said.
For now, fall and Christmas remain the company’s busiest seasons, although custom projects are possible year-round.
And after going from a 20-porch goal to a booming seasonal business in just over a year, there’s no telling what these two friends might decorate next.
“When they support us, they’re supporting our families too,” Goins said.
Contact Porch Party at or at porchpartyraleigh.com.
