"Emily, how did you get started in the wedding industry?"
"How did you get started in the wedding industry?" I am asked this by nearly everyone. My story of how I found myself being a wedding business owner is really fun, so I wanted to share it with you!
Believe it or not, I actually went to college for Mechanical Engineering. I wanted to design machines that ran efficiently and effectively. I wanted to find creative solutions to building and manufacturing processes, and get creative myself designing really cool stuff. At Snohomish High School, I was lucky enough to have one of the best machine shops and CAD labs in the country. I thought that engineering and inventive manufacturing was going to be my career. But after three years, I took a break from school because I felt it wasn't for me.
I found a job with a non-profit organization and eventually worked as a volunteer and community event coordinator and a grant writer. I loved it. I reached out to the community to organize groups of people to help an undeserved community have an amazing library, garden, arts, and entertainment within their assisted living facility. I acquired funding for the programs I lead through creative means. This experience really helped me learn how to work with a large variety of personalities and how to find solutions to meet the needs of everyone involved in an event. Eventually, this job ended due to changes in the organization.
That leads us to how I accidentally became a wedding venue manager.
After my non-profit job ended, I went to my good-old fall back of being a barista (I make a great cup of coffee - my coffee won over the man who is now my husband). A farm which I had worked for previously delivering CSAs had just started running a wedding venue, and they needed some extra hands to help on event days. I took the position and started training.
A few weeks into training, the manager took another position elsewhere and the farm owner felt confident enough to ask me to help fill the gap until they hired someone new. And then they never hired someone new. I found myself leaving my barista job to learn how to translate my engineering school experience, leadership experience, and community event experience to run a wedding venue.
I fell in love. How can you not, when your job is to facilitate the best, happiest, most love-filled day of a couple's life?
After two years, an internship with a bad ass wedding coordinator, and a leap of faith I started my wedding planning company. Originally named Thrifty Beginnings, my focus was on making wedding dreams happen on a thoughtful budget. I thrifted and crafted for my clients. I wrote blogs on how to thrift, how to DIY everything, and how to make things happen without going into crazy debt.
Four wedding seasons later, I still love the challenge of making wedding dreams happen on a prudent and thoughtful budget. My couples still DIY their projects. I still go dig at thrift shops for the perfect decor item. I still teach my couple's how to set priorities, make a plan, and stick to their budget. I am also writing a book all about how I plan weddings.
And I still love the wedding industry. Each and every one of my couples and their weddings are unique. I never work the same "job" twice. I can find creative solutions to challenges and problems. I create a wedding timeline that makes amazing things happen efficiently and effectively. I design really cool stuff so my couples have a really cool wedding. It is the dream job I didn't know was my dream, but everything I did up to this point was exactly what I needed to learn.
Thank you to all the couples who I have worked with over the years. There are over 100 of you and I can remember each one of you, what was important to you, and the happiness you experienced on your wedding day.
I would love to share my passion for creating a meaningful and uncomplicated wedding with you. Contact me to share more about you, your wedding dreams, and how I can help you make it happen.
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