Last week I have got a chance to speak with a former wedding planner Lindsey Gibson who was running her own firm for ten years in Oklahoma U.S.A.. She experienced a lot of challenging moments during that time and managed to create a decent amount of beautiful weddings. Her speciality was focusing on unique venues such as mountains or a roof tops. She was willing to share her journey with me and talk me through her career from the start till the very end.
Lindsey had a normal job within her field of international studies but she was also helping several friends with their weddings preparations at the same time. For four years she managed to balance her hobby of wedding planning for friends and her fulltime job but after four year period she was no longer able to avoid one job interveening with the other. From that moment on she became a fulltime indipendent wedding planner. She started making small weddings and charging less but as she grew as a professional her prices grew with her. She even delivered a large scale weddings with around two hundred people. But as she said herself her biggest accomplishmed for her in her career was probably when she was named as one of the best wedding planning companies in the U.S.A. in Martha Stuart Weddings magazine.
Although, this may all sound amazing and like a dream come true it had its dark sides as well. There was an infinite quantity of challenges that she had to overcome in order to create the best day of her client’s life. On of the few obstacles she mentioned was the fact that the clients had sometimes a really extravagant yet possible ideas of the wedding venues, however, they were genuinely suprised when it came to financial part. Also, to deal with some family drama was not her cup of tea either as the families nowadays are usually divided and some of the family member do not get along well.
I was also curious what was she looking for in a person who may work with her. As she stated, retail experience is convinient and always a plus factor since it gives the person the experience and skillset of dealing with people face to face which is daily routine in wedding industry. Furthermore, when looking for a great experience in such industry to get a work placement or job in a hotel would be a great choice to make.
Lastly, Lindsey was talking about why she decided to walk away from this job eventually. Being a wedding planner takes a lot of responsibility and energy. The bride and groom have just this one and only day in their lives and in so they want it to be perfect. So planning a wedding with just one assistant that Lindsey had is a lot of work for just two people and most of the small firms are not able to last more then ten years as Lindsey said herself. She also said, that even if you are trying really hard there will always be a little mistake somewhere and in so she felt a lot of pressure.
To conclude, I was really glad I could meet this wonderful person. She gave me some strong insight into wedding industry as well as advice for my future career path.
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