For a long time, the easiest answer to the question “What do you do?”I'm a wedding planner. It was accurate. But it was never the whole answer. I've spent 40 years in hospitality, 23 of those years running my own event planning business. And somewhere along the way, I became considerably more than the title on my business card. I learned how to walk into a room and see what isn't working. I learned how to listen to a client and hear the problem underneath the problem they're describing. I learned how to manage vendors, personalities, expectations, budgets, logistics and occasionally complete chaos without making the person who hired me manage any of it. I learned that a beautiful event can still be badly produced, an impressive business can still be losing customers because of a broken process, the person with the most impressive title isn't necessarily the person with the answer and that sometimes a client doesn't need another employee, just a supportive expert who can take the reins to a successful event.
Sometimes a client needs an experienced professional who can walk in, understand the problem and get to work. And I learned something else that has become increasingly important to me, experience shouldn't make your world smaller. It should make the number of problems you're capable of solving larger. That's why I'm looking at my own work differently now. Yes, I still plan weddings. But I can also walk into a nonprofit organization preparing for a major event and take the production burden off a development team that already has more than enough to do. I can walk into a hospitality or event business and recognize where the client experience, sales process or operation is making it unnecessarily difficult for customers to give that business money. And I can sit across from a newer event professional facing a situation she's never encountered and help her think through what comes next. And, out of all of this experience and knowledge, I bring my mentoring, my client experience audit and my passion for giving back to light. Whether I can help a new planner gain confidence, help a business create more revenue or give a nonprofit the support they need to raise money for a great cause, I am here to be the best of all I have learned over 40 years.
Those may sound like three different things. To me, they're not. They're the result of the same education. Forty years of people. Forty years of service. Forty years of watching businesses work, and sometimes watching them get in their own way. Forty years of events where the doors were going to open whether everything was ready or not. Forty years of solving the problem because standing around discussing whose fault it was wasn't going to solve it. Some of that education came from extraordinary mentors. Some came from clients. Some came from mistakes. And quite a lot of it came from being handed a problem nobody particularly wanted and figuring out what to do with it. There isn't a degree hanging on my wall for that. But there is tremendous value in what I am capable of doing. Sometimes a certificate on the wall doesn't prepare you for what you never knew was coming. And, when I began my business, I already had the knowledge, had already done the job, had learned from doing.
At this point in my career, I'm not interested in making myself smaller so that I fit neatly inside one professional box. I'm interested in taking what four decades has taught me and putting it where it can do the most good. That may be producing a nonprofit gala. It may be helping an event or hospitality business discover where opportunity is leaking out the door. It may be helping another planner navigate the difficult situations no certification course could possibly anticipate. And yes, sometimes it will still be producing an extraordinary wedding. But the common denominator isn't the type of event. It's what I know how to do when someone places responsibility in my hands. I know how to carry it. Forty years didn't teach me one thing. It taught me what I'm worth. Whether it is menoring a new planner, planning a social event, producing a successful nonprofit gala, auditing a business to improve their revenue or creating a once in a lifetime wedding, my experience, my talent, my commitment to using what I have learned to give back is what I am about. Let's talk about what I can do for you! Contact me:hello@angelofheartsweddings.com
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