And just like Handkrafted Events was born…
For those of you who don’t know me, I bleed planning. When I graduated college I put career goals in place and was hired into my field within 4 months. When my boyfriend (now husband) and I moved in together I built a financial plan so we could buy our first home at the age of 25. When we got married I built a 15 year plan to travel the world, pay off loans, and yes even have babies. My career is in advertising project management where everyday I work with a team of incredible people who create beautiful work under tight deadlines and budgets. I love what I do, but in true ‘Kate fashion’ I am always looking forward to the next thing. So after planning my own wedding, and falling in love with the ‘marriage’ of creative, organization and entrepreneurship, I decided to pursue event planning. In March of 2014 I got certified in Wedding Planning & Consulting. The courses were informative, fun & everything I’d hoped for, except for one aspect… a full time career. Three of the four lecturers still had full time jobs and were wedding planning on the side. It’s not like they were new to the business either, most had 3-5 years under their belt, which was shocking to me! The single person who had a full-time business and staff had us all crunch the numbers to see how many events we’d have to book in order to replace our salaries. I calculated that if I worked 48 of 52 weeks out of the year I could make it happen. But guess what?! 95% of events are held on weekends, and people don’t get married all year round. So now I’m giving up every weekend of my free time on top of working a M-F gig. Talk about bursting my bubble. I felt deflated and defeated, never regretting the pursuit but moved on to other endeavors. Flash forward 4 years, multiple birthdays, showers & parties and a beautiful baby boy. Planning my son’s 1st birthday went from a small intimate event to an all-out hoedown with 50+ people. Sounds crazy?! Oh it was, but I loved every minute of it. And the pay off was seeing everyone enjoy it. Friends & family once again suggested I plan events for others, and my response was I don’t think anyone would pay for smaller parties. But the next day as my husband and I were racking straw from our yard I realized, if this is what makes me happy, why not give it a shot. So Monday I created a name & bought a URL, and today Tuesday 7/10 I built my initial website and am writing my first blog post. Handcrafted Events wasn’t born overnight, but after 5 years of dreaming and 72 hours of getting my butt in gear, here I am. So let’s plan!