Here we are, already well past the end of Q2, and we are just now reflecting on what April, May and June (and, really, the beginning of July) brought us! More on the large reason why below.
But alas, no time like the present, right?! Regardless of what is taking place in our busy season and in our personal lives, it is still an important focus of ours to reflect on what has transpired, review the goals we set, and hold ourselves accountable for the things we’re continuing to work on – even if we’re a bit tardy in doing so! SO, if you enjoy hearing more about the ins and outs of our business and what we have been up to lately, read on as we share some wins (and some challenges) that Q2 brought us.
Q2 Summarized
April and May started out with a beautiful, wonderful, bang – with double-header weekends, pretty stellar weather and an incredible destination event in Michigan surrounded by so many wonderful people. June was positively ripe with beauty and so many gorgeous designs, and then sadly, it all came to a screeching halt with an unexpected, tragic electrical fire that left Kirstie and her fiancé reeling right after the Fourth of July. Terrible circumstances, even more terrible timing.
Thankfully, however, they are now settled in a short-term rental and have begun the arduous process of sorting through their destroyed belongings, working with a restoration crew to give the house new life, and are trying to look on the bright side of things – (hopefully) just before they get married next March, they will be able to return to their fresh new home! Until then, they so greatly appreciate all of the love and well-wishes sent.
Anyway, speaking of fresh new things, let’s get back to those goals we mentioned, shall we?!
Revisiting our Goals
Q1
- Launch a Course – check!
- Project Management Buildout – check!
- Complete a “Non-Wedding” Project – check!
- Continue to Empower & Educate – needs improvement 🙂
Q2
- Launch our Summer Wedding Season!
- Improve our Rentals & Recommendations Systems
- Dress Up the Team (and our fans!)
- Prepare for Q3 or Q4 Workshop
Let’s look at those Q2 goals in greater detail!
01. Launch Our Summer Wedding Season
As we mentioned, our wedding season started out so, so beautifully. We’ve already completed 20+ events for the year, with many, many more on the horizon. Our team has gotten into an incredible rhythm and truly operating like a well-oiled machine, especially with all of the new systems we worked SO hard to put into place in the offseason! (Major props to our leadership and ops teams for this!)
The particular wedding shown above was a beautiful labor of love that was truly the PERFECT start to our season – primarily because we were planning from afar and had a significant vendor team to manage! It turned out to be the fairytale day we were all hoping for, and gave us all the warm fuzzies to kick off an amazing season! We’d say this overall goal was definitely accomplished!
02. Improve our Rentals and Recommendations Systems
Throughout the course of many of our wedding planning journeys, the request for vetted vendor recommendations comes up often. However, because we take such pride in providing our clients with trusted names and a comprehensive experience, we certainly do not take this step in the process lightly. As such, we’ve been working to hone in on ways we can both efficiently get this information to our clients in a streamlined way, as well as continue to improve on our existing database, since circumstances (and therefore our recommendations) can change after each event! With the help of our amazing Relationship Manager, Kelsie, we have been able to create a really solid database that all of our planners have immediate access to, and are continuously updating the team! Really, really proud of this small but important update.
Additionally, though we never expect to be able to offer full-blown event rentals (we’ll leave that to our trusted pros!) there IS a lot of inventory we have either created for our clients or acquired over the years, and up until now, it has all truly felt like it’s been living all over the place. SO, another important goal of ours is to streamline this “rentals” process so we can provide these items to our clients if so desired! A bit more improvement is needed here, but also something we are proud to have gotten underway.
03. Dress Up The Team (and our fans!)
Speaking of the amazing Kelsie, she has also been hard at work improving our team’s internal scheduling and organizational systems, and though it sounds basic, true organization can really start with something as simple as a fresh clipboard or binder! Our planners fully depend on a trustworthy organizational system on event days – after all, WE are the ones keeping everyone informed and in line! So, to go along with our sleek planning systems, we have also improved our handy clipboard & binder system even further; sourcing sticky tabs and color-coded separator pages and keeping our documents working for US, not the other way around. 🙂
Additionally, we also increased our amazing fanny pack inventory for our growing team (Thanks, CALPAK!) AND got ourselves some awesome baseball caps for setup and strike days! Fully outfitting our team has been an important step for us to ensure cohesion, comfort and ultimate professionalism, and we can’t wait to continue creating!
If you love our caps as much as we do, feel free to snag your own EE Hat here!
04. Prepare for Q3/Q4 Workshop
This one goes along with Goal #4 of Q1 – Continue to Empower and Educate.
While we strive to teach, empower and encourage other vendors, planners and industry professionals, we also hope to continue to prioritize OUR team and ensure that everyone has all of the tools and wisdom they need to succeed. With the number (and caliber) of our events continuing to evolve and grow, it is imperative that our entire team is on the same page, both with respect to our client-side policies and expectations, as well as our internal standards. SO, we are excited to be shifting our focus toward the “offseason” coming up, a chance for all of us to debrief and reconnect, and continue to create a whoooole lot of education and wisdom to be shared!
Let us know – what reactions do YOU have to all of these lofty goals? Is there anything else from us you’d love to see or ways we can continue to serve you?
If there was ever a year for us to unabashedly GO FOR IT and give it a try, this is the year, so drop us a line and let us know – we’ll probably be willing to give just about anything a shot!
