Hello, hello...is this thing on? Ahhhh! We have been so absent from the blog this spring-summer as we've been having too much fun working with our amazing brides and grooms! We have been totally blessed with such an amazing year!
Read MoreMost people know that I consider South Carolina as my second home. As a military brat I traveled all over the world but always came back to South Carolina between my dad’s assignments. It is where my sister and I practically grew up, my husband proposed and where we eventually got married!
Read MoreTwo weeks ago I was honored to go back to the Creative at Heart Conference as a panelist. I cannot stress the importance of attending educational conferences. I attended my first one, the inaugural Creative at Heart in Stanton, and was kicking myself for not having gone to a conference earlier in my business career. Don’t forget they are a business tax write off!! No excuses for not attending! This should be something you budget for yearly.
Each time I’ve returned from Creative at Heart I always want to redo pretty much everything- new headshots, new website/blog, new brand, new any and everything associated with my business. This second go around I tried to take a more strategic approach. I want to help people just having attended or looking to attend a conference implement what they have learned! The steps below have helped me implement things that I’m trying to work on and improve.
Writing things down makes you more accountable! If there are a ton of areas you want to change, then write them down and list them in order of importance. Start with the easiest fix first and work your way down to the most challenging/time consuming. The only exception to that is branding/web design. All the traffic you are working to get towards your website or blog needs to be the best representation of you! I’d recommend putting this at the top of your list if your budget allows.
This is where I always get hung up. I think of all these amazing changes I want to make, but don’t write down the steps of how to get there. The biggest area I want to improve on is the AVE Client Experience. The steps on how to get there is working on a new AVE Wedding Experience Guide and a new AVE Pricing Guide. I feel like the information I have (or don’t have, oops) is not the best representation of our brand.
I’m getting ready to start on an AVE Wedding Experience Guide (thanks Katelyn James!!) and will use the same layout for our new Pricing Guide. I know this is going to take time to create, but I’ve given myself due dates on when I want to roll it all out so I can hold myself accountable. Trying to do everything all at once won’t work and I don’t want to feel like a failure! That will only deter me from continuing to the ultimate goal.
I really hope these steps help you in making changes to your business or even in your personal life!
PC: The Herrintons
And how cute is this new head shot taken by my little beach bum Amanda Hedgepeth? Already miss her so much!!!
Till next time, happy planning! Cheers!!
Meet the editor: Hey y’all! I’m Ashlee, the founder of Ashlee Virginia Events, a Virginia based Special Event and Wedding Planning firm. I just moved into my dream house in Warrenton, VA with my husband and fur babies (two dogs, a horse, and donkey)! When I’m not planning events you can find me riding my horse or tasting wine at a local vineyard. I love all things Southern, Kate Spade, and big costume jewelry. Cheers!
It's taken me a while to blog about the Creative at Heart Conference I attended earlier this month because I couldn't figure out how to put into words the ridiculously, amazing, once in a lifetime experience I had. I've been learning my way through small business ownership by trial and error over the past 6 years (now I feel so old!!). One of my biggest goals has been to attend some sort of training or workshop, but I've always thought what can these people teach me that I can't figure out myself?! When Kat of Dear Sweetheart Events reached out to me to be a panelist I literally wanted to cry. Words cannot describe how honored and humbled I felt to have to have the privilege to speak to so many like minded business owners and fill this void that we have in the wedding planning community. I totally, 100% regret not having attended a workshop before. The knowledge I gained from my industry friends and the community that was created amongst all of the attendees is invaluable.
If you are contemplating attending a workshop, especially the Creative at Heart Workshop Round 2 (!!!), I 100% believe that it is a MUST in your professional development.
This video recap from our friends Herrinton Weddings shows what you will be missing if you don't sign up for Round 2 of Creative at Heart! Registrations opens at midnight tonight! I hope to meet you in March!
Till next time, happy planning! Cheers!!
Meet the editor: Hey y’all! I’m Ashlee, the founder of Ashlee Virginia Events, a Virginia based Special Event and Wedding Planning firm. I just moved into my dream house in Warrenton, VA with my husband and fur babies (two dogs, a horse, and donkey)! When I’m not planning events you can find me riding my horse or tasting wine at a local vineyard. I love all things Southern, Kate Spade, and big costume jewelry. Cheers!
People always told me it was bad to grow you business too fast. I had no idea what that meant! How can it be bad to grow your business really fast?! Well after drowning in paperwork and using archaic systems that were impossible to stay up to date with I started doing some research. Should I hire a full time account? I definitely couldn't afford that...! I often find myself researching tools for photographers since they have such a supportive and progressive community. My website is hosted by Showit (for photographers) so through one of their Facebook groups I found someone else researching the same thing. I started to stalk the post that had nearly 100 comments and came across 17hats. 17hats is awesome. Below are my favorite things to use it for!!
Organization
I have the ability to organize all of our clients on ONE page. When new leads come in, it's so easy for me to log into the database and see if we are available. Having one calendar for Tricia and one calendar for me was making me cray cray!!
Bride Project Management
For each bride I create a "project" which is their electronic wedding file (those are all the little squares you see in the first picture). For each wedding I have the ability to do all these awesome functions! Hallelujah!
Electronic Contracts and Invoices
Words cannot express how much I LOVE having an electronic contract. Having to wait for our old contracts to arrive via snail mail or having to print them to sign and return was time consuming. Having templates we can send at the click of a button is so easy and fresh. I also love that we can put due dates on everything. I have our contract templates set for brides just enter their wedding information and boom! They sign at the bottom and our countersignature is already on it when it goes out.
Templates galore!
I have templates set up for everything- contracts, invoices, questionnaires, etc. You have the ability for the software to pull client names, dates, project name, etc so you never have to change them!
Invoices
Invoicing was the biggest pain for me. I dreaded it and made mistakes that lost us money. So wait, I was spending more time AND losing money...ain't no body got time for that! 17hats has created the easiest invoice system where you can add tax (if applicable to your business) and break payments up into a payment schedule. Sometimes a bride will email Tricia asking for their balance and the process was just so time consuming for her to ask me and have to wait for me to pull it up on excel on my computer, ugh! Having one web based program we can both log into at any moment is the bomb.com!!
I'm sure there are many other things I can do to utilize this system, but the little ways I'm using it now have been saving me SO much time and MONEY. Time is money baby!
I highly recommend this to all small business owners! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this system! I'm only sharing the little bit of info I know about it ;)
Till next time, happy planning! Cheers!!
Meet the editor: Hey y’all! I’m Ashlee, the founder of Ashlee Virginia Events, a Virginia based Special Event and Wedding Planning firm. I just moved into my dream house in Warrenton, VA with my husband and fur babies (two dogs, a horse, and donkey)! When I’m not planning events you can find me riding my horse or tasting wine at a local vineyard. I love all things Southern, Kate Spade, and big costume jewelry. Cheers!
2015 is already off to such an amazing start. My husband and I have finally moved into our dream home and AVE is rockin' it! As my business grows I have set some major goals for myself this year. 2014 was the best year of my career, but was soooooo busy. In the month of May we did six weddings! SIX!!!! This year I am attempting to live by the motto- "Work Smarter, Not Harder". I have set some pretty big goals for myself to try and live by those words and I wanted to share them below (so you can help keep me accountable!).
Goal 1- Streamline the Craziness of Owning a Small Business
The one thing that consumes most of my time is trying to keep our accounts organized. After doing some research on ways to simplify our contracts, accounting, workflow, etc I came across 17hats. So far it has been a godsend! Since Tricia and I work out of different offices it allows us to have one cohesive calendar and makes invoicing and sending contracts happen at the click of a mouse! I highly highly recommend it to those in the creative industry. We might be obsessed with this program...!
picture from 17hats website
One week into the New Year and I've already hit one of my goals! Yay!!
Goal Two- Blogging
I am absolutely horrible at it. My goal for the first six months of the year is to try to blog at least once a week. I am going to create a blogging calendar which should help me tremendously! By having a calendar I can have more cohesive content and avoid that "writer's block" when I sit down without any direction or idea. Once August hits, my goal is to blog twice a week! Boom! I'm going to work this!
Goal Three- Create an Ashlee Virginia Events Wedding Experience...or something like that
My biggest goal for 2015 is to create an AVE Wedding Experience for my brides and grooms. My friend, Katelyn James, created this amazing Wedding Collection for photographers.
photos from the Katelyn James- KJ Collection
My goal is to create an e-Book we send to our brides to show them the Ashlee Virginia Events experience. Giving them as much information about us and how we design these beautiful weddings will only make the experience more fun for all! It will also share tips and insight for their wedding day that they may have not considered before. Katelyn totally killed it with this concept. She is such an amazing leader in the wedding industry and is an inspiration for me as a business owner!
Well now that it's all that there I better get to that blog calendar! AH!
Till next time, happy planning! Cheers!!
Meet the editor: Hey y’all! I’m Ashlee, the founder of Ashlee Virginia Events, a Virginia based Special Event and Wedding Planning firm. I just moved into my dream house in Warrenton, VA with my husband and fur babies (two dogs, a horse, and donkey)! When I’m not planning events you can find me riding my horse or tasting wine at a local vineyard. I love all things Southern, Kate Spade, and big costume jewelry. Cheers!
© 2019 Ashlee Virginia Events | Design by Crème Brands
