When I was about to start my third year as a planner, I encountered a problem I hadn’t before: we received an inquiry for day of coordination for a wedding date that was already taken.

I know that this seems a bit late in the game, and somewhat inevitable, but you have to remember that I started as a baker, and later transitioned into a catering manager position, so if I received multiple inquiries for the same day, the chances were good that we were going to accommodate both.

But the first time that an inquiry came in requesting that I be there for day of coordination, I had a choice to make. Clearly the easier choice would be to turn the second inquiry down. But the alternative option was obviously hiring someone who could accommodate the other wedding. In comes Savannah.

Savannah and I were sorority sisters in college, and although she was younger than me, I knew enough about her to know that she was highly capable and would execute the wedding day with ease. We met exactly one time before the wedding, at Moe’s, over chips and queso.

At this point I would like to point out that we have since highly refined our hiring process, as well as how well-prepared our team is going into a wedding day. I think it’s ALSO important to note that Savannah is still with us and is quite literally, one of the strongest members on the team.

So anyway, Savannah knocks her wedding weekend out of the park and at that point, I had another choice to make: was this going to be how we market ourselves moving forward, or were we just going to mark that weekend as a win and move on?

Spoiler Alert: we chose option one.

In the months that followed, we hired another planner, as well as a few bartenders-- and this worked well for a while! But as our brand grew, so did the need for more staff. And while we seriously lucked out with some amazing people over the years, we have since learned that what works for us is to hire people that we like to hang out with.

That is not to say that everyone looks, dresses, or acts the same. Quite the contrary, in fact. Each member shares a common core of organization, creativity, and love for our clients-- but what we have found is that we are much more successful when we’re allowed to shine in our own unique ways.

For example, when Becca joined the team she was our Operations Manager. She handled all administrative tasks, emails, and Honeybook-- well, okay literally everything on Honeybook was Becca.

But one day, I realized that she was literally memorizing the client paperwork that couples send in before their wedding weekend. Yeah. Those 20+ pages of questions we ask you? She memorized them.

Whi