This Week in Weddings

Just like every episode of the This Week in Weddings podcast, we love to showcase entrepreneurs with a story to tell, and this episode is no different. It's not often that we have a chance to have a casual conversation with someone who has started a movement, but that's just what we're doing this week on This Week in Weddings! Featuring the CEO and Founder of the non-profit, The Birthday Party Project, this week's episode of the show all about giving back, making a change, and creating something new. Paige Chenault shares her story about how she went from being a wedding entrepreneur to the leader of a non-profit in this week's episode of This Week In Weddings.

About our guest: 

Paige Chenault has been an entrepreneur in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. In 2005, Paige started an event planning company, Paige Chenault Events. Over the years, Paige created a strong brand while sticking to her core values and giving her clients her best-always advocating on their behalf, being a good steward of their resources, and having fun along the way. By 2011 Paige was managing more than 4 million dollars in events around the country…but she felt challenged to do more.

After the birth of their daughter, Lizzie, Paige was inspired to give back. Taking her passion for helping others and her ability to plan spectacular and meaningful events, she decided that celebrating others was her purpose in life. After years of research and consideration, in 2012, Paige embarked on a new journey and The Birthday Party Project was born.

The mission of The Birthday Party Project is to bring JOY to homeless children through the Magic of Birthdays. With the amazing support of its birthday enthusiasts (volunteers), The Birthday Party Project hosts monthly birthday parties at homeless and transitional living facilities. After starting with one party a month at one shelter with 60 kids, The Birthday Party Project now celebrates in 12 cities across the country.

To date, The Birthday Party Project has celebrated over 4,500 birthdays with over 30,000 children and more than 10,000 birthday enthusiasts. Paige hopes her dedication to generosity will inspire others to spread JOY in their communities. After all, she believes that Joy Changes Lives.

Paige is passionate about all things Giving. She and her husband, Colin, live in Dallas with their almost seven year old daughter, Lizzie, who remains the inspiration behind all their efforts. 

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• The inspiration behind The Birthday Party Project
• How processes and systemization has helped the non-profit grow
• How to know when it's time to make a change in your life or career 
• How wedding vendors can use their talents to give back

Want to connect with Paige?

Website: https://www.thebirthdaypartyproject.org/

Instagram: @thebirthdaypartyproject

Facebook: The Birthday Party Project

Featuring wedding garter designer and long-time blogger Julianne Smith of The Garter Girl, this episode of the This Week in Weddings podcast discusses blogging for your business, including why to blog and tips to making blogging easier.

About our guest: 

Julianne Smith is The Garter Girl, a stylish wedding garter design company that began in 2004. The Garter Girl is dedicated to redesigning wedding traditions, helping brides make memories and creating family heirlooms through the art and design of wedding garters.

Julianne believes that a wedding garter is a small, but meaningful, way for a bride to celebrate her own personal style. The Garter Girl’s sophisticated wedding garters are designed to be modern heirlooms intended to be cherished for generations to come.

Combining her passion for DC, media and weddings in 2010, Julianne started the Washington DC area’s top wedding website, United With Love. Featuring locally helpful wedding planning advice, Julianne built United With Love to be a trusted resource and a well-known brand with thousands of readers every day. She was able to sell United With Love in 2016.

In 2016 and 17, Julianne hosted two sold out workshops on how to blog for your business teaching attendees how to blog harder, smarter and faster. The BYOB (Blog Your Own Business) workshop was all about saying "good bye" to blog frustration and confusion and "hello" to blogging with confidence and ease. Julianne recently launched an online course, or webinar teaching blogging skills in a go-at-your-own-pace format where small business owners can finally learn a little bit about SEO and take control of not just their blog, but their entire online profile. 

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• Why blogging is important for your business
• The ideal length for blog posts
• SEO tips for Google related to your blog
• What to blog about for your business
• Tips for systemizing your blogging

Want to connect with Julianne?

Website: http//www.thegartergirl.com/ 

Instagram: @gartergirl

Pinterest: The Garter Girl

Email: [email protected]

Featuring destination wedding photographer Shannon Skloss Alexander of Shannon Skloss Photography, this episode of the This Week in Weddings podcast discusses destination weddings and tips for expanding your business into the destination market.

About our guest: 

Available for both local and worldwide weddings, portraits and elopements, Shannon Skloss Alexander has spent the past 8 years capturing the love stories of couples in Dallas and beyond. Being a hybrid photographer (film & digital), she prides herself on open, quick communication with clients and accepts a limited number of weddings per year in order to ensure a high level of service and personalization. She embraces her company by offering her clients a boutique photography experience. Having traveled as far as Bora Bora, Shannon is ready for any romantic journey you may have in mind. The passport is always ready! She has shot over 300 weddings, and now averages about 30-40% destination per year

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• Tips for getting started with destination weddings
• Strategize for booking travel for destination weddings
• The characteristics needed to be successful with destination weddings
• Keeping your business under control at home when you're traveling
• Visas, customs, and working with embassies

Want to connect with Shannon?

Website: http://shannonsklossweddings.com/ 

Instagram: @shannons_photo

Email: [email protected] 

Featuring Shea Bailey of Wedding Industry Rescue, this episode of the This Week in Weddings podcast discusses tips for using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve your websites rankings on Google.

About our guest: 

Shea Bailey is the co-owner of Wedding Industry Rescue along with his wife Cheryl. Shea is the analytical half of the team and specializes in helping wedding professionals improve their websites viability in the search engines. He accomplishes this by consulting with them on their SEO and Google Analytics.

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• The basics of Search Engine Optimization
• How Google searches websites for keywords and links
• Tips for using key words on your website
• Tips for using photos on your website to help with your rankings
• Why mobile is so important for Google rankings
• http://backlinko.com/
• Google mobile friendly test: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
• https://weddingindustryrescue.com/google-analytics-webinar/

Want to connect with Shea?

Website: https://weddingindustryrescue.com/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeddingIndustryRescue/

Featuring wedding photographers Tanya and Cesar Perez of Perez Photography, this episode of the This Week in Weddings podcast discusses tips for working with your spouse.

About our guest: 

Cesar and Tanya are a husband and wife photography team based in Dallas. While photographing weddings for over 10 years with calmness and flexibility, they’ve mastered the art of photographing what truly matters.  Merging their expertise in commercial and wedding photography they’ve been able to produce images that are refreshingly contemporary, boasting vivid colors, magazine-worthy composition and capturing timeless moments.

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• How this husband and wife team divide their responsibilities
• Tips for keeping your married life and business life separate
• How communication is key when working with your spouse

Want to connect with Tanya and Cesar? 

Website: www.perezweddings.com 

Instagram: @perezweddings

Featuring Jill Efrussy Sour, owner of custom invitation design company Stamped Paper Co., this episode of the This Week in Weddings podcast discusses the transition many entrepreneurs make when going from working in an office environment to going solo.

About our guest: 

Jill Efrussy Sour is the owner of Stamped Paper Co., a full-service invitation and paper design studio. Before working in weddings, Jill spent eight years as an Advertising Agency Art Director, designing print ads, billboards, catalogs, retail stores and tv commercials for everything from Chick-fil-a to luxury cruise lines. She worked at agencies large and small, and lastly, with over 700 co-workers at the largest independent ad agency in the world.

Her foray into the wedding industry came a decade ago, when Jill worked in a new medium, designing the wedding invitations for her dear friend. She spent years working nights and weekends, and the occasional lunch hour, turning her new hobby into a blooming side business, and in 2011, took the leap to make Stamped her full-time job. Her love of design, type, and the world of creativity has made the transition from the advertising to wedding industry seamless, and, well, a lot happier.

Jill has lent her talents to stars of reality tv, Olympic gold medalists, and countless clients who have become dear friends. She has built her business by word of mouth. Her passion for people and experience designing brands have helped Stamped continue to grow into it’s upcoming 6th year.

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• Making the transition into a full-time career
• Tips for breaking the monotony of working alone
• Finding your "co-workers" when you work alone
• How to separate work and home when your home is your office
• Pros and cons of various home office arrangements

Want to connect with Jill? 

Website: www.stampedpaperco.com

Instagram: @stampedpaperco 

Featuring Morgan Montgomery, co-owner of specialty rental company Paisley & Jade, this episode of the This Week in Weddings podcast discusses getting into public speaking as a business owner.

About our guest: 

 A New England native, Virginia resident, and lover of all things modern, clean-lined and loud, Morgan discovered her passion for unique and vintage finds as she designed and propped shows while working towards her B.A. in Theatre from The College of the Holy Cross. With years of sales and customer service experience behind her, she spent three years in the trenches of the off-premise catering world before co-launching Paisley & Jade, a specialty rental company serving the Mid-Atlantic, in 2012. Morgan’s passion for business and events extends beyond the walls of P&J, and she loves to share her knowledge through the Paisley & Jade specialty rental coaching program and by speaking at national conferences such as NACE Experience, The Special Event, and The School of Styling.Morgan’s personal and professional work has been featured extensively in national and regional publications, including Southern Weddings, Richmond Magazine, Sage Wedding Pros and The Huffington Post.

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• Morgan's reason for wanting to get into public speaking
• The process of applying for public speaking gigs and conferences
• Preparing for public speaking presentations
• What to expect for payment for speaking at conferences
• Tips for combating nerves when speaking for the first time

Want to connect with Morgan?

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaisleyAndJade/ 

Instagram: @paisleyandjade / @mrgnmntgmry

twitter: @paisleyandjade

Pinterest: pinterest.com/paisleyandjade

Featuring psychologist and executive coach Dr. Camille Preston, this episode of the This Week in Weddings podcast digs into the art of saying no and the importance of setting boundaries for entrepreneurs.

About our guest: 

Dr. Camille Preston is a psychologist, executive coach, inspiring speaker, and the author of two books, Rewired and You, Optimized. For more than twenty years, she has been touching audiences around the world through lectures, workshops and coaching sessions. Camille has a phenomenal track record for supporting business executives, policy makers, and individuals in their quests to tackle new challenges and achieve increasingly ambitious goals. Working with organizations as diverse as General Electric, Harvard University and the U.S. Army, she has honed an ability to help individuals reach their peak wherever they are at in their career cycle and whatever their pursuits. But her approach does more than help people optimize their performance at work. Camille is also committed to helping her clients restore a healthy physical and mental balance in every aspect of their lives. 

Dr. Preston has had a longstanding passion for supporting individuals as they strive to reach their peak performance. From her early volunteer stints in the Peace Corps to her work with law enforcement officers while completing a Ph.D in Psychology at the University of Virginia to her coaching at AIM Leadership (the executive coaching practice she founded in 2004), Camille has spent her career helping clients discover how to be their very best. Beyond her work at AIM and her new enterprise, Create More Flow, Camille is an advisor for Compass Partners (a nonprofit organization supporting new entrepreneurs) and a mentor for several organizations with a mandate to support women in business, including Women Innovate Mobile; Strong Women, Strong Girls; and We are the XX.

Anyone who has attended one of Dr. Preston’s workshops or read her books knows that for all of her accomplishments and years of experience, her powerful impact on clients and readers also has much to do with her honesty, humility and humor. Never shy and always willing to own up to her own fails and talk about her personal struggles, Camille’s practice is a two-way street build on a commitment to collaborating with everyone she meets. This is one of the ways that she stays in “the learning zone,” and this too is what she is committed to helping her clients achieve.  

When Camille is not coaching clients, giving lectures, or writing, she can be found pursuing her many other passions, which include running, yoga, traveling and her family. Dr. Preston lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband, Mark, and their two children, Preston and Adeline.

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• Why it's important to say no
• How to say no with grace and authority
• How our modern society and technology has made it even more important to say no
• Camille's best hacks for having more balance
• Making the most of networking time at events so that it's worth your time
• Camille's article in Fortune magazine
• www.CreateMoreFlow.com/time
• www.CreateMoreFlow.com/procrastination
• JotNot app

Want to connect with Dr. Preston?

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://createmoreflow.com/

Twitter: @CamilleP

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AIMLeadership 

Featuring Beth Berk, National Director of Sales at M&M Special Events, this episode of This Week in Weddings explores the art of business relationships for growing your business and brand.

About our guest: 

Beth Berk has been in the special events industry for over 20 years. She has been with M&M Event Rentals during her entire career, and has built the business with her husband Scott and his family into one of the top 10 largest rental companies in the United States, according to Special Events Magazine. She has served on various industry committees and boards, including ILEA, NACE, MPI, and has received local and national awards for events that she has been a part of or has produced.

M&M now has rental stores in Illinois, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas and is considered one of the foremost leaders in the special events business.

A Chicago native, Beth has experience on both sides of an event. She has been in the event rentals business and an event planner for 8 years. When the opportunity arose to expand the family’s rental business to Dallas, she and her husband moved to Texas. She has produced and been a part of thousands of events and loves this industry.

Her best productions have been her two boys, working with her husband every day for over 20 years, and still smiling and laughing over the little things.

In this episode, listeners will hear about:

• How Beth got into the event industry 20 years ago
• How Beth grew their business through networking associations
• Knowing your limitations and when to refer business to competitors
• A new perspective to have when your phone rings
• Inspiring your team to build relationships

Want to connect with Beth?

Website: http://www.mmspecialevents.com

Instagram: @mmspecialevents

In this casual episode of This Week in Weddings, Kimberly and Annie review the first 20 episodes of the podcast, sharing their favorite moments from each. If you haven't listened to all the podcast episodes to date, this is a great episode to listen to. You just might find a new favorite or be reminded to re-listen to a previous guest.