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Where you can find our recent & past work, inspiration and all things weddings.

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How I Became an Event Planner

Weddings

Wow. I cannot believe that we are here.

Ten years ago if you would have looked at me and told me that I was going to be not only an event planner but own my own event company I would have laughed at you and walked away rolling my eyes.

It’s crazy what time will do to you. But, I wanted to tell you how it started and a little bit about myself.

As you know, my name is Katelyn. I was born and raised in the beautiful state of New Hampshire, and I somehow found myself in Georgia right after high school. From my very first job I was in customer service, I started at Nike and from there I worked for Coach, Zumiez, and Applebees.

I was always the kind of girl who just went with the flow and didn’t want to stress about what exactly I wanted to be or what my “forever” job was. To me that just seemed too serious at the time, I was just enjoying life, hanging out with my friends and having some of the best experiences I could. When I moved to Georgia I started working for Applebees down there too, It was an easy hire as I had worked there previously in NH. But, I wanted something where I could learn about the state and about where I was living, so I ended up getting a job as a tour guide on Jekyll Island, Georgia.

It was honestly one of the best jobs I have ever had, I would drive a trolley around the island talking about the history of houses and buildings there. If you have never been to Jekyll Island its such a gorgeous place, they have beautiful beaches with huge pieces of drift wood, they have an amazing sea turtle center where they take care of injured or sick sea turtles and release them back into the ocean, they have the cutest shopping plaza and more. I highly suggest stopping by there if you are ever in the area.

Besides the point, on one of my tours there was a man who was employed at The Sea Island Resort on St. Simons and after the tour he came up to me and handed me his card saying that I should apply to work there and that I have a great voice and amazing customer service. So, I said why not and I applied. Not knowing what the place was or what they did, I applied to be a server at one of their restaurants. They hired me. I soon learned that it was a Forbes five star resort, where everything we did had to be according to the Forbes five star standard.

That was my first and highest dose of fine dining. I learned how to service the rich, from dining cues, timelines, proper table setting, and more. From there it landed me jobs at the Westin on Jekyll Island as part of their opening team and more.

Jumping forward. I met my husband down in Georgia, he was in the Navy stationed down there finishing out his time. He was originally from Kentucky and with his southern charm he convinced me to go with him after he got out. So I did.

In Kentucky I started working at a high end restaurant, which is where I met my best friend, Brooke. It’s funny because our friendship came in the most unlikely time and it turned out we needed each other more than we knew. In that timeframe in Kentucky, we worked at two different restaurants and worked for hundreds of different banquets, events, and more. We had always floated the idea around of owning our own business, we just never knew what that was going to be.

Covid happened, we ended up getting laid off from our jobs and were struggling to make ends meet. It was then that we didn’t want our jobs and lives to be in anyone else hands but our own.

With our combined experience in the hospitality industry and from doing many events and parties under other companies we thought we could do it on our own and without all the difficulties that come with working for someone else. So we did.

We researched as much as we possibly could, we bought and read books, magazines, event planner blogs anything and everything we could get our hands on. We watched youtube videos and looked up so many different planning tools. It took many hours of hard work and research to get our company up and running but we did it. We started Bourbon & Bouquet Event Co.

How we started our own company is another story. If you’re interested in reading that comment below and let me know! I hope you enjoyed my quick version of how I became an event planner.

XOXO

Katelyn

xo, katelyn

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