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Day in the Life | Michelle Lewis
Welcome to our “Day in the Life” series! We feature wedding and event planners from around the world with many different levels of experience. If you would like to be featured, download our questionnaire here and email your responses and photos to info@plannerslounge.com. We are excited to feature South Carolina wedding planner Michelle Lewis today!
Name: Michelle Lewis
Business Name & Location: Ever Weddings | Greenville, SC
Years Working in the Event Industry: 5
Years Owning Your Event Planning Business: 2
Website: www.everweddings.co
Business Facebook Page: Ever Weddings
Instagram: @everweddings
What is your typical day like?
I wake up at the same time every single day – 7 am. Why? Because I have a 5-month-old who gets hungry then, like clockwork! Being a stay-at-home-mom/wedding coordinator/part-time bookkeeper keeps me busier than you would believe and on a tight schedule. My daughter eats every three or so hours, so after I feed and play with her I have a 45-minute window during which to do other things (Her naps are always 45 minutes. Again, clockwork!)
On a typical day, I’ll go to the gym right at 8 when childcare is available so that I can get that out of the way and also mentally prepare for the day. After the gym, I head back home to change and get going on my to-do list! Things to accomplish every day include: feeding/entertaining my daughter, cleaning up the house, responding to current clients’ emails, working a few hours on my part-time job as a bookkeeper for an IT company, running errands, and planning dinner for when my husband gets home. After putting my daughter to bed at 7, my husband and I cook dinner and decompress by watching a show or reading. Often, this is my best time to work on my wedding planning company since I can put all my attention towards it. We finally head to bed around ten (but not for long, thanks to having a young baby!)
How did you get started in the industry?
In high school I attended a wedding that was beautifully designed, had delicious food catered, and was at a unique venue, but throughout the evening the guests were left confused as to what was happening next, where to go, or what was taking so long. Even as a high-schooler, I thought, “I could run this wedding better than this!”
In college I worked in catering and learned what goes into the preparation, set-up and execution at weddings and events in that arena, which gave me a more rounded perspective of what makes one wedding flawless and another wedding a nightmare. I decided to major in Business Management/Entrepreneurship specifically, so that I could start my own planning business one day. I was taught a great deal of things about what it takes to be successful in the business arena.
Most importantly, I asked anyone I knew who was getting married if I could help them coordinate it at no cost, just to get experience under my belt! This gave me real-life experience to draw from when gaining my first real client, and showed me that coordinating weddings really is my dream job.
After working in HR for a few years after college, I became pregnant and my husband and I decided it was a perfect time to quit working and pursue wedding planning full-time. Since then I’ve taken on a part-time bookkeeping job for my old company, but they let me work fully from home! This arrangement allows me to raise my daughter and not put her in daycare, to have a steady part-time income, but also plan weddings whenever I can! I will coordinate my tenth wedding in the spring!
What inspires you?
My husband is the main inspiration for me in my business. He is constantly encouraging me to do what I need to in order to be successful and gain new clients, whether it’s working late at night when I could be spending more time with him or spending our own money on a client management software! I couldn’t be more thankful for him and how he motivates me to do my best. I’m also a member of the Rising Tide Society and my local TuesdaysTogether Meet-Up, which is a group of creatives who gather together for coffee and conversation. These like-minded small business owners inspire me by promoting a spirit of community over competition and being my sounding board whenever I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing!
What are your favorite online resources for your business?
I’m aaalllll about free resources since I’m just getting into this industry, so I’m always looking out for helpful blogs or weekly emails with tips in the areas I feel weak. As I mentioned above, I keep up with the Riding Tide Society and their monthly topics for small business owners. Meeting up with the TuesdaysTogether group gets me a chance to spend two solid hours thinking solely about my business and how I can improve it! The others in the group are a great free resource to bounce ideas off of.
I also love the emails I get from Debbie at Planner’s Lounge! She seems to know what I need help with and makes that the topic of her advice emails (thanks Debbie!) With my busy schedule, it helps to have things sent to me since I don’t have much time to go looking, and these emails always have short but very applicable bits of advice in them.
Aside from wedding and event planning, how do you spend your time?
My husband and I LOVE to travel. We’ve been on multiple trips since we’ve been married the last three years, including Iceland, France, London, a road trip along California, national parks in Colorado and Utah, and Acadia up in Maine. Seeing new places is what we long for when we’ve been home for a while.
Since we had our daughter five months ago, we do a little less traveling but still stay busy hanging out with family in town and renovating our house. Our favorite activity now that the weather is cooling down is to sit on our screened-in porch with a drink after she’s gone to bed, talking to our brother and sister-in-law about life and kids and how blessed our lives are!
Michelle, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and a day in your life. If you are an event planner and would like to be featured, download our questionnaire today and email it to us along with a photo. If you aren’t sure about being featured, take a few minutes to read how it can help your business.
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