The journey of building All in the Details has been quite the adventure of perseverance, innovation, dedication, and a lot of hard work.
In May of 2016, I registered my business name and started on this wild and crazy adventure of becoming a wedding & special events company. I had a vison in mind and the drive to build a successful, flourishing business, that would offer a creative outlet for wedding couples & event organizers in our communities – to create magnificent masterpieces.
2017 was our first year of business, and it was starting to shape up nicely. As word got around about our little business, more & more clients started to connect with us about the vison they had for their special day and how we could be of assistance.
We had a free weekend in June with no weddings booked. Our son had gone to spend time with family in Fraser Lake, and our daughter and I thought we would sneak away to Vernon for a “girls trip” while Jason stayed home for work.
We were aware that there were some fires happening in the 100 Mile & Cache Creek areas, but at that point – not the severity or how they would impact the future of our business.
As we were about to head out on our girls trip, I remember walking past my portable file box with all our clients hopes & dreams for a beautiful wedding – neatly filed away. I thought to myself “maybe I should toss this in just in case – but we are only gone for 3 days, surely I won’t be needed by my clients for 3 short days?!” Being a very dedicated business owner, I picked up that file box and tossed it in the trunk of my car – just in case.
With the file box in hand, we headed out on our trip. The drive was beautiful, with no signs of fires until we hit Cache Creek where we spotted the red flame retardant spay on the highway from days before. We continued making our way towards Vernon.
Jason was heading for a sturgeon fishing trip and was to meet up with friends in Cache Creek. He was about an hour behind us when we received the call that the flames were coming over the hills towards Cache Creek. Shortly after that, the roads closed behind us.
We never thought that our short weekend get-a-way would turn into a two month “staycation”, leaving our family separated & spread across BC. We missed celebrating birthdays and anniversaries together. I worried about whether or not we would have a home & business to come back to, or if our beautiful landscape would be unrecognizable upon our return home. The fires came within 3 kilometres from burning down everything we had worked so hard to build.
Social media was exploding with news & updates from back home. My heart broke watching so many wedding couples’ dreams of getting married go up in flames.
With files in hand, it was my goal to assist our clients through this very stressful time in their lives. Connecting with each couple via phone & email and predicting the complexity of planning a wedding in the thick of the smoke, became my mission.
For two months, I ran my little business via a cell phone, the portable file box that I tossed in the trunk of my car last-minute and my laptop. I worried that with the devastation the wildfires had caused that I wouldn’t have a business to go back to, but I am an optimist and a visionary first & foremost, and kept pursuing my dream.
When the smoke finally cleared, we pulled ourselves out of the ashes, dusted ourselves off and pushed forward in building our business. I started looking into ways to offset the huge expense of starting a décor rentals company and began looking into grants.
In 2018, I wrote a grant through Red Cross and received $20,000 to offset the financial losses felt through the wildfires. This money was strategically used to increase our rental inventory, and to attract more clientele. I also wrote a training grant though Community Futures for $5,000 and proceeded to do a double certification. I am now a globally certified wedding & special event coordinator through the Wedding Planning Institute of Canada (WPICC) and a globally certified designer through the Institute of Wedding & Event Design (IWED).
In 2019, we started to see a large increase in clientele. Logging and mining took a huge hit that year, but we pushed on. I wrote a secondary training grant for $7,500 through Community Futures and completed the Rental Biz Academy course, a legal course on writing contracts, and the Ultimate Guide to Wedding Planning & Design by Sinclair & Moore (who are world renowned for their weddings & events).
2020… well, we all know how that went lol.
In the beginning, the response & bookings were mind-blowing. We were seeing budgets increase and multiple requests for custom services & designed works of art. Clients were bringing us their inspirational images for spectacular ceiling treatments that they wanted to create. These designs would have become the focal point of their weddings, and would have showcased our talents for all to see. We were so excited & humbled by the outpouring of support from our communities.
Our 2020 wedding season had booked up very quickly by early to mid-January (before COVID). With the news of COVID-19 taking over the world like wildfire, it brought me back to those moments in 2017 where I knew just how difficult this journey would be for our clients.
With my firsthand experience of navigating our way through the wildfires, I was able to create an information package for our clientele. This package contained many details to assist clients though the struggles of planning a wedding/event during a crisis, and what they could expect during the planning/rebooking phases throughout the pandemic.
Once the pandemic started to settle down, and towards the end of wedding season, I went back to reread the info package that I had sent out to clients in February. My predictions & advice were bang-on. I hate to say, but I have become accustomed to assisting clients through crisis mode and rebuilding/restructuring my business.
2021 was still a little complicated to navigate through the ever-changing stipulations & guidelines for public gatherings & celebrations during the pandemic. Our son graduated that year, and of course I joined the decorating committee lol. I think we had to redesign the event 5 times due to frequent changes to government & school district policies. But we made it through yet another year of chaos.
An additional grant was written & awarded to help boost up businesses through the hardships from COVID-19. Once again, we strategically invested the money into business upgrades & more creative rental elements to entice & inspire new clientele to book with us.
In 2022, everyone was more than ready to gather together and finally celebrate! Our business really took off and the demand for our offerings & services was slightly overwhelming to say the least. It was during this time that I knew we needed to go through yet another restructuring to be able to keep up with the demand and offer the best customer experience possible.
Community Futures Development Center in Williams Lake reached out and gently nudged me to apply for a $25,000 grant, put forth by Northern Development Initiative Trust (NDIT). They had developed a program to assist small to medium sized businesses through the current economic downturn. The goal was for businesses to create a comprehensive business plan to take their businesses to the next level and become sustainable.
On top of our very busy schedule in 2022 (over 30+ weddings & events completed), we felt the need to hire & train staff, and then I also took on the added task of writing my grant application. This application was more like writing a business plan and require a lot of research & strategic planning. It took me over a year to write and submit my application, but I was APPROVED!!!
2023 proved to be just as busy as 2022, with lots of bookings for both weddings & special events. Now that my grant application was approved, the hard work was about to begin. With the outpouring of interest for our services & offering, we had over 30 weddings & events booked, with inquiries coming in frequently. It came to a point where we had to draw a line in the sand and limit our bookings, allowing me more time to focus on the completion of my grant project.
Turning potential clients away really hurts my soul, but I knew that it was something that we needed to do at the time, to become a more sustainable business in the future.
The September long weekend was our most popular date for weddings in 2023. At one point, we had 5 wedding couples trying to book our services. I’m so excited to announce that we managed to pull off three weddings on the same weekend – two of which were ceiling drapery & lighting treatments in a tented setting and one wedding was at a local venue. Our team might be tiny, with under 3 team members at any given time, but we are mighty!
As for the grant – it has taken a lot longer than anticipated to complete. Finding the additional time to work on the much-needed project was near impossible with such a complicated schedule. We had several setbacks along the way, but being an optimist and a visionary, I always keep pursuing my goals -one step at a time. The completion of this project will be a game changer for this little business, and I can hardly wait to see my very own masterpiece unveiled.
I have big plans for this little business, so please follow along to watch the transformation.
“Success is not given, but earned through hard work, determination and a relentless spirit.” – Unknown.
