We recently connected with Kelly Winter and have shared our conversation below.

Kelly, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

This is an intriguing question for me because owning my own business is the only thing that has ever offered me a satisfied heart and content spirit. Of course that has to go hand in hand with a well rounded life shared with family and friends, and a healthy mind and body. Finding your own passions and contentment in life is the trickiest part. When you find it you need to go after that vision. Dream big, but start small. Make adjustments as you go, and never lose sight of your end goal. Owning a business is a lot of work, but if that is your dream then even the hard work is full of joy and satisfaction.

I own a wedding venue in the Temecula Wine Country, and that was my end goal. It felt great to get to that point, but it took many years to get here. I started out as a Hair and make up artist. I worked in a salon, but my side hustle was weekend weddings. I then became a photographer and that was really fun. Weddings were the absolute best, but I really hated the editing process so that was not long lived. Knowing the end goal was to own a wedding venue, I began investing in furniture that I could use as rentals until the big dream was realized. I began a coordinating and design company that could supply chairs, tables, table decor and all the pretty stuff. I partnered with my sister who had coordinated weddings for many years and she brought a lot of knowledge and connections to the table. Meanwhile I went back to school to develop a deeper understanding of business, hospitality, and event management. As our event planning and rental business took off, we made wonderful connections in the southern California wedding world.
Happily we found a venue! We call it the Winter White Barn as a Winter family legacy. We painted the barn white inside and out…thus the name. It came together seamlessly with the furniture, our connections, and a reputation that proceeded us. I never wonder if a regular job is right for me. Creating the jobs is more my speed, and I absolutely love being an entrepreneur. Its got its challenges, but no regrets!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a fifth girl in a family of 6 kids. I was raised in a family that prioritized kindness and creativity above most other virtues, so creativity runs deep. I am married to a brilliant man and together we have three lovely humans, two dogs, one cat and this park like wedding venue that we live in and take care of together. The Winter White Barn is a natural beauty. She has ancient oaks, big boulders, and a sweet little creek with walking bridges to cross over it. The wildlife is full here. With Birds singing and frogs crocking, its so serene and peaceful. I am very grateful to be part of the history of this land. Before us, was a family and their equestrian center. Being intentional with our sustainable living philosophy we worked the pre existing structures and features into the design of this space. The barn is perfect. I initially fell in love with its pretty shape before seeing the rest of the space. We put in a lot of elbow grease removing the stalls, scrubbing it clean and painting it white inside and out. We took the shop lights out and replaced them with more romantic lighting and voila, the Winter White Barn was born! No wedding venue is complete without market lighting am I right? We hired a local lighting company to come hang lights from the barn to the alfresco dining pavilion. It was entertaining to watch Lights 4 Nights and my husband discuss the engineering behind the job with structures 150 feet away from each other. I knew the look I wanted so we went round and round until we found the perfect solution, and we love the results. The rest of the space was all about the flow of a wedding. I consulted with wedding professionals such as Lexus Megan Photography, Carrie Mcguire photo, and DJ Frank Pompeo to name a few. After addressing lighting, and sound magnification, I used my coordinating skills to create the paths and flow for an easy, and lovely wedding day experience.

What sets us apart from the many other wedding venues in the area is my personal care for each couple. I have created a hand crafted wedding planning bible as a gift to every WWB couple. It has a year long planning timeline, local vendor suggestions, and tips and tricks for a successful, low stress wedding. I am happy to be involved in the wedding from the very beginning. I give most of the tours myself, and I help select wedding vendors if assistance is needed. I schedule a design day at the venue to help them realize their design ideas and happily share our design items if they want that. We feel that is a very sustainable way to cut back the carbon footprint of a wedding; repurpose and reuse! On wedding day I am the ambassador for the couple, vendors, attendants and guests alike. After all the planning is complete, and the wedding has come and gone, each couple still feels like family to me. It’s very typical for our relationship to continue. I always open the venue to my couples for milestone photoshoots on the house. As long as this land is under our care I feel like it is as much theirs as ours. Being a part of someones best day is quite a bonding experience, and I will forever be grateful for this opportunity.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

As the owner of a wedding venue in a rural residential setting there is a big responsibility on my shoulders. Mainly I need to keep the peace for my neighbors as well as provide a lovely atmosphere for the wedding guests. Things got tricky in the Temecula Wine Country, in Riverside California, when the county supervisor decided to shut down the small wedding venues in favor of only winery weddings. I was 1 of 68 venues in my area to be affected. The harm this brought to the entire community of wedding venders, and our couples, was unimaginable. Here I am, a year and a half later and the problem persists. There are a few venues suing the county, and fighting the fines as they continue on with weddings under the guidance of expensive lawyers. Most venues closed their doors, and had to let go of their legacy with no “business” as part of the sale, just residential. As you can imagine this was a devastating blow. I myself can’t stand for this injustice. I have been given the run around by the county with plenty of ways to spend money for reopening but no clear path forward. I have become very vocal about the harm this is causing and begging the county to rethink this cruelty, to no avail. I urge the constituents of district 3 to vote out the incumbent supervisor.
I refuse to close my doors. I instead am fighting for a change of power so that our wedding industry, and my venue, can flourish once again.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I have always had a love for community. I like being part of a big family, a large friend group, a team player and so forth. Having this “group good” mentality has helped to grow my reputation within the wedding community, and community where we live. When developing and training my staff there is no task to menial or dirty for me. In fact, I usually take on the most difficult jobs myself and find that my team will come right along side of me to help, if not kick me off the task. When sharing vendors with my couples the only requirement for a vendor referral is that I have thoroughly vetted them. I take no payments from vendors, or couples, for the referral. If we are booked for the date a couple needs, I happily direct them to other venues that I think suits their style and needs. When a vendor is working at the WWB we think of them as part of the team and create a unified mentality of love, respect and joy. The main gaol is always to provide our couples with exceptional service and a hitch free day. We will absolutely step up if and when needed. Even now as the wedding venues are being targeted all around us, I always step in to help when and where I can. Team work makes the dream work. I live by that, and I think that is what has built my reputation in my community and the world of weddings.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.winterwhitebarn.com
• Instagram: winterwhitebarn
• Other: photos taken by Stevie Dee Photography www.steviedeephotography IG: @steviedeephotography

Image Credits
Stevie Dee Photography