We were lucky to catch up with Elisabeth Kramer recently and have shared our conversation below.
Elisabeth, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is to help change the wedding industry because I believe we deserve better.
When I started working as a wedding coordinator seven years ago, I had a lot of trouble finding resources and businesses that I felt aligned with my values. Were they inclusive? Sustainable? BIPOC-owned? LGBTQ-owned? Accessible?
I found the wedding industry toxic and isolating, and I say that as someone who presents as the very person whom the traditional wedding industry markets to (I’m white, straight, cis, and don’t actively live with disability). So if I felt that way, how must it feel to other people with other lived experiences?
Well, guess what: I’m not the only person who feels this way. In fact, many people including many other small business owners in the wedding industry feel very similarly. They both actively work to change the industry and are extremely interested in meeting other coworkers who are doing the same.
That’s where Altared came from. We do a lot of different things but the simplest explanation is that we’re a space for wedding vendors changing the wedding industry. Examples of how we do this work are at altaredpdx.com.
Elisabeth, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
A key thing to know about me is that I never planned to be a wedding planner. My professional background is in journalism; I was working as an editor at a magazine in Seattle when I started doing weddings.
I joke that my new beat is the wedding industrial complex. I wrote a book about how to plan a wedding that’s in-line with your values. I write on those same topics for national media. I regularly publish new resources on my blog. I make everything I use as a professional planner available as a free, editable Google Doc on my website. I also publish a monthly newsletter that shares resources to help people plan and work weddings from a place of joy.
So, in many ways, I never left journalism. I just changed what I write about.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn as a small business owner and especially as a small business owner committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and sustainability work is how to say “I don’t know.”
I find those three words very hard for me to say, Virgo wedding planner that I am. But I’ve found them extremely powerful because they remind my clients, my coworkers, and, really the hardest person to convince, myself that I am, in fact, human.
So as much as I may want my business to be “perfect” or for my personal life to never interfere with my professional life, it just isn’t possible and expecting that it is, hurts people, including me.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
I sweat payroll every month. Maybe that means I’m doing it wrong. I also think that there are a lot of less than helpful narratives around entrepreneurship in the U.S.
In many ways, I’ve found that running my own business — and this applies to my in-person coordinating work, my one-hour consulting service, and Altared — well, it’s a lot like perpetually going through puberty. There’s also something changing. I’m always trying to figure out a new part about myself and thus, the business. It’s a very unsettled and restless state, which is not my happy place.
And also? I can’t imagine doing anything else. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elisabethkramer.com | www.altaredpdx.com
- Instagram: @ElisabethKramerPDX | @AltaredPDX
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisabethkramer/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/elisabeth-kramer-portland
- Other: Gallery of free wedding planning resources: https://www.elisabethkramer.com/free-wedding-planning-resources
- My monthly newsletter: https://elisabethkramer.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?id=e31140f6a6&u=5c438231c1b41aca27e6ec0ce
- Altared’s monthly newsletter (including how small business owners in the wedding industry or who serve wedding vendors can submit news for free): www.altaredpdx.com/newsletter
Image Credits
Photo credits are in the file names. For easy reference: 1. Headshot. Credit: Marissa Solini Photography 2. Photo of Elisabeth in brown sweater. Credit: Venture Ever After 3. Photo of Elisabeth with two brides. Credit: Aaron Marineau Photography 4. Photo of Elisabeth with Black wedding guest. Credit: Venture Ever After. 5. Photo of Elisabeth masked in the woods. Credit: Rachel Brookstein Photography