Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ali Simcho. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ali, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

Being successful is all in what you view success to be! For me, being able to have a self-owned business and being my own boss, is what I think I’ve found to love most about my job and my career.

Success to me is being able to be a working mom — but also being able to be a present mom. I am able to be home a lot during my “work week” with my two boys (ages 1 and 3). I can schedule meetings and essentially work when I want to. Sometimes that looks like 6-11pm on a weeknight which is totally what works best for my family.

Success is being able to work for myself, building a women-owned business with my sister… while still being able to put my kids and my family first.

Ali, 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?

Hi! My name is Ali and I am the youngest of 3 girls in my family. My middle sister Samantha owns Wanderlust Weddings + Events with me.

Wanderlust Weddings and Events is an exquisite event production company born in the heart of Pittsburgh, PA. Offering full-service event planning, event design, and day-of coordination, Wanderlust prides itself on making any celebration an organized and memorable event. Wanderlust was founded by my sister and I. We obsess over pretty little details and relish all things party. Wanderlust was created to bring unique events to life, all while developing lifelong relationships with clients, vendors, and local businesses in the Pittsburgh wedding industry and beyond.

After working in a catering/event space at PNC Park for the last 18 (!!!) years, since 10th grade, I really fell in love with events. But, I also didn’t want to be a waitress forever. Starting our business has been a fun mix of the service industry on a larger scale…A more “elegant” and personal side of things! I love customer service. I love making people happy and I loveeee bringing clients vision to life for what will always be one of their “best days ever”.

I think what sets Wanderlust apart is Samantha and I being sisters. We really have a lot of similarities but also a lot of differences. And I really think that’s what makes our clients enjoy working with us. We really have different strengths and like to both meet and work with almost all of our clients. We build lasting relationships which I think is important… We really get close with our clients, and we treat you like family because we are one!

We’d love for clients and potential clients to know that while we work with you to plan and execute your event, we always want you to also focus on the big picture. While celebrating love and life is a big deal — building lasting relationships is a huge bonus. We love getting to know all of our couples and clients.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The pandemic really affected so many people, careers and small businesses.

Unfortunately for our business, during the pandemic, basically no more than 5-10 people in one room were allowed to “gather”. So, what did that look like for events and weddings? Honestly… there were none! From March of 2020 to mid-summer of 2021 we had at least 2 dozen weddings pivot or outright cancel.

This was REALLY hard on us. Not because of the loss of income only but just for having to really shift SO many peoples wedding and event plans. 1 wedding planning process turned into 3…For almost ALL of our clients. We’d postpone a wedding once. Then when the date came and things still weren’t better — we’d have to shift again. We had one couple plan a Pittsburgh wedding for October 2020. They then shifted the date to 2021. When things weren’t better here, we planned an Italy wedding for them for September 2022. That also ended up not happening and finally they just got married in March!!! 3+ years later after we first met them.

It overall was really hard to have an event planning business whenever events really couldn’t happen during a global pandemic.

We had to shift plans, dates and come up with a ton of Covid-safe procedures for weddings. We did a lot of events outside in 2020, when we safely could. But it really changed the event world overall. People have downsized their weddings since Covid. They’ve made small lists of 50 or less guests and really are loving the intimate events now. Which, we are always here for! Intimate and personal is never a bad thing. :)

How did you build your audience on social media?

We really worked hard on doing a half a dozen weddings/events for friends and family for free. We worked our first year building a portfolio and getting professional photos to share. What really helps is that Instagram is free. So we really put together a website and Instagram etc. before “going live” and when we went live we had a lot of content etc. to share! It helped us be seen. We also worked with a Pittsburgh Wedding Blogger who helped us advertise our business. We have a line in our contract that asks for reviews after wedding/events and everyone is always so wonderful in providing a review of us! It’s really helped us grow and build a positive presence.

Post everywhere. Post at least once a day. Use free outlets! It helps!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.wanderlustweddingsandevents.com
• Instagram: @wanderlustweddingsandevents

Image Credits
Dawn Derbyshire (first two photos and headshot) Michael Will (last 6 wedding photos)