We were lucky to catch up with Alicia LaHaie recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alicia, appreciate you joining us today. Showing clients you appreciate them is something I think most folks want to do – but it’s not always clear how to do it in a meaningful way. What’s one of the best examples of client appreciation you can share with us?

One of the most heartwarming moments that I’ve had recently was for one of my couples getting married in New Orleans the same weekend as the Krewe of Boo parade the weekend before Halloween. The main stretch of the city near the French Quarter has street closures for hours to accommodate the parade route. In New Orleans, we have a tradition of celebrating life and death with a parade called a Second Line that’s typically led by a brass band where you parade through the streets of the city with a police escort for safety. As the date for their wedding got closer and closer, it was looking more and more like the end of the reception second line parade for them was not going to be able to happen because of street closures for the Krewe of Boo parade and the traffic on the adjacent blocks. So we made plans to keep the brass band in the reception hall for a little longer and then just have everyone parade through the venue and out onto the sidewalk and make do with the situation at hand. About halfway through the reception I’m seeing all of these Krewe of Boo parade goers in costume strolling past the venue. As I checked outside, I see that the Krewe of Boo parade has not only ended earlier than expected but that the streets are back open and the traffic has dissipated which means that we can no longer stick to the plan to parade onto the sidewalk because of the amount of guests, they would have been spilling into the street while it was closed but now it’s a hazard. So I leapt into action and started making calls to the band and to anyone I thought could help to make a new last minute, hail Mary type of plan. I finally made the right call and boom, everything fell into place. I went and had a conversation with one of the grooms and we made a plan that we would surprise his new husband with an actual full on second line parade through the streets! When they started the second line in the venue you could see they were having fun but when the realization hit that they were doing the actual parade the amount of joyful tears and happy giggles, absolutely made the whole night for them and myself as well. Being able to give this couple the big finish ending to their New Orleans wedding that they had dreamed of but had written off as unattainable was such a big wedding planner moment for me.

Alicia, 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?

Hello! My name is Alicia and I am the owner and lead planner of Pennywell Events LLC. I started in the wedding industry after my wedding to my first husband in 2011 after realizing how much I enjoyed planning and the organization of it all. I was working for a fashion designer in NYC at the time and then moved back to Louisiana and started working under a local wedding planner to be able to learn everything I could about the industry. After a few years, I started my own company, which did take a bit to get past the friends and family free labor part of owning a business. When I finally landed my first paying couple, I was elated! Their wedding was 2 weeks before the world shut down for COVID. The beauty of falling in love is that even if the world is falling to pieces, people are always looking for love and wanting to take that next step. So the business kept going and year after year it has continued to grow and double in the amount of weddings. In 2022 I brought on my first assistant who has now grown and learned so much that she’s an Associate Planner with Pennywell Events. We are always adding more team members and growing and learning from every event and every couple.

Our goal is always to be there in whatever way we can for our couples and to make sure that the couple can be present in the moment and not worry about anything on their wedding day. To that we offer different levels of service to fit with the needs of our couples where they are and with their unique planning style and budget.
We Offer multiple levels of service and we are always happy to customize a plan with our couples in mind. Every couple’s love story doesn’t look like anyone else’s, why should their wedding or wedding planning? We want to remind the world that the engagement period and planning of a wedding is supposed to be fun and we are here to make sure that is exactly the experience they get because that is what they deserve! We just really love love and want to celebrate it for every couple in a way that makes it personal and unique to them.

We offer Full Service Wedding Planning where we start from the very beginning and help our couples find the best venues and pick the best wedding date for them. From there we help to plan everything with them and are there until the end of the wedding weekend. With Partial Planning, typically the couple started planning on their own, booked their venue and their wedding date, has a few other big vendors contracted and then most of them hit the overwhelm stage of planning and start to look for a planner to jump in and help. We come in and create a plan from where they are in planning and keep the momentum going without the stress or the overwhelming sense of having to choose everything at once. We also offer Event Management and Coordination for those couples that have already booked all of their vendors but they don’t want to be in charge or the sounding board on their wedding day. Or they don’t want their mom to work on the wedding day, which if you don’t have a planner or coordinator is something that happens a lot and we hate to see moms not on the dance floor but having to deal with vendors or coordinating things instead of enjoying the day with their kid.
We also offer Wedding Consultations by the hour for those that need some wedding planning guidance or has a wedding coordinator that doesn’t begin working on their wedding until 6 weeks out from the day and needs the extra support.

Our main objective is to keep your stress low, make sure that your wedding day feels personal to the two of you and your love story, and that you know that no matter when you book with us, that you have us by your side from that day on, there is no delay in services. We also love sharing the knowledge we have about the wedding industry and the best tips to help you know more and be well informed in the planning process, which is why we have written so many blog posts and keep writing more all the time.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

My approach to having anyone work for me, alongside me, in any capacity is that I will never ask them to do anything that I would not be willing to do myself. I once did it all solo and I know how grueling and back breaking the work can be with set up and breakdown. I know what it’s like to walk 14miles in a wedding day and I would never ask anyone else to do it if I wasn’t willing to do it right there with them.

The other thing that is part of my core brand or behind the scenes mantra is to pay your employees what they are worth and then add more to that total. I talk to my employees about what they think the work is worth to them and always give them tips when we receive any from our couples. I make sure they know that they are valued for not just what they do but who they are. They are the physical representation of what I’ve built and if they don’t feel like they value the brand and the work as much as I do, I want to know why and what needs to change.

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

When I started Pennywell Events I was the entire team. I did it all on my own from start to finish of the day, set-up, breakdown, delivering the valuables at the end of the night back to the couple’s hotel, everything. And then I did one event that about broke me. It was a 300+ person event that I took on 3 weeks out from the date. They tried to do everything DIY which meant that all that DIY was on me to execute, haul, and setup. Between the forgotten catering tablecloths that I had to get rushed over from a local rental house, the u-haul van fully loaded down with the supplies for 2 full bars, and 95 degree day in the fall, I almost didn’t make it to the end. The very next wedding I worked, one of the bartenders saw me struggling and approached me and asked who I worked for. When I responded “myself” she asked if I needed an assistant. “Actually, yes, I do”.
Let me tell you, I was terrified to hire anyone! What if they screw up everything I’ve done so far? What if they’re rude to a guest or worse a bride?! So many fears over bringing on help. But the universe saw my struggle and my feet felt it more than ever. So after a great first meeting over dumplings, I hired her. I had a whole speech ready and I never needed it. She either knew or she could sense it but she knew what needed to be done without even asking. She had some experience in events but she was eager to learn everything about weddings and she was good! Brides loved her, moms adored her, and she became part of the fabric of Pennywell Events and what made it work so well. And then 2 years later and a number of weddings together, she was ready, and I promoted her to an Associate Planner and she’s started to take on weddings on her own.
It’s crazy to me to think how scared I was and looking back now how I’m not sure if the business would have continued to grow and be as successful without her as part of it all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.pennywellevents.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pennywellevents
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PennywellEvents
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pennywellevents
• Other: https://www.theknot.com/marketplace/pennywell-events-new-orleans-la-2046931