We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alisha Bacon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alisha below.

Alisha, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

I started my business as a Smoky Mountain elopement planner in 2019. At the time I was a professional photographer, photographing mainly tourists in the Smoky Mountains on vacation. The idea actually started with a simple conversation with my husband in a Mexican Restaurant in my hometown of Knoxville TN: The “What if” conversation. We quickly dismissed the original idea due to some hurdles in our state’s laws on who can be an officiant for an elopement or wedding. We thought it would be too hard, be too much to start up and moved on.

About two years later, I revised and actually dove in and created my business: Effortless Elopements. I often think back and wished I’d pushed just a bit harder to start those few years sooner. In my experience, the best time to start a business is always sooner rather than later. Usually the things that stop you are just you letting your fears get in the way and if you’re willing to push though the rewards are great.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Alisha Bacon, owner of Effortless Elopements, an elopement planning service here in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and Gatlinburg TN. Fun fact, the Smoky Mountains is the number 2 destination for elopements in the USA, right behind Las Vegas. We plan our client’s elopements, putting them together with the best photographers and officiants in the area to make their big day super special as well as taking care of the boring stuff for them like permits to hold the wedding in the National Park.

We pride ourselves on making things easy and stress-free for our clients, making their elopement effortless is our whole purpose. What really sets us apart from some similar companies is our quality of photography. As a professional photographer myself I plan elopements around the best times and locations to get those Pinterest worthy pictures. As the planner, I am absolutely humbled to have had the privilege of planning roughly 400 elopements for my beautiful couples per year since 2019

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe our reputation in the market has been built on the quality of photographs we produce for our clients to treasure for years to come, as well as our communication and ease of our services

I really think there’s room for everyone in a market, you’ve just got to find your niche, your “thing”. Once you find that, really hone it in and make it excellent. You know, don’t worry about what everyone else is doing, focus on your business and growth. The only business you should be comparing yourself to is the business you were a year or two years ago to see how far you’ve come.

Any advice for managing a team?

Managing a team is tough! I’m the first to admit, that I’ve made mistakes when managing my team.

My best advice is to give grace to your team when they screw up. That is inevitable and we’re all only human. after all. I do my best to show my team the grace I would want to receive if I were them, and in return I find they extend me the same courtesy when I screw something up.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.gatlinburgelopements.com/
• Instagram: effortlesselopementsgatlinburg
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Effortlesselopements/

Image Credits
Alisha Bacon Photography