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

Hi Ally, thanks for joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

When I was growing up I was really unsure of what my gifts and talents were. I felt like I was always okay at everything and nothing really piqued my interest. I remember a specific moment in high school when I started to gain interest in marketing. I went to a very small christian school and we participated in a robotics competition every year and there were two parts of the team, sales/marketing and engineering. I explored both teams for a little while and ended up settling on the marketing/sales team. Through the years I gained experience and eventually landed a leadership role. During my time on the team, we went on to win first place nationally 3 years in a row. It was at that point, I realized maybe I was good at something! So I went to college and got my degree in communications. As time went on, I worked marketing and sales jobs but was never really in love with what I was doing and I knew I was meant to do more. When I got my first corporate marketing job that had events incorporated with the job. The more that I did with events, the more I knew that’s what I wanted to be doing. When I started to get rolling in events, that’s when COVID-19 hit and all events were shut down. Right before, I had recently planned my entire my wedding and fell in love. My mom briefly mentioned wedding planning to me but I brushed it off thinking that it wouldn’t even be possible. Then the world shut down and I had no idea what I was going to do at that point. After talking with my husband, he encouraged me to keep pursuing events, so I did. I started applying to wedding venues and wedding planners in late summer of 2020 hoping that someone would hire me. No one did. The only job hiring an events coordinator was the city of Mauldin in South Carolina. So I took the job but had the idea to start my own wedding planning business. Through the job in Mauldin, I met a local wedding planner. She invited me to shadow her. All it took was one wedding and I was in love. I came home that night, so excited, and woke up the next morning and filed to start my own wedding planning business. I applied for my LLC and started seeking advice from those in the industry. There were a few people who really took the time to educate me and for that I will be forever thankful. I also joined wedding groups on Facebook to market myself. I quickly started booking people and now my business runs off of mainly word-of-mouth marketing and referrals! My business has since blown up to where I am booking bigger weddings and having to limit my amount of events for the year to ensure quality to all my clients!

Ally, 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?

I am the owner of Sage Event Co., a luxury wedding planning company located in Greenville, SC. Although our main office is in South Carolina, we serve clients globally. In addition to wedding planning, I also do wedding florals. My main priority is to bring a personalized approach to wedding planning since it’s not one size fits all. Every couple is different and has a different set of needs and situations. I want to be understanding of every situation and supportive of all my clients. I know that this season is a stressful one. If I can help curate a planning season of security and confidence, then I have done my job. I can’t take all the stress away but can absolutely help them manage it the best I can. I always say, your season should be spent preparing to be married, not stressing about what time your vendors are arriving or who is going to set out your decor. Leave that to me. I love my couples, I love my business and I love what I do. It is such a high honor to be a part of such an intimate day in a couple’s lives.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

With having a background in communications, social media, and marketing I feel like I had a good grasp of the basics. But what I didn’t realize is it’s so much more than that. It’s about connecting with your audience and bringing value to them. As a wedding planner, I have been focused on attracting brides who need wedding advice. So I identified a need and picked the audience I wanted to speak to. I started creating content on Instagram and TikTok talking to those people. Giving free advice and helping them plan and manage their wedding better. Let’s face it, not everyone has the luxury of hiring a wedding planner. While it should be a mandatory vendor, usually they are one of the first vendors to get cut when budget gets tight. But, what I believe is that everyone should have access to the knowledge and understanding on how to plan a wedding even if you have a tight budget!

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

When I first started my business, I had only shadowed one planner and was trying to navigate how to operate my business. I felt lost. The wedding industry is intimidating to new vendors. There’s not many resources out there to help you succeed or to give you all the secrets. There’s is so much to learn within your new business but also in the industry itself. I opened Sage Event Co., which was Ally Stein Weddings + Events at the time, in November of 2020. I just had started my new events job at the city of Mauldin and was trying to navigate opening my business and learning a whole new full-time job. With some event background, I jumped right in. I feel like what I learned between the two, really helped create me into being the planner I am today. While I was doing all of this, I was also finishing my communication degree at Liberty with their online program. Needless to say, the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021 was rough. Nevertheless, I graduated and was finally free to work my two jobs! I wasn’t a stranger to this, through. My entire college career, stemming from 2016-2021, I never took the traditional route. I worked multiple jobs and went to school. So while that 6 months was a bit of a crazy time, I was prepared. Before long, my work load with my business became greater and greater and the needs of my clients became more demanding. I started working with clients with higher budgets and more intense details, so I had to make a choice. With inquires coming in, I knew I either had to quit my full-time job and jump into my business or I would have to scale back my business and focus on my full-time position. I sat down and mapped out the next year, the next 5 years, and the next 10 years to evaluate my goals. Through that, I realized my end goal for each of those milestones was to enhance, build, and expand my business. So in November 2021, I made the leap to be full time with Sage Event Co. and I have never looked back. Jumping in with two feet is terrifying. It’s blindly trusting that everything you have banked on and worked for, is going to pan out. I am here to tell you, going full time was the best thing I could have done for my business. I’ve grown and learned things I never would have!

Contact Info:

• Website: sageeventco.com
• Instagram: @sageevent.co
• Facebook: Sage Event Co.
• Other: TikTok: @Sageeventco

Image Credits
Payton Urueta Hayley Pethel Courtnie Welch Cristeal Felien