We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aly Leavitt a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Aly thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

My hero is my mother, Barbara Lynn Leavitt. I am fully aware that everyone sees their parents as heroes and we all absolutely should. However, my mother is not only my hero, she is a champion for parents everywhere and the greatest example of someone who has made the world a better place for others. My mom is a community advocate for parents in Utah through a program called Help Me Grow. She has gone across the country advocating for parents and their vital role in the lives of their children.

Growing up I always remember being on the move with my mom. She took me and my three sisters to all the fun places in Los Angeles. We were frequent visitors of the Griffith Park pony rides, the beach, the zoo, all the museums and we were always at the park if not on another adventure. This taught me the importance of experiential education. My mother was my first teacher and has been the most influential and best one in my life. In my first article with Voyage, I talked about my Wedding Coordinating business, but my day job is as a teacher. I have been teaching for almost 15 years now, including in an outdoor education setting, public school, Waldorf charter school, and now as a Homeschool teacher and parent advocate. My love for learning and teaching both come from my mother.  She has been my greatest teacher, mentor and advocate for me in my life.

When my father died and left my mother with four children to raise on her own, she quickly pivoted and went back to school for a master’s in public administration. My mom had been a stay-at-home mother for nearly 20 years at this point and had some qualms about being seen as a professional in the nonprofit world. Her many years of being the PTA president, raising funds for a new playground at the local public school (Gallatin Elementary School), raising children, and helping my father run his small family business proved to be incredible experiences for her future professional career.

I distinctly remember attending a small scholarship award ceremony where my mother was awarded a full-ride scholarship for single parents. During this award ceremony, my mom gave a speech about how important it was to be a parent and to support other parents. She talked about how being our mom was a privilege. She was ready to transform this love for parenting into a 20-year career of educating and supporting parents.

Since then my mother has served on the governor’s board, been a keynote speaker at multiple national conferences, and has received multiple awards for her advocacy, but we would never have known about these accomplishments if it were not for her colleagues and friends telling us daughters. She is incredibly humble and never takes credit for herself. At another award ceremony where she was receiving the ‘Child Advocate of the Year Award’ for the state of Utah, she was asked what her greatest accomplishment in life has been, and she replied, “My four daughters.” It is that kind of love and support that is transformative. She makes sure we all know that my sisters and our children are the most important part of her life.

It was my mom’s love for teaching that has fueled my passion for teaching the whole person. She is also the first person I ever helped plan and coordinate a wedding with. She showed me how beautiful it is to give your talents to others’ special events. She is my hero because she is so strong; anyone who knows her knows that she will fight for you. She is not a sugary person, but she is the kindest person I have ever known. She shows her love for others through her actions and her strong advocacy to make their lives better. She is truly a hero. 

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

I wear many different hats. I am a teacher, mom, and advocate for supporting parents who want to find alternative education models for their children, and I am the co-owner of Best Day Ever Events LA., because what teacher doesn’t need a second income in Los Angeles? My event coordination business is my way of feeding my joy for supporting wonderful people and my love for parties and it feeds my creativity. We started this business because my best friend since middle school and I both coordinated our sister’s weddings and realized we love organizing and coordinating people’s Best Day Ever! We never want to miss a party!

My event coordinating business focuses on weddings with couples who truly want to create a special experience filled with love for their guests. We help couples find what matters most to them and bring it to fruition. We are a small women-owned business that focuses on making couples wedding days as stress-free and fun as possible. Our people are usually more alternative and are looking for coordinators who want to support them through the process of getting hitched. Our clients become our friends and we feel incredibly grateful to be a part of their Best Day Ever.

As a wedding coordinator, I solve hundreds of problems for clients that they do not even realize they have. Most people are novices at weddings because hopefully, you only do It once. That’s why they hire us, because we are fun and kind and we have done so many weddings that we can anticipate what our couples do not even think about it. We love what we do and we are great at it! We love the clients we choose to work with, we never take on clients that we don’t want to put our whole selves into making their day special… which is basically every couple we have ever met because we love people. We definitely are more of the weekend at camp coordinators than a formal dinner at the Beverly though. Don’t get me wrong, we have done very big elegant weddings, but at the end of the night, we love picking up decor at your backyard wedding or helping grab your uncle another margarita as we shuffle the dance floor to get to him… that’s our vibe.

I’m proud of us for creating something. We took some of our own core memories of happiness and created a whole business out of it. I’m proud of the work we have done and the moments of pure joy and love we have helped create. I hope people who see our work can feel that. If you are reading this article, consider it a referral, and feel free to reach out to us about your event. We would love to be a part of it!

How’d you meet your business partner?

My business partner and I have been best friends since middle school. I am pretty sure we first meet at camp at a dance. She truly has been there for all the pivotal moments in my life. She was my date in high school to multiple dances because there is no one I would rather dance with… sorry significant others. She was with me through the challenges of adolescence and the death of a parent. She supported me through huge life changes. We have been through everything together and we can read each other’s minds at this point. We are truly a team. She handles the small details and I handle the big picture. When we first started doing weddings we sometimes would each take a wedding and pay an assistant to be with us, but now we pretty much solely do them together. We love to be together and are often caught giggling in the corner. We have supported each other through all of life’s big moments, and we want to be there for yours too! I know for some people mixing business and friendship is not for them, but when you see each other as truly equals and both bring different talents to the table, it is magical.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source of new clients for us has been through former clients and through other vendors. When you are great at what you do, your clients notice and feel excited to share your contact information. We also have gained a lot of business from other vendors we worked with in the past referring us to clients. We hear a lot that we are fun to work with and that we make the wedding day experience a great one for other vendors. We have never been the type to loss it on someone because we are in a stressful moment, we are problem solvers. We truly feel like if you are a vendor at one of our events, we are a team for that day. When people feel supported, they create their best work, and we want to do that for everyone on the team. We have worked with a lot of great couples and vendors, so we feel very lucky. 

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bestdayevereventsla/?utm_source=ig_embed&hl=en
• Other: besdayevereventsla@gmail.com

Image Credits

Hiba Arkoh, Sheryl Bale, Jess Living, Cassy Smith