We recently connected with Amelia Holder and have shared our conversation below.

Amelia, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Our mission at Emerson Fields is focused on family values and the importance of marriage. We began construction on Emerson Fields wedding venue in 2017 with the goal of offering a special place where families could gather and not feel rushed through one of the most momentous occasions of their lives. Our rental policy is structured around the importance of soaking up the entire weekend of a couple’s wedding. If you stop to think about the impact a marriage has on families and what a huge decision it is, it seems to be a disservice to rush people through it, yet this is what we saw the wedding industry doing at the launch of our venture.

Marriage still matters and we feel that it’s a principle that is often overlooked in today’s society. We definitely shook things up in the industry when we launched a wedding venue that focuses on the relationships built and the time spent together in celebration.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Before jumping in with both feet on constructing a wedding venue, we took my 10+ years of experience as a wedding photographer and made all the notes we could think of that would help our clients and make their wedding weekend go smoothly. (and photograph beautifully) We also own a construction company so when you marry the design and construction industry with the wedding photographer in me, you get a stunning estate!

Owning the venue and managing it is a lot of work and I wear many hats. As a committed wife, mother, visionary, and liaison for a couple’s entire experience, they can expect to be treated as if they were one of my own. I treat the wedding weekend experience with the same care and commitment too.

What I find most rewarding is seeing families come together, relax and feel at home here, and celebrate marriage. It’s a different love story told each weekend, but that feeds my creative soul. When couples are given the flexibility to tell their love story like they want to, it’s a beautiful thing.

We now position our venue as a destination-style venue centered in the Midwest. So many couples would opt to elope or get married on a beach thousands of miles away, but then there are those couples that don’t want to go that far away or elope because they’d be leaving certain family members and friends out of the beautiful celebration. Those are our people. They love their people fiercely and they want to give them a heartfelt experience.

How did you build your audience on social media?

The wedding industry is a strongly visual industry, sold in images and inspiration oftentimes. Knowing this after years of photographing weddings and seeing the evolution of Pinterest and Instagram, I knew that social channels would be a huge piece to telling our story and reaching our potential clients. We began telling our story during the construction of the venue. I would share in posts and stories about how the progress was coming along, our target date for opening, and any time we moved from one phase of finishing to another. Growing that following helped our followers to fall in love with us, our vision, and our work ethic.

Being open to sharing our wins and our mistakes was pivotal as well. People buy from people that they know, like and trust. What better way to have people get to know us than through social media, mostly Instagram for us. We still find a large majority of our leads come from Instagram and we love sharing real life with them. It’s a lot of work but I like showing others the behind-the-scenes and interacting with them on a personal level.

Sidenote, when we opened we had already booked 30 weddings due to sharing our journey and word of mouth.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I’m an avid podcast listener and love a good business/self-help book. I picked up Building A StoryBrand by Donald Miller and devoured that book. It’s so spot-on, easy to read, and makes sense. I like things that make sense. In Donald Miller’s arsenal of literature, you’ll find the underlying theme that in your business you are not the Hero, you are the Guide. I love that because I didn’t build this business to be a hero. I wanted to set couples up for successful wedding weekends; you know the one where things run smoothly and according to the timeline, no fights break out, no tears are shed other than happy ones, and the bride and groom are relaxed and soaking it all in.

I’m ecstatic being the Guide that couples need when it comes to choosing their wedding venue and planning a picturesque wedding day. They should be the Heroes and that’s an easy sell for me. The wedding industry is a strange one in that we are always working to acquire new customers who will never need our services again in their lifetime. For most of our clients, this is their first time planning a wedding so with every new inquiry we have to start from the ground up and once that couple is married they will not be a return customer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.emersonfields.com/
• Instagram: @emersonfieldsvenue and @emersonsuites
• Facebook: Emerson Fields
• Linkedin: Amelia Holder

Image Credits
Kelsi Kliethermes Photography Trent Broglin Photography