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

Amy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

The wedding industry is super bridal centric, but there’s more than just a bride getting married – sometimes there’s two, sometimes there’s none! And not everyone who is a bride even likes that word. To create a more inclusive approach to the wedding planning process, we barely ever use the term bride and actually require both partners to go through our process together. It is two people getting married after all! It’s about intentionally designing the process to be relationally focused – forms designed for 2 people to fill out, interactive icebreakers in the design phase to uncover who you both are as individuals and as a couple, and how we can bring that out in the decor. We call weddings ” Love Parties” – aka weddings that break the rules. Some couples break every single rule, some just break a few. It’s not about everything bridal, putting a singular day + event on a pedestal, and following a predetermined checklist of what this event has to look like. That’s the industry norm, and it makes a lot of people feel left out. A Love Party is about carving out the space for all people and partnerships to feel seen and celebrated in all their unique, diverse, and amazing glory.

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.

I started Modern Rebel in 2015. At the time, I was working 3 jobs to cover my rent. I’d wake up and do the opening bakery shift in Manhattan, nanny in the afternoon and at night worked for a small start-up doing freelance marketing. I had a friend planning her wedding and she asked for help because I had always been the event planner for my friends. At the end of our first session, she looked at me and said, “You could do this!” I said, “What?” She said, “Be a wedding planner!” I audibly gasped. No way – I hated weddings!

Not really. But sort of, you know? It is an industry obsessed with the gender binary, outdated traditions rooted in folklore, and perfectionism put on women in the name of “true love” and diamond sales. I was a gender studies major, the fiercest feminist in my friend group and… it all exhausted me.

Why are people so excited to get married but not to plan a wedding? Why has the world continued to turn and yet this industry seems to have stood still? If we solve this… will it move the needle forward on greater gender parity?

Silly but not so silly existential questions that haunt me still.

So, I started a company and called it Modern Rebel, which didn’t sound like a wedding planning company at all – and that was totally the point. I also called weddings ” Love Parties” to remind people why they’re even doing this at all. The first year, I did 2 Love Parties. The second year, 6. The third year, 25. In 2022, The Cut called me “the Anti-Wedding Wedding Planner.” Now, I have six full-time employees, people that inspire me daily, and we do 50 Love Parties all over the country for the coolest couples around.

We approach wedding planning like a big fun relational opportunity to get to know each other better, learn to delegate, budget and communicate better. It’s the kick-off party for the rest of your lives and it should feel that way. We hardly ever use the words bride and groom or “your big day.” We take the fuss out of it and try to bring it back to the heart of it all as much as we possibly can.

Our approach is unique, and it really resonates with people. Our clients stick around after they’re married, check-in with us, keep following along on Instagram. We’ve launched date night series for them, greeting card collaborations for inclusive wedding card designs, and a newsletter geared toward making it easier to invest in the fun in your relationships.

Everything I thought a wedding planner had to be – I’m not. Every lane I think I have to stay in, I scoot over and put the pedal to the metal. I keep digging into the questions – what does a company whose mission is to make it easier and more fun to invest in your relationships look like? How many ways can we answer that question?

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Be a hell yes or a hell no. It’s one of my philosophies in life and business, and especially marketing. You can’t be everything to everyone. Be boldly, uniquely YOU and bring that to the table and be unabashedly enthusiastic about that. The people who are your people will pick up on this and love you for it. The rest will either ignore you or talk behind your back. Either way, it doesn’t concern you.

If you try to be everything to everyone or copy someone else’s journey, you will have a hard time carving your own unique path and people will feel you’re in the middle – you want to give them a reason to yell YES YES YES from the rooftops or HECK NO and run for the hills.

Learn what makes you a hell yes and a hell no – the first three years of your business should be about learning this. Then, get loud.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

That the customer is always right.

I love Modern Rebel customers and they’re always teaching me something. The majority of them are just A++++ humans and I’d trust them with literally anything, but this falsity of the customer is always right – especially in hospitality – is detrimental.

Over the years, there have been a handful of times I’ve had a client or two try to come at me or one of my planners. If we truly screw up, of course, we try to make it right. We make mistakes – duh! If you’re in business long enough, eventually your shoes get untied and you trip. It’s about how you retie them.

One of our core values at Modern Rebel is kindness. It doesn’t mean laying down and being a doormat – boundaries are also a kindness. But it means being human and relational in every interaction. No mean, cutting emails. No yelling in a vendor’s face even if they totally dropped the ball. It means calmly leading with the confidence that knowing the receptionist’s name at the front desk is a given not an afterthought. Wedding planners don’t have the best reputation in this department, considering the pressure we’re typically under, but being kind is a deal breaker for me. If I find out someone on the team has lost it at someone – that’s one strike, you’re out.

Nearing one of our Love Parties, the clients were becoming increasingly difficult to their planner. The planner looped me into the situation and shared the emails and back and forths with these clients. Their emails were off the rails emotional and frankly, outrageous. I asked to get on a Zoom call – I wanted to speak to them directly.

When we got on the call, they initially shared their grievances. After I listened without interrupting, I asked them if I could have an opportunity to share mine. I didn’t try to hit them where it hurt. I spoke calmly and softly. I shared our core values and how they were treating my planner was entirely unacceptable. Hospitality goes both ways. If you can’t respect your planner, how can you keep asking them to respect and show up for you? To this couple’s credit, after immediately sort of stunning them (I don’t think they were anticipating feedback), they paused and one of them said, “You’re right. I was so mean.” The external pressures had gotten to her and she lost sight of what mattered.

I’m happy to report those two had an amazing Love Party. The planner was able to ride it out with them and we learned a lot about how difficult conversations create opportunities for deeper relationships.

When we say the customer is always right, it takes away the secret sauce that makes hospitality so great. The back and forth, the relationship, the chance to build a great experience TOGETHER.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.modernrebelco.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modernrebelandco/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshackegan/

Image Credits
Phillip VN Photography, Weddings by Nato, Chellise Michael Photography, Daniel Bergin Photography, Minkmade Photography.