Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashley Heleringer. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ashley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

Prior to founding Heleringer Events, I worked in the corporate world for over a decade. I have a degree in Management Information Systems, so I pursued a career in the IT and digital marketing fields. After moving up the ladder through various roles of increasing breadth and experience, I just wasn’t feeling fulfilled and felt that I was meant for something greater. During this time, I had been producing events on the side, however I was considering it more of a hobby and something that fulfilled me creatively, than a viable full-time career option. After a particularly difficult set of experiences at work I decided to step away from my career and officially founded my event planning & design business. I can honestly say it was the best decision I have made for both myself and my family. Pouring your heart and soul into a business that bears your name is a an honor. I know that every minute I’m investing in myself and my business furthers my ability to better serve my clients and set ourselves up for future successes.

I am undoubtedly grateful for my prior corporate and business experience. Having years of formal project management, financial, contractual, communication and leadership training have given me a very solid foundation for building out my business structure and a very organized and specific way of executing events. On top of that, I get to use my creative side to design celebrations for some of life’s most important moments, and for that I’m very thankful!

Ashley, 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 think my answer from the previous question details a bit about my background and how I got into the event planning field, but I’d love to chat more about our businesses and the core function of how we serve our clients!​

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Heleringer Events is a boutique event planning, design and coordination firm based in Louisville, Kentucky specializing in wedding, social, and non-profit events. We specialize in creating unique experiences for each of our clients – one that is tailored specifically to their story.

We believe that our design and planning services are some of the most comprehensive offered in the region. Every event is meticulously planned from the ground up, one detail at a time, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re known for our intense focus on the guest experience and our meticulous attention to every detail. Our goal is never to design the same event twice – you and your story are unique, let’s celebrate it that way!

Due to our extreme attention to every detail, and our desire to produce the most exciting and unique events, we devote ourselves to only a handful of clients each year. We are on a relentless pursuit of providing the highest client experience possible, and we’d love to partner with you!

​Whether you’re planning a wedding, birthday party, non-profit event, corporate event, or anything else in-between, we would be honored to be a part of your planning journey. Let’s create something amazing!

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Our sister business, EVVI Candles (www.evvicandles.com), is our newest offering to the midwest event market, and our attempt at targeting the vast amount of waste in the event industry. EVVI Candles is a luxury candle rental and staging business offering clients a premier candlelight offering that is both aesthetically pleasing, but also a sustainable option for their event decor. Our in-house candles are offered in 6″ widths, and range in height from 6″ to 40″, however we can pretty much make any fireproof vessel a candle – so the sky is the limit on what we can do for your event! On the sustainability front, our wax is vegan, bio-degradable, reusable (unlike traditional candles which are thrown away at the end of an event), and the options for customization here are also endless. We can perfectly match the color of our wax to your exact event colors, engrave our vessels with your logo or monogram, and more!

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

There have been two main sources of new clients finding their way to our businesses – social media, specifically Instagram, and referrals.

In my opinion, social media is both a blessing and a curse. It’s absolutely necessary to your business to build awareness, offer credibility, and to inspire others to pursue working with you. However, it’s a massively huge investment in a small business owner’s time which takes away from them investing/pursuing other things. Also, specifically in the event world, I find my clients are almost obsessed with recreating something they see on social media, rather than letting their imaginations run wild and try something new. Just because they haven’t “seen” it before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done…in my opinion that’s the absolute best reason it should be done – let’s do something they haven’t seen before!

Lastly, as my business has continued to grow, referrals are a main, and humbling, source of new clients. The more events we produce, the more people are seeing our work and seeing what we can deliver, and they are coming to us for events of their own. In addition, having “Legacy Clients”, as I like to call them, are clients who work with us for one event – say a bridal shower, then book us for their wedding, then baby shower, their child’s first birthday, etc. Those clients who keep coming back to us for their family’s events are something truly special and I am eternally grateful for those relationships and the trust they continue to put in our partnership.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Having an abstract concept or idea, pitching that to a client and having them trust you and your vision, and then ultimately seeing that come to life on event day.

Having a mutual trust with your clients is huge and something that can take time to build, but once it’s there, it’s magical.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.heleringerevents.com & www.evvicandles.com
• Instagram: @heleringerevents & @evvi_candles
• Other: Thank you very much for reaching out to learn more about us!

Image Credits
Photographers: Leslie Rodriguez Photography (@l_slierodriguez); Green Apple Photography (@greenapplephotoky); Conrhod Zonio Photography (@conrhod)