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

Ashley, appreciate you joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

The “mainstream” industry standard when it comes to weddings is very cishet, Caucasian, christian, able bodied and thin. That’s what you see in social media, magazines and anyone who doesn’t fit that mold is put into the category of “other”. There are designated social media pages and magazines that cater exclusively to “alternative” clients but it’s a far more beautiful thing (in my opinion) when every individual is celebrated in the same space. When big brands (I’m looking at you – Martha Stewart Weddings, Southern Brides Magazine, etc) exclude communities its a real shame but I will acknowledge the slow progress with some brands.

We, (while not a big brand or anything) have always celebrated everyone’s uniqueness on our website and social media. We make sure that everyone is seen, represented and celebrated for exactly who they are. We often say if there’s rule book that we chuck it out the window because no one should be put into a box based on some checklist. If you want a wedding mohawk, awesome ! Glittery shadow – sounds great! But it’s not just the aesthetics. We became Equally Wed certified and aligned all of our materials to match swapping verbiage such as “bride” for “marrier” . We include captions and alt text. And we’re always open to learning more ways we can improve.

Some see our industry as just weddings and not “big world issues”. However, I think we can showcase real change, inclusion and representation addressing those issues even if it’s on a small scale because life isn’t in a vacuum. So I guess one of our biggest differences from the industry standard is that we have the radical idea that everyone’s love and beauty should be unapologetically showcased.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I never intended to land in the beauty or wedding industry but kind of fell into it. I had an opportunity to help on a photoshoot and loved it so I went to cosmetology school (PMSD) . I found my way into styling and ultimately weddings where I ell in love with creating something for someone else that entirely not about me. It felt helpful and impactful. I worked for a company who did fantastic work but they weren’t inclusive or seemed to have much guidance on their brand besides “pretty”. So I struck out on my own to create a wedding beauty brand that would celebrate everyone, exclusively use quality and ethical products and create the most stress free day.

The Stylist Abroad ( my company) goes on-location to provide hair and makeup services for our clients ( typically weddings). We have artists in DC,MD, VA, KY, GA, and AL. This all started with just me in DC and grew as I carefully selected like minded artists to join our team. We also regularly do destination weddings! At our company we believe that everyone is uniquely beautiful and we celebrate that. We don’t suppress curls and we have shades for every complexion. We work with every culture and religion providing details like placement of the tikka with artistry magic that other teams just don’t do. All of our products are cruelty free and vegan because we believe that beauty begins with kindness.

We make sure that the wedding day is a as stress free as possible. Through timelines and prep forms anyone can walk into the day knowing everything will be seamless and they will feel like their best selves. Many times people say weddings are dramatic but they don’t have to be and we bring a sense of calm.

Also we are very diverse and LGBTQ+ inclusive. Everything from images to verbiage demonstrates this as we want to make sure that the hardest part of planning the beauty portion of your wedding is deciding between hair accessories ( which we can help with) not determining if a vendor will work with you. I am immensely proud of the amount of grass roots change and support system we have created especially in some of our rural locations.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I think the most important thing is to be authentic and present. Put work out there that will resonate with clients you want to attract . Think if you saw this in your feed, would you stop? Would you like it or feel the need to comment? Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Attempting to imitate will only water down your own brand and you will get lost in the sea of options.

You need to post and interact often and consistently. If you’re never on SM people will see you few posts but have nothing to come back to. Interaction is key as it drives the algorithm and directs people to your page out of curiousity. So search for people in you area ( search city/state) or interests and see what posts are out there. Like a few from a creator and comment on 1 with a genuine, insightful comment. A “love it!” just won’t cut it. Think of this method as if you were networking IRL and if you catch their attention on a. real level they may look into you.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

We did the work. We overdelivered and outperformed many of our competitors in the actual quality of our work but we also went above and beyond in other ways. We connected with clients and vendors on genuine levels. Yes, it’s business but we took the time to get to know them, help them navigate hair/makeup looks and let them vent about stresses. We did the work and not only said we were LGBTQ+ inclusive but got certified and are vocal advocates.

I think when people saw not only that we put out top shelf work but that everything comes from an authentic place it made us stand out. Then word of mouth just spread.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thestylistabroad.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thestylistabroad
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/thestylistabroad
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/thestylistabroad
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/thestylistabroad
• Other: tik tok : www.tiktok.com/thestylistabroad

Image Credits
Brittanie Wichael Photography. ( images 1 & 2) Shawnee Custlow Sarah Botta Photography Lindsay and Co Photography Joshua Bingham Photography Ken Pak Photography Hannah Sharriee