We were lucky to catch up with Avery Hatfield-Bender recently and have shared our conversation below.

Avery, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My story:

I have worked in and out of the wedding industry for multiple years. I was surrounded by friends who were in the field and casually took jobs helping them in my free time. I assisted with hair, makeup, photographer, coordination, etc. I saw every angle of the wedding world and loved it. I was drawn in by the people-orientedness of it all. I have always been a relationship person, so I soaked up learning how the couple met, how the mother of the groom felt on this momentous day and why the bride chose blue as her main color. I was there for it all and wanted more.

Then I got married and experienced what it means to be a bride. It felt odd to me that my partner and I were supposed to plan the event, host it, be the guest of honor, be the wealth of knowledge for my vendors and not to mention get married that day. It was way too many roles for someone to hold. I hired a day of coordinator but had a poor experience and ended up taking on more than I would have liked. I met with them once before the wedding, it felt impersonal and they struggled to actually run the day like I had envisioned.

I had assisted with a company in Louisville for a few months as a day of coordinator prior to my wedding. I was always the person to throw the themed parties, I had worked in many leadership roles at previous jobs (admin, care teams, event leads, outreach coordinator, therapist, etc), I love people and enjoy learning new things. Why couldn’t I do it? So on the flight to our honeymoon, I bounced the idea of starting a business by husband of five minutes. Drew has always been someone to encourage my every move. In Mexico, I wrote my business plan and we launched the week after.

ABC Weddings & Events is rooted in relationships. I desire to start off with clients that are strangers and end as friends. I want us to know one another and trust in each other. Because why would you put such a special day in the hands of someone who you don’t know? My hope is to provide unbiased support, structure and encouragement to your wedding planning process. ABC’s values are compassion, authenticity and honesty. I always want to be compassionate to the fact that everyone’s engagement season, vision, support level, family/friend dynamics and emotions are different. I will always bring my all and my full self to the client and ask that they do the same. And I always want to be honest with you about what I can and cannot do for you. If there is something I cannot service on your day, we will find someone to do it.

Hiring a wedding/event planner and coordinator is an investment in protecting your peace. For weddings specifically, my hope is to allow the couple to remain present and have one job: get married & enjoy it. Weddings have grown into a huge marketplace in the last decade. This provides people with a ton of options and vendors to fit them, but it always leaves a lot of room for a couples priorities and purpose for the event to get lost. As a couples planners and coordinator, we establish those priorities and purposes for the day and focus all our work around it.

I am passionate and thankful to be in this field. I am grateful that I am able to be an advocate and a beacon of peace in a sometimes overwhelming season.

Avery, 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?

Weddings are expensive and cost can quickly add up. My goal is to make every service I provide cost effective and financially accessible. To make this accessible, I provide a variety of packages to fit yours specific needs. If you’re unable to find a package that speaks to you, please reach out to me and we can brainstorm a build-your-own package that will best fit you. The wedding industry rarely prioritizes protecting your peace and remaining present throughout the wedding planning process. In my experience, it is important to invest in services that can do just that. The process of wedding planning takes time and energy. And when the day finally comes, it is easy to be focused on the execution of those carefully designed plans. My hope for you is that with these services you can soak up this unique time with your partner, trading stress for peace.

I offer everything from full service planning, aesthetics and design to day of coordination. There are eight packages to pick and choose from on my website abc-weddings.com Once you find a package that speaks to you, fill out the inquiry form below the package. That gets sent right to me and from there we can plan a time to discuss your questions and vision for your day!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Since the beginning of my time in the wedding industry something I did not expect to face was intense competition and tension between vendors in the wedding world. This was something I did not expect, but was not shocked to see.

The business & creative world, like the rest of our environments, teach us that women must be in competition with each other to thrive. Gatekeeping is essential, groups must be closed & tight & you, as a woman, must always watch your back. But this is a lie. It’s a lie in the wedding industry and it’s a lie in other environments. We rise by lifting each other up. Our knowledge & experiences must be shared often in order for those around us to learn well. Our groups need to be filled with open-armed women ready to welcome new relationships. & we as women must say “I got your back sis” in word & in action. The power of every type of woman gathering is force.

Because of this, a huge portion of how I run ABC is fostering positive vendor connections. I love to meet with other female business owners to swap stories and talk dreams. After meeting with many business leader that became friends I saw a deeper need for community among completion. That’s how gals.lou was born.

Gals.lou is an encouraging & communal space for women leaders & creatives to form positive friendships. It is a once a month gathering where women leaders and creatives can connect, build friendships and encourage each other.

I desire to push back against competition with connection and community.

Follow gals.lou on instagram

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

I will be the first one to tell you that social media is not my favorite thing in the world. But I do know that as a business owner social media presence is essential and important. When I first started ABC I had no idea what I was doing in terms of social media presences. I began to create and play around through trial and error. I began to write down ideas of how I could communicate my different values, stories from wedding days or different tips that people would enjoy engaging with. Once I got the hang of it, I started to grow followers more consistently.

The easiest advice I can give to someone who’s starting to build a social media presence is consistency. You need to be consistently posting and constantly putting out the same vision. I would encourage anyone to have a brand identification day. This is where you identify what you stand for as a business, your values, your fonts and your colors, etc. being consistent with each of these allows the viewer to create comfortability with your content, and begin to associate certain things with you! I would also encourage someone who’s building their social media presence to be hard on themselves. The best thing you can do is be authentically you and create things that you would enjoy viewing yourself.

Contact Info:

• Website: Abc-weddings.com
• Instagram: Ahbenderweddings
• TikTok: ahbenderweddings

Image Credits
Grace Jaynes (bride), Emily Peters Photography, Sav Hope Photography