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

Brian , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, folks often look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight – but that often obscures all the nitty, gritty details of everything that went into the growth phase of your business. We’d love to hear about your scaling story and how you scaled up?

When I first started in the event planning and design business, there was not a thing called instagram or social media other than websites, but I did know that people don’t read and we are all visual. We take in the world making mental photos of everything we see, so I knew that it was important to have really visually well done photos on my website to sell what I was doing.

I used my paying clients as my advertisers and knew that I was not doing huge weddings and events with big budgets, but rather than spend money on advertising in magazines or online, I spent money from my fee on what I called my “marketing dollars” I would spend the money I was making as my fee and put that back into my clients floral and decor so they had better flowers and better decor than they were actually paying for. I knew that upgrading the look of their wedding or event would then get me better images to promote my business as well as elevate the event designs that I was working on. I was essentially killing a few birds with one stone so to speak. I was exceeding my clients expectations, I was providing myself and my company with the necessary visual collateral to advance my career and bring in better, bigger budget clients and I was also allowing myself to push limits and have more fun with the designs I was working on. It was a win/win for everyone and I was able to scale up and grow and grow.

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 back background and context?

My name is Brian Worley and I am the owner and creative director of B Worley Productions. I have been in the event and wedding production and design industry for almost 25 years now and my career in this business has taken me around the world and provided me the opportunity meet incredible and amazing people.

I started out in this business as a fluke and didn’t know you could make money planning parties. I was working at Banana Republic in Beverly Hills and met a guy that did events. Working retail I was not making a fortune so as a side hustle I started working with him. That led to a business partnership that eventually deteriorated and took me to the next chapter where I took a job designing events for a prestigious design company in LA. My first job there was to design the first Harry Potter Premiere Party in NYC. I thought I have made it. This job was the perfect catalyst to making big introductions in the entertainment event world and I LOVED it. I was getting to be creative and being paid for it.

I stayed with that job as long as I could and then started my own company called BASH! by Brian Worley. As this was starting to take off, I got the job hosting a TV show called Party Monsters Cabo on E! and that helps to change the directory of my career. I moved to Cabo and filmed the show and when I returned I partnered with a former client and we started YourBASH! For 10 years we were fortunate to create and produce numerous American Idol Parties, the Emmy red carpet and media tent, the VIP tent and Red Carpet for the Teen Choice Awards among other entertainment related events, product launches, weddings and corporate events. We started a spin off company called Your WEDDING and during this time I started speaking at conferences and hosted a few more shows as well as appeared on other TV Shows. I was flown as far as the Ukraine to speak to 400 wedding planners with a translator on how we do wedding in the US.

After almost 10 years, we dissolved our company and I was ready to do something different and explore other avenues and moved to Atlanta to take a job with a design company. The job was not what I expected and after a year and a half, I started B Worley Productions. I have been more focused on wedding and social, but also still work with corporate clients and an occasional entertainment event.

I am also working with hotels and resorts on their branding and marketing materials to sell their wedding and event spaces and speaking around the globe. This year I was able to speak in India at a wedding conference and will be speaking in Madrid in 2023.

I am part of the IEC (International Event Certification) Team representing the USA of global event leaders and that is also allowing me to travel and see the world with this group of professionals who i learn from.

All things lead to something so I found that it is alway important to really consider every opportunity that is thrown your way, you just never know where a decision will lead you!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think for most of us, Covid was a time for reflection and we all had to do the Covid pivot with our businesses. I had gut feeling that we were going to be out for more than two weeks and rather than over react, wait out the pandemic a little before making life changing decisions. In the event and wedding business, we were at a standstill and events were not happing. We could not gather. Luckily, in the south, things were still happening with smaller numbers and most events were postponed for who knew when, but we were doing what we needed to to keep our clients happy and still just get through.

For me, this pivot allowed me to focus on investing in real estate and I bough a few cabins in Blue Ridge in the North Georgia Mountains and I renovated them as an opportunity to remain creative and keep my juices flowing. I also had no idea at the time, but Covid ended up being an amazing chance for me to start another business that has now helped to set me up for retirement with my Air BnB rentals. Had there not be Covid, I would have been doing events as we were staged to have the most incredible year in 2020. I still did have a great year financially, it was just doing something different that is not still sustaining itself as we are back up and running doing more events than ever.

I always say, “Everything happens for a reason!” this is so true and coming out of Covid, I also restructured my company making less work and stress on myself with a new way of executing our events with a solid team.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, the most rewarding part of my job is getting to open the doors for my clients,, especially weddings and show the client the design and end result of many many months of hard work getting to the final stage of their event.

We work so hard to ensure that everything is perfect and to know that you can create the WOW for your client and let them actually see where the money they spent has gone, that is a total reward.

I always tell my clients that their event, they can’t live in it, they can’t wear it or drive it…. they are spending money on a memory and to look at it that way because it will be over before they know it. Enjoy the experience and the process because if you do, that is priceless.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brianworley.com
• Instagram: @bworleyproductions
• Facebook: B Worley Productions
• Linkedin: Brian Worley and B Worley Productions

Image Credits
photo of me – sarah eubanks Photo of the green wedding – The Willett Photos Photo of palm tree event – rebecca marie art for the others I need to ask who took them