We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Caroline Ruth Nelson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Caroline Ruth, appreciate you joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

I took a risk by scaling my business down and only doing intimate weddings and adventure elopements. I have been in the wedding industry only a year when I realized that big traditional weddings was not what gave me something to look forward to. It is what paid the bills so I continue to do some and still do. But taking a risk and only saying yes to couples that fit my ideal client as well as creatively aligning with my brand. And if I’m completely honest this hasn’t gone as planned. That is due to multiple social media hacks. But what has been amazing is the clients that have Had the opportunity to work with were outstanding.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a adventure elopement an intimate wedding planner. Wedding planning starred as hobby. But in 2017 when my kids dad left us (me w 5 kids to support) I turned my hobby and a few local connections into a career. This was a really tough part of my life but I can look back now and see how much God helped me move forward in my personal life by being creative in my career I focused on weddings in central Texas mostly until I realized my true passion is adventure elopement planning which led me to plan weddings across the state of Texas. The heart of my brand is getting creative with couples outdoors in Texas celebrating their marriage with their closest friends and family.

Along with planning intimate adventure weddings I am also a trained florist in bespoke design. This allows FBC another creative aspect of design.

And since scaling down I have moved more into educating wedding planners on how to create consistent clients and work flows within a membership community so that they can accelerate their wedding planning business without having burn out.
My most recent endeavor is the wedding planner Excelerator membership course. that helps wedding planners identify their ideal clients and gives them a community of planners to build their business with. No one wants to build their business alone and we know 1 on 1 business coaching is expensive.
Along with that I have him launching different elopement guides and wedding planner helps for people who are planning their own weddings or for wedding planners who don’t want to come up with things from scratch.

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

This isn’t your typical story of how to build your audience on social media but I think it’s a story that’s important to tell this day and age. Because I know I’m not the only one that happened to but in May of this year 2022I had my Instagram Business account hacked. I had had it since 2017 when I started my wedding planning career in Texas. I had a small Falloween but I was finally gaining traction in my adventure Texas niche group and it was all taken away because somebody got a hold of my password and decided to use it for bitcoin. No matter how much I tried to get it back through face recognition and account recognition I Instagram never believed that it was me. And it was lost. I had started a separate account when I became a florist in 2020 hence the 2020 pivot so I set out to continue my new sm marketing plan on this account and move forward. Mind you I had a personal account on Instagram this new texas adventure wedding planning account as well as my business coaching account all linked together into my Facebook account that was for my business and all of these areas as well as my personal Facebook account. In August of this year someone hacked into my Facebook ads account and posted photos that got my personal account shut down but somehow they were still able to post ads and rack up a bill in my Facebook ads. This is all mind you when I was pretty sure I had two point authentication and was fighting as best as I could with links that Facebook had sent me if I wanted to disagree with their decision as well as trying to prove to them that the ads that were being posted weren’t from my businesses, clearly. And at this point at the end of September I have not recovered any of those accounts. And the reason I feel like this story is important to share is because business owners don’t on their social media platforms. They are renting them from the businesses that on them. And we are told to spend so much time and effort and money into these social media platforms just to have some international people hack into them. Losing all of our hard work all of our following and there’s not even a phone number or an email that you can write a letter to to try to retain these accounts and all of their content. This has helped me to refocus on SEO and blog writing and pointing everything back to what I do on which is my website. It feels like a lot more work when you are starting out with a new small business. Especially in the wedding industry where we are able to bring so much business in through social media. But don’t forsake what you actually own in your business versus what could be taking away from you through social media platforms.

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

The best way I have built my reputation in the Wedding and Elopement market here in Texas has definitely been something really simple. Maybe two things that seem really simple but aren’t always seen in this industry. And one of them is kindness. And I don’t just mean kind to the people that are paying you or the people that you like or to people that make your job easy. I mean legitimately being nice to people even when they are late and they are angry and they are difficult to work with that’s when kindness really shows through. The other thing that I would say that is help me build my reputation is communication. It is essential to pick up the phone and call people and make sure everybody understands their part in the wedding planning process or someone’s amazing wedding day could be at stake. And not too many people wanna pick up the phone anymore. We can send texts and we can send emails and often times that form of communication works brilliantly but when it doesn’t we have to pick up the phone and make the call and confirm that people are where they’re supposed to be people know what they’re supposed to be doing and people are also having the same goal of supporting each other so that this couple can have the best day, their wedding day. This may seem a little over the top and not the exact way that people build reputation but the best clientele comes from references from other vendors who worked with you before and that no you are going to go to great lengths to get the job done you’re going to do it with a smile on your face and you’re going to do it with kindness in your heart.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.foreverbelovedco.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forevercarolineruth
• Other: http://carolineruthnelson.com/sales-page https://www.tiktok.com/@carolineruth22?_t=8VxY2qSZpiI&_r=1

Image Credits
Britt Nicole Photography Texas Elopement Photographers Kaitlin Rogers Photography I Heart Cupcake Photo Of the Wildflowers Ashley Eubanks Photography