We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chelsea Brittle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Chelsea, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
Luxe + Bloom was started in 2018, with just myself and 1-2 helpers for each wedding. Over the years, I have met amazing wedding planners that have also grown their businesses at the same time as L+B. Which means our first events together were pretty small and over time we have worked together to get more curated + unique designs to be implemented in our weddings together. At the beginning, I would just want to be able to do a cool or oversized design but knew our clients did not have the budget, but in order to get those statement pieces in my portfolio, I would barely make a profit on certain weddings due to the cost of creating large installations that were not priced to turn profit. I am not sure if that is necessarily the best way to have gone about that but it sure did help with getting clients with those larger budgets that could afford these designs and loved the past work we could show them! I just kept reminding myself “you have to spend money to make money” that first year or so of business. It’s been amazing to stay close with our planner friends that started small with us and now are planning luxury weddings full of creative and over the top designs! Having grown together and built a deep trust has been monumental to Luxe + Bloom’s success.
With this growth, finding good help was one of the biggest hurdles I would say we ran into. We have had the same core group of about 7-8 amazing workers for the past couple of years but we have also had a string of very talented but unfortunately very flaky people along the years. Now I have the confidence to take on these large, luxury weddings a year in advance knowing I have a solid staff behind me and a good list of freelancers to reach out to as well.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I, like a lot of 18 year old girls, went to college and changed my major multiple times before realizing I wanted to be my own boss one day. I thought for a long time I wanted to be a special education teacher and had a job at a daycare for a year where I realized that working kids may not be my calling. Trying to figure out a purpose, at 19 took a job at wedding floral design company as an assistant and realized how fun I thought it was. I worked there through college and after I graduated for a couple years learning the ins and outs of the industry. I met some of the most influential people of my life during that time and eventually decided to start my own company in 2018. That risk was not taken lightly, I was actually terrified to not succeed. I personally think the relationships I made with other vendors were what helped Luxe + Bloom grow. We would never have been able to break into the luxury wedding market without the close relationships made with planners, photographers and other vendors that recommend us to their clients. And for that I am eternally grateful! I also think it helps our clients feel completely trusting of us and the process when they know how often we work with these planners/vendors and how easily we all can communicate and understand each other. The ability to bounce ideas off each other and get excited together to bring a vision to life is honestly the most special part of the job! I personally love solving a “problem” and enjoy when I am consulted to help figure out an option that will work best for the client/venue/design. As a floral designer creating unique large scale installations, there are always new mechanics and designs we need to engineer; this is my most favorite part of the job! Thinking about every option or way to build a piece, getting the creative juices flowing always brings even better ideas and ends with the statement WOW elements our clients are dreaming about! And having them trust us to bring these ideas to life means everything!
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Everyone has worked for or seen a poor manager in some way shape or form. Having worked many jobs growing up, trying to find my passion, I had plenty of less than par bosses. When I started Luxe + Bloom I just knew I never wanted to be another one of those types of managers. The best advice I can give is to manage the way you would want to be managed. I personally enjoy having a close, friendship style of managing built on respect. Respect I have for my employees as well as the respect they have for me. Earning respect for each other is obviously the hard part. For me, I like to be organized in sending out the staff schedules as well as giving clear instructions on who is doing what for each event goes along way with my team. Being in a creative industry, there is more flexibility in roles of each team member so knowing each employees strengths not only helps keep high morale it also helps each event look as amazing as possible! The hardest part for me managing is the uncomfortable conversations had when an employee is falling short on their duties. However, we are working to design for the biggest day of our clients lives which means there is little room for lateness and unruly employees.
How’d you meet your business partner?
I personally own and started Luxe + Bloom however over time I realized the amount of inspiring wedding inquiries we received could allow for other designers to take on weddings as well for Luxe + Bloom. My sister has worked along side me for 7 years and when it came time to take on more weddings then I personally could, she was the perfect fit! Being able to work with her for years has been such a blessing but then getting to see her take on new responsibilities and seeing how much her clients adore her has been the most rewarding to watch! Having a business that is your baby is sometimes scary to give up any control on but Caillee has never made me doubt that she would treat Luxe + Bloom as it were her own!
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Abby Bryd Photography Dana Cubbage Weddings Hannah Forsberg Katie York Photography Jenna Lindsey Photo