We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Thomas & Maria Karagiannis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily Thomas & below.
Emily Thomas &, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
We are both eco-minded wedding planners, so when we met, we found ourselves discussing our wishes for a more sustainable wedding industry. We both acknowledged how wedding planners can influence an event’s environmental impact, and how we wished there were more awareness and education about that in the industry. We also wished for something that would bring eco-conscious wedding pros together in community. And so it was there in that coffee shop that The Green Wedding Guild was born! We decided to create that which we wanted to see, and launched an organization that would educate and support wedding professionals in their environmental business efforts, as well as provide a sense of community and networking opportunities!
Emily Thomas &, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
The two of us came to bringing sustainability into our planning businesses at different points. After years in the industry as a videographer and then a planner, Emily sought to align her business with her sustainable values, while Maria started her business with the goal of being the change she wanted to see in the industry after her experience planning her own low-waste wedding. As planners, we help our clients make more eco-minded decisions for their events, and similarly, with the Green Wedding Guild, we help wedding professionals learn more about sustainable practices for their businesses, as well as helping them to guide their clients toward more eco-friendly choices.
How’d you meet your business partner?
Maria and Emily met through their local Toward Zero Waste group on Facebook, where Maria had advertised the launch of her sustainable wedding planning business. Excited to find a like-minded planner in the area, Emily reached out and the two connected and met up for coffee and talked about their wishes for their companies and the industry, and the desire for a community of eco-conscious vendors.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
We keep in touch with our members through email, our exclusive members-only Facebook group, and monthly virtual gatherings. Each month we send out a newsletter updating members on what’s new with the Green Wedding Guild, what educational or networking opportunities are coming up, highlighting replays of past workshops and blog posts, etc. Members also have the opportunity to interact with one another in our Facebook group and during our virtual monthly “happy hour”, as well as our quarterly educational events.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.greenweddingguild.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/greenweddingguild
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/greenweddingguild
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/green-wedding-guild
Image Credits
Melissa Maureen Photography, Cirque 91, MKM Photo, Rachel Abi, Raven Shutley Studios, Copper Key Photo