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

Jennie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

I am extremely fortunate to have two loving and supportive parents (and in-laws that are just as fantastic!). Growing up, my parents were always extremely supportive of anything my sister or I did. They attended every school function, every event, and were always there on a day to day basis. They set high goals for my sister and I and pushed us to help us realize the potential that we had and what we could achieve. Hard work and dedication were pillars of our upbringing and both my sister and myself learned early on that giving 110% to everything was the way to succeed. To this day I know that my parents are behind me; they will still always attend every event and be there whenever I need their support. I read an article a couple of years ago that summed it up perfectly; my parents didn’t make my life easy, but they make it a little easier.

When I started Beautiful Day, my parents were the first people I told. My husband and I went to dinner with them and I remember blurting out that I had decided to start a wedding & event planning company. I was so nervous for their reaction but I shouldn’t have been. Although I don’t remember their exact words, I know the general tenor of the conversation was absolute support and encouragement. With that final stamp of approval, I felt like Beautiful Day was meant to happen.

That support and pride at my business have continued throughout the past 14 years. My parents still get so excited every time I book a new client, whenever they see my work in a magazine, or even an article in print. I’m fairly sure my Mom has more copies of my publications than anyone else in the world and my Dad always makes sure to ask what my clients thought of their weddings and events.

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

I began my career in supply chain management at one of the Big Three OEMs. In 2008 the automotive industry took a turn for the worse and things were looking very down. Wedding & event planning was always something that I loved so I started to kick around the idea of starting a planning company. One day I came home from work and my husband handed me a piece of paper – he had bought beautifuldayplanning.com. It was the slight push that I needed; I left my automotive job and began dedicating myself to getting Beautiful Day off the ground.

After 14 years of hard work, Beautiful Day has become one of the more well known wedding & event planning companies in Metro-Detroit. What began as just me has grown to include a staff of 14 that handles upwards of 60 weddings and events each year. My team is truly the backbone of my business and the only reason I have been as successful as I have been throughout the years. They are a truly dedicated group of women and I couldn’t do this without their support!

Our services range from month-of coordination to full service planning, and everything in between. Our primary focus is weddings but we also handle a wide range of both corporate and personal events each year.

I feel that our strengths lie in two places – first of all, our experience. After 14 years in business, we’ve built up a great network of vendor and venues and have amassed a wealth of knowledge that help us plan and execute the best events possible. The second is our ability to design events with varying styles. While some planners have a certain style that they achieve to perfection, I love that our teams get ability to play with different colors, styles, and themes with all of our events. One weekend we have a neutral palette with heavy greenery accents, the next we are working with jewel tones and extremely bright florals. It makes the job fun and keeps us challenged.

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

One of the things I am most proud of is the reputation that Beautiful Day has within the industry. We are well known as a successful, organized, fun and fair vendor and that is something that we have worked very hard to achieve. In fact, whenever I bring on a new staff member I stress how important it is that they treat every vendor with respect and kindness. From the start, I was always careful with how I approached other vendors. My job is to make their job easier, not to tell them how to do their job. I don’t know how to work a camera, and I can’t even remotely play an instrument. But if I can do one thing to make that photographer or musicians job easier, then the event as a whole succeeds. And at the end of the day, I would much rather spend most of my weekends having fun with the other vendors than fighting with them.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Although my story is not uncommon, I found my love for planning while preparing for my own 2005 wedding. I’ve always been an organized, type-A person and working through planning my wedding helped me realize just how much I could draw on my strengths.

Soon after my own wedding, I was the matron of honor in my best friend’s wedding. Leading up to the wedding I was helping her nail down and fine tune all of the final details. The day of the wedding I remember arriving early to the venue – the guests were all upstairs enjoying cocktail hour and my bestie and her new husband wanted to pull forward their grand entrance and join the guests. I ran up and down a flight of stairs about 5 times in heels to coordinate the change and working as liaison between her and the vendors. During one of those trips I remember thinking “I probably shouldn’t be loving this as much as I am, but this is really fun”. That moment really got me thinking more about starting to do this as a profession.

To be honest, I started the business expecting it to be a side hustle that I could do while my children were small. At the start, I fully intended to go back to work in Corporate America as soon as my kids got into school full time. But I started to build more clients and a positive reputation within the industry. Before I knew it, I needed an assistant. Then as the business continued to flood in, I needed another coordinator. A few years after that, I needed a third person, then a fourth. As a team, we worked hard to develop the business and expand to new markets and clients.

However I think a major milestone for me was when I hit the point where we were doing weddings that I wasn’t personally involved with at all. I am so fortunate to have a team of women that are just as successful and maybe even more talented than I am. I love that I can hand these clients onto one of our team members and know they are taken care of, know that their wedding or event will be a success because someone from Beautiful Day is on their side.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beautifuldayplanning.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beautifuldayplanning_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeautifulDayPlanningLLC/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/beautifuldaymi/_created/

Image Credits
Each photo is titled with the photographer : https://shanellphotography.com/ https://brianweitzelphotography.com/weddings https://www.jilldevriesweddings.com/ https://erikachristinephoto.com/ https://www.jandnstudios.com/ Flora Fauna no longer in business http://www.jessicakobeissi.com/