We were lucky to catch up with Lauren Perez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren , appreciate you joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I started my wedding coordination business 5 years ago. I had been working with a high end fabulous wedding planner in Atlanta. I was learning the ends and outs of wedding day set up, breakdown, wedding day timelines and meeting fun and interesting vendors along the way. I was seeing that there was a niche that was missing in weddings and the process of planning a wedding. It was what do brides do that don’t have the budget or they want to plan their own wedding do ,once the day, week of , month of their wedding happens. They don’t have a professional person who can step in, take over the little details and create the plans behind the ideas made by the bride. Who will make the timeline and execute the behind the scenes items so that I (the bride) can enjoy my day and not worry about things not happening or showing up . Then like most people who got started in this industry a friend of mine asked me to step in and execute her wedding. She knew I had wedding planning experience and she had done all the leg work in hiring vendors, picking out her menu, design and venues. She just wanted me to get involved in putting it all together. So, that is exactly what I did and I asked a friend of mine (Who is now way more than that now :) ) Cathy Jones if she would be interested in helping me with it. She said yes and did a great job where guest was asking us who we worked for. A few months after that I decided to take the leap knowing more brides were out there needing coordination help. I knew right away that I could not just come into a wedding the week of or day of and that I had enough expertise to advise brides along the way with ideas and support without planning the wedding myself. So, the first step was to create a name and this was TOUGH! I wanted it to mean something personally and professionally after months of ideas in my head and to friends and family I came up with JAL..Just About Love.. also being the first letters of my girls and my name.. Julia, Addison and Lauren. Then, I need to create a website, busniess bank account, tax ID and all the behind the scenes official sutff. I had a friend who was a graphic designer who was willing to take on desiging my website and business cards and logo which I still use today. It took about 2 months to get everything in place on the backend with stock art on my site, 2recommendations on my site and a handful of business cards to push me WAY outside my comfort zone and start finding clients through friends, vendor connections and just hitting up as many venues I could find online who would listen to my business plan.

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 have a degree in Marketing and loved to plan events from proms to my own wedding and everything in between. I was in my early 30’s with twin daughters at home and was looking to do something for myself. So, I decided to volunteer as a wedding guild member at my church. From there I met the wedding planners I worked for to gain the experience and knowledge I have today. My business is wedding coordination. My business plan though is a little different though. I do not offer any planning packages, but I do offer wedding support through monthly recommendations to my brides and vendor recommendations as far out as a year before their wedding. Most coordinators walk into a wedding 1 to even 3 months before the wedding. Our ideal client is 6 months out. We want to connect and build a relationship with our bride, but we also want the wedding to be what they create. I have about 3 styles I can offer my brides but with over 100 weddings in, my brides have shown me a world of different styles.

Our main goals at the beginning and end of every wedding is that we want the wedding to be whatever the bride, couple wants it to be and execute what they created! We want them to have confidence in knowing we have it taken care of from the first meeting and be so happy and relaxed on their wedding day.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I just love this question as I don’t think my business associate gets enough praise. Cathy Jones and I met when we were both doing contract work for a Destination Management Company. We did a lot of business conferences, dine arounds and meetings working the registration or break out rooms together. Cathy is a widow who is devoted to her family and friends and is always up for a good time and is a hard worker. When my friend asked me to execute her wedding and I saw the scope of the wedding I knew I needed another set of hands. I didn’t think twice on who I would ask… Cathy! She immediately said yes that it would be fun… She had no idea what that was going to elude too. I told her I was thinking of starting this business and she was willing to jump on board and learn as she went. Now 5 years later she has her own client and assistant. She tells clients and vendors she is my assistant, but I tell everyone she is my associate, and I couldn’t imagine doing this without her,

Also: No, we are not a mother-daughter team even though we are asked that all the time :)

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

I started this company to give myself something for me as Lauren Perez, not as a mom, wife, volunteer, friend. I think a lot of women want to be independent and want to feel accomplished even in the tiniest way. So, I started this company because I love planning events, being around different people and different work environments all the time. I am not the desk cubicle 9-5 person. Been there and tried that and it was not for me. When I started this business, I thought I could work a few mornings a week and 1 to 2 weekends a month. Well that quickly changed by year 3 when we had over 20+ weddings for the year with just Cathy and I , and I knew we needed a team. Then crazy covid hit and we were down for 3 months as soon as venues opened back up, we were back and running. This year we have 34 weddings and in just the month of January 2022 we tuned down over 20 weddings mostly because our calendar was already full. The team is growing and we are increasing our prices, but our goal and business idea is the same. We will do as much as we can take on with still giving each client their vision of a prefect wedding.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.justaboutloveweddings.com/
• Instagram: Just About Love Weddings
• Facebook: Just About Love Weddings
• Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/biz_info/OEpApXL1oXIWJvhemQ4g-Q
• Other: Pinterest: Just About Love- Wedding Coordination

Image Credits
Once Like A Spark- Fall photo Brandi Sission – the hand in hand photo with flowers Lauren Bailey- flower petal exit photo