We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Megan Westers. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Megan below.

Megan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

Sometimes I think about if I had started my business earlier where I could be at this point in my career. The more I progress in my business and look back, the more I realize that the timing that I had in starting my business was exactly the right timing because I was at a point in life where had the right experience and connections to be successful that I didn’t have previously.

I officially started my business in December of 2019, about 3 months before the COVID 19 pandemic caused nation-wide lockdowns and more importantly, layoffs. I was working for the City of Saugatuck, Michigan’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau as their Marketing Manager – a job that I loved but I was starting to feel like I was ready for a change. In that role, events were a large part of my job, but I had previous experience in weddings. Due to that, I had gotten a lot of inquiries from friends and others asking if I could help plan their weddings, so I started telling people that I was starting my own business planning weddings on the side.

When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, I figured my side business would die off. There would be no way to hold events during a pandemic. But the opposite happened – I got lots of inquiries from people who weren’t sure how to handle the pandemic – all of the restrictions, postponements, etc. I was super fortunate that it happened that way, because I ended up getting laid off from my job due to the pandemic and was able to go full-time with my business due to the connections that I had from previous job experiences and the one that I had at the time.

Megan, 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?

I am an event planner and designer, so my company plans, designs and executes events of all types but mainly weddings at this time. We offer a variety of planning services, ranging from event coordination to full-service planning and design. We like to think that our services solve three problems for our clients: 1.) we take the stress of planning a large-scale event off of the client so that they can be fully present and enjoy a very important occasion in their life, 2.) we leverage our connections, expertise and experience to create an event that is exceptionally executed and visually pleasing while also being cost-effective, and 3.)

I got into this industry by helping start our family business. After graduating college with my bachelor’s degree, I was working for a marketing agency and had just gotten engaged to my now husband. We helped his parents renovate their existing business into an event venue for our own wedding and started renting it to other couples after we got married. I did all of the marketing for the business and eventually started coordinating events – that’s how I got my start in the wedding industry! I like to think that my years of working in restaurants throughout college also prepared me for this work as well, as it’s all hospitality in my eyes!

I am most proud of the core values that I’ve built my business around and the team that has come alongside me to do this work. As I mentioned, I have a heart for hospitality and that’s really what I pride myself on is creating events and experiences that feel comfortable and warm and welcome for all and I think we’re doing that. Since I started this business with just myself and now have a team that shares that value and vision, it’s pretty amazing to see that growth and to have people who also believe in what I want to do and are doing that too – just means a lot to me!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source of new clients for me has been referrals, both from previous clients and from other vendors I’ve worked with at events. I think this “warm lead” has almost always resulted in a booking because we are being referred from a trusted source. But, it makes the pressure that much higher to perform and exceed clients expectations!

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

Oddly enough, my business is branching off to have multiple revenue streams – which is very unusual for an event planning business I think. Because we have a partnership with my family’s wedding venue, we coordinate every event that takes place there. We started offering small add-ons like an infused water station and a coffee station that we would handle setting up and servicing throughout the event. I also just added a floral division as well as an add on for events that take place at our venue.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shorelineeventdesign.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/shorelineeventdesign
• Facebook: facebook.com/shorelineeventdesign

Image Credits
The Fourniers Chelsea Seekell Photography