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

Alright, Sage thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

I had been in the performing and visual arts arena my whole life and raised my children in this environment all the way through adulthood where they were teaching at our school. We just loved having a family business. We have a few family members in the wedding industry and my daughter with her fashion degree was working in this industry as well as a bridal consultant. We were at a place in our lives where we were looking at creating something new that we could continue working and creating together as a family. So my daughter brought up the idea of a wedding planning business. I had been producing theatre for so many years and it seemed like a reasonable jump to producing weddings. So many of the same elements, costumes, locations logistics, planning, directing, even drama, lol. I had always created florals for our productions, hostessing and I had been baking for years and we thought, “What if we put it all together”? Allann’s fashion and design and my producing, floral, and baking talents. So as we were formulating our business plan, she got engaged and we said, “Well, let’s just jump in all the way and start with her wedding!” So we did and Belle Soul Weddings was launched. Her wedding came together with all its first-time bumps and bruises beautifully and we were published right away in Southern Living Magazine. Our next large-scale wedding was also published in Brides of Austin along with all our editorial shoots in magazines and on international wedding sites. We were off and running!

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

So here we are 10 years later from the start of our wedding planning business and we are a bit different from those first initial years. In 2023 we rebranded to Belle Soul Florals to streamline the business. After so many years of planning, coordination, bakes, and florals, the floral side held the most joy and largest focus. Now, we can create luxury floral designs on a larger scale and travel all over Texas. We bring our years of experience in design and overall planning to our floral clients through our creative custom designs that are bespoke, and thoughtfully curated with all the wedding elements.
And it is all important to us from color theory, to bloom texture, to locally grown, to moving just one stem until it sings. And I can’t say enough about how client connections and collaborations feed my soul. If you get Belle Soul Florals, you get me. I am right there every step of the way and putting my eye on the prize; beautiful, artistic floral creations for every wedding or special event. We are a family business and every member of our team is connected and committed to excellence on a personal level.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I’ve been a teacher my entire adult life, I actually taught my first professional class at age 17. When I first began managing staff I discovered pretty quickly that all my core teaching pedagogies were useful and naturally being implemented. Instruct, inspire, encourage. Your joy is their joy. Your communication is their communication. Their practices are your practices and the results always reflect the business and of course, you want that to be of the highest quality at all times. Managing our team is just as much a part of running the business as anything else. Connecting and building a joyful atmosphere has to be part of what brings us to this position. It is a balance certainly to give them instructions, time to process, learn on the job, encourage questions, and also encourage autonomy. Give authentic feedback, and praise and always speak kindly.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think it is easier for us as creatives to love what we are doing. Which is a key component of building a successful reputation. I love the art of floral design and I surround myself with others that are similarly motivated as well as those that care about the successful outcome of each wedding or special event thus increasing our reputation as one of talent, integrity, and commitment to excellence.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bybellesoulflorals.com/
• Instagram: @bellesoulflorals
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sagebellesoulweddings

Image Credits

Image #1 none
Image #2-6 @tarawilliams.photography