We recently connected with Sierra Eldridge and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sierra thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

The biggest challenge to profitability in the balloon industry is that customers do not understand the costs of good quality balloons. Most people think “They’re just balloons” but they’re not just balloons. For instance, if you buy balloons from amazon and begin blowing up the balloons; half of the balloons will pop and even if they didn’t pop there aren’t enough balloons provided to recreate what is advertised. Whereas, if you buy good quality balloons maybe 2 out of 100 balloons will pop. The good quality balloons can last about a month indoors, where as the bad quality balloons will last a few days.

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

Hello my name is Sierra Eldridge. I am one of the owners for Celebrations in the Air. We do rentals for celebrations and we also do balloons. We got into the wedding/party industry because while I was planning my wedding I knew I wanted to be in the wedding industry. One night I was just scrolling through Tik Tok when I was inspired by a Houston Balloon Artist who owns Houston We Have a Party. That’s when I knew I wanted to try a hand at balloons and flower walls.

We are very thankful and blessed for all of our clients. We help our clients chose what size of balloon garlands and what would fit their needs and spaces. One thing that sets us apart from others is we are a mother and daughter duo that does this for fun, so we do as much customization that we can to make our clients happy. We are very proud of the foundation we have built with our current clients. We love that was have done balloons for the same clients from baby shower to 2nd birthdays. It’s always cute seeing the little kids grow up each year we do balloons.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There are many resources out there for how to create balloon garlands. I wish I had known about watching how to videos on YouTube. We did not realize how much content there is out there, until we stumbled on videos on YouTube. We were able to learn how to create a decent balloon garland by watching videos and learning. Other than YouTube, at the time there weren’t many people giving out tips and tricks in the balloon world. I highly suggest people who would rather DIY their balloon garlands or start a business to watch a few videos. If they even watched just 2 videos it would save them so much time and their balloon garland will look 10x better than the instructions from the Amazon kits.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

During the beginning stages of Celebrations in the Air my mother and I both were working full-time jobs. With this we were able to spend about $500 of our own money to begin our journey. We spent about $250 on a green hedge wall from Amazon, $50 on balloons, $100 on a pipe and drape set and the remaining on faux flowers. From there we used those 4 things to advertised, we created 2 set-ups- one with balloons around the hedge wall for parties and one with a floral top for weddings. Once we advertised on free places and got a couple of bookings we were about to use all of the money we made to put back into the business. Our first year in business every penny we made we spent on the business to build our inventory of flower walls and balloons. We basically were working for free and investing into our own company while working full-time. We really enjoy what we do.

Contact Info:

• Website: Celebrationsintheair.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/celebrationsintheair/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/celebrationsintheair/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/celebrations-in-the-air-fort-worth

Image Credits
Lila Mae Weddings