Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tirzah Caffee. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tirzah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?
The answer to this is 2-fold. First, I want to be the kind of business owner where my kids always understand that THEY are my priority and not my business. If you ask any of my full-time staff, they will tell you that I will drop just about anything when it comes to my children. I work as hard as I do so for THEM, but never want them to feel they get the scraps of my attention. When I am gone someday, I hope they will be able to tell their kids how hard I worked, but also that I was present and active mama in their lives. Secondly, I want to be known as a KIND, fun, and authentic business owner. I want people to remember me as someone that genuinely cared about my staff, my vendors, and my clients. I hope that people will remember that my faith was a core value and that they will be able to testify to me living out my walk with Christ on the good days and the bad. I hope that people I have been generous to will remember what I did for them (in secret) and that they will pay that generosity forward.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I have a bit of a unique business story because I am what people have coined a “legacy venue owner.” Meaning, I am the child of someone that used to own the venue I own. My mom learned how to make wedding flowers from her grandmother, so I am actually a 3rd generation wedding pro. My current venue was actually the 4th one purchased by my mom. Our original historic venue (circa 1858) was in St. Louis, MO. I grew up in that venue and quite literally helped build it from the ground up. My siblings and I are very skillful workers and helped restore the entire home. It was a hard way to grow up doing so much manual labor on our home and building the business, but I definitely learned ALOT. We started producing weddings in 1994 when my sister got married at our home and my mom thought it would be a “brilliant idea” to turn our property into an all-inclusive venue. I grew up doing everything that relates to weddings. Coordinating, tours, cooking, flowers, wedding cakes, linens, accommodations, cleaning, valet parking, dishes, and even playing the piano for ceremonies. We were doing barn weddings when they JUST started becoming very popular so I guess you can say were were trend setters. ha! Within 2 years of our original venue opening, we were producing over 100 a weddings and receptions a year out of our HOME. It was a wild life to be sure. Our focus at all the family venues was being a one-stop shop for people that wanted a beautiful wedding but didn’t have the time or desire to piece it all together themselves.
The venue I currently own is called Alexander Homestead and is located in the heart of Charlotte, NC. It is a historic home built by one of the founding families of Charlotte. THe home actually sat vacant from 1978-2008 and was slotted to be torn down by the city. After an extensive restoration process, we quickly became one of the most reputable wedding venues in our entire city. We are just a few miles from the center of uptown Charlotte, but we are a green space with almost 5 acres of manicured gardens surrounding the historic Queen Ann home.
In 2010, the main reception space was built on our land and again, within a very short period of time, our team was producing well over 100 weddings a year which is quite ALOT for the average venue.
Our venue is unique because we are not simply a beautiful location for events, but we have a full-service planning team on staff. All of our staff have been trained by me, which is a pretty big deal since I have personally managed or produced over 2000 weddings. Many venues will say they are “all-inclusive,” but we really are so much more than that. We have a team of expert planners that have relationships with many of the top vendors in our city. After just 2 meetings, our clients can have the majority of their wedding and reception planned. That is quite literally unheard of. We handle all the catering, bar service, planners, cake, dj, photo, video, officiant, flowers, decor, and more! It sounds too good to be true, but this is what we do for people on a daily basis. It’s a game-changer for their engagement experience, and because of our model, they can enjoy being engaged and not turn into crazy bride or groom-zilla’s!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
One of the hardest business seasons of my life was during the pandemic. In less than 6 months, we lost over 1/2 million dollars of revenue. I spent months dealing with clients that would call and scream at me because I was the easiest target to cast their frustrations upon. I know many businesses felt this stress, but dealing with brides and grooms who are already not the easiest people to work with and add the pandemic onto their stress…EEK. It was over the top insanely stressful. I pushed myself harder emotionally and mentally than I had ever needed to push myself as a business owner, and I would go to bed at night and wonder if I would have a stroke in my sleep. Of course, there is that pivotal place you get to when things seem like it will never get better. I wondered if we should close up shop and just be done. But every single day I would think of my staff. I worried about what it would do to them if they didn’t have their job and the ripple effect that our closing would have on local vendors as well. If it was just about me and my family, we would have sold and said goodbye to the insane stress. BUT, I made a choice to lean into the hard for the good of my staff, my local vendors, and my clients.
What I learned through that season of life is that if I can handle having my business shut down for almost a year, still pay my team, and keep my head above water (most days), then I could do just about anything. I do have to give a shout out to my amazing husband and business partner though. I hit such a low point, that I didn’t know if I could go on and I went to him and said, “can you just sit with me when I make these hard phone calls?” I never needed much from him during the shut-down, but his physical presence and support when I had to make hard phone calls really sustained me in those pandemic days.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
For me, staff culture is one of the most important elements to my business. I want my team to always feel seen, heard, and supported. At the same time, I want them to respect me and the values that I hold dear. One of my ground rules for staff is that no gossip is allowed. This goes for full and part time staff. When any staff accepts a position, they sign an employee agreement that makes it clear that gossip is a fireable offence. I have seen so many times in my career how gossip can destroy a business and I will do whatever it takes to protect our staff culture. When a staff member can leave a room and not worry if people will be talking bad about them, it helps them enjoy work all the more. We work hard to recognize hard work ethic, celebrate birthdays and graduations, and even incentivize staff with opportunities for employee of the month and employee of the year.
For full time staff, I work hard to check in on them each month and I almost always know if they are struggling personally or professionally. They know that trust is vital to a healthy work culture, and I do everything I can to support them. Not only do I have an open-door policy, I make every effort to meet with them 1 on 1 each month to talk through any challenges they may be facing and give them personal coaching as needed. I’m not a perfect boss by any means, but I do know my staff trusts me and will 100% feel safe coming to me when needed.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.alexanderhomestead.com
- Instagram: @tirzah_thevenuecoach
- Facebook: @alexanderhomestead
Image Credits
JCM Photography, Haylie Noelle Photography, Sharon Elizabeth Photography, Corrie Huggins Photography,