I admit its been a while since I published a blog, far too long in fact, but it has now officially been five years since I set up Wild Wedding Company.
It’s a cliché but its flown past, while at the same time those five years have been a bit of a rollercoaster, albeit mostly because of a global pandemic!
I set up Wild Wedding Company because I was bored of the 9-5. Like so many I wanted to be able to do something I enjoyed, but still be able to manage to have a life with my family outside of it. I’d long held a dream of being a wedding planner, since I was around 16/17 in fact and I got my first job in a country hotel waiting tables and working events. There’s something about a wedding. Everyone is always happy (well luckily for me they have been at the ones I’ve been to!), the atmosphere is full of love and fun with everyone so pleased to see each other. I can honestly say I love a wedding!
After completing a degree in events management I thought it would be my natural progression to stay in the hospitality industry, and I did for quite a long time. I worked and managed events in the UK and beyond at various hotels, country clubs, even racecourses, but eventually I tired of the long hours and frankly generally rubbish pay. I still desperately wanted to be a wedding planner, but that point in my life wasn’t the right one to start a new business. I’d hit the point where I wanted to have more regular hours so that I could plan things in advance and settle down and have a family, so I quit events.
The 9-5 worked well for a while, it gave me the predictable life I had wanted and the time to have my two children. But deep down I knew it wasn’t for me. So once they were old enough I got that itchy feet feeling. My husband suggested setting up as a wedding planner for myself. It was a scary thought, but after discussion with friends and family I decided to make the leap.
With a now awesome married surname – Wild – I knew I had to incorporate it somewhere into the business name, although many iterations sounded like I planned cowboy or raunchy weddings! I’m hoping I got it right with Wild Wedding Company. I love it, although have been bemused on a couple of occasions when people have said how lucky I am that my name is Wild and I own Wild Wedding Company, as if the two aren’t linked on purpose! But I think the name reflects what I love to do, which is plan fun, relaxed, personal weddings.
Since starting Wild Wedding Company while living on the Hampshire / West Sussex border, we’ve actually relocated to Cornwall. My husband and I had wanted to move here since we got together and as always said, “somewhen”. But eventually I said it’ll never happen if we don’t make it happen. As he had his own business as well, it wasn’t quite so simple and took us a few years to actually make it happen once we’d decided we’d go for it. But in March 2020 we were all set to sell the house and go for it, queue global pandemic and the world shutting down. So we put a pin in it for a few months and to be honest I was so busy reshuffling weddings and like so many others trying to predict where it was all going, whilst homeschooling two children, it seemed the least of our worries to wait a bit longer. However, after another trip to Cornwall in August 2020 for a break, we said lets just go for it and see what happens, so we put the house on the market and it sold in 5 days for full asking price, with the buyers wanting to be in, in 5 weeks! It was mostly definitely another leap of faith. We sold my husbands business and went for it. It took us 8 months to actually find a house, we moved right at the peak of the boom and house buying craziness. But we found something eventually, not what we originally set out for, but good enough for a few years to let life calm down and begin our new life. So, that’s where we are now. That change though has meant we have more time together as a family, but also that I have more time to take on more weddings and further from home.
I can honestly say I have had a great time planning weddings over the last few years. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of work involved and the days themselves are long and tiring, but I really do love a wedding. Everyone is happy and full of love - or at least thankfully at the ones I've been to!
That said things do go wrong sometimes. I had a chocolate cake melt, not a pretty site over a white tablecloth. Thankfully a fresh cloth and some artistically (strategically) placed flowers and all was well again.
Well, I hope more weddings! Its been a topsy turvy few years with Covid and moving, but I'm please to say I have several weddings already booked in for next year and enquiries coming through. So for me, I just hope I get to carry out being part of peoples special day. It really is true that your wedding day passes in a flash, mine certainly did. If I can help couples to feel more relaxed and that they have the time to take the day in, then my job is done. PS if I manage to get a piece of wedding cake to eat on the way home, thats also great!
