Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashleigh Whitby and Toniah Paryo.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Ashleigh and Toniah. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
As my best friend, Toniah Paryo, and I started to see our peers from high school and college get engaged and married, we noticed that all of the shirts looked the same. As thirtysomething millennials, we like a good graphic tee. We like a good affordable graphic tee, too. So we sought to create bridal apparel that bridal parties that look like us could wear, love, enjoy during and well after the engagement.
We had the idea to create a t-shirt store in 2017 but kept putting it off. Eventually, we sat down in 2018 and started flushing the business out. We came up with a name, an eComm platform, going through the state of Georgia to get our LLC and finally launched in late November.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
We quickly learned how expensive the start-up process is. We knew we’d be directing a lot of initial costs towards marketing, but didn’t realize how different eComm platforms could be eating a chunk of our earnings. We scaled back to a WordPress website where I (Ashleigh) was more familiar. We easily eliminated about $70 worth of monthly fees by doing so.
Please tell us about And Love, Co.
And Love, Co. is a bridal apparel store that creates “the realest tees around.” We pride ourselves on unique tees that represent a variety of bridal parties: the ratchet, the saved and everyone in between. We create tops that are affordable and fun for any bride/bridal party.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
We probably would’ve started with the WordPress website first. I personally would’ve saved more money initially to launch with so we could do more initial marketing.
Pricing:
- Tees generally start at $20
- Sweatshirts are $30
- Use code RING for 15% off purchases
- We provide bachelorette group discounts
Contact Info:
- Address: 710 Dacula Rd
#236 Dacula, GA 30019 - Website: andloveco.com
- Email: andloveco@gmail.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/andlovecotees
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/andlovecotees
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/andloveco
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
