Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Lackey.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I dreamed of becoming a successful wedding planner in Atlanta. As a little girl, my mom instilled the love of party planning in me with extensive birthday parties and classroom projects. She always brought me home bridal magazines from the grocery store, and I would spend hours pouring over every single page. This grew as I got older and I started to create notebooks of different weddings that I would plan. I graduated from high school and went to college at Auburn University. I studied Marketing and Spanish. My senior year, I decided to start working towards my dream and became a Novice Bridal Consultant through the Association of Bridal Consultants. After graduation, I met Lisa Crowder at an ABC meeting, and we instantly hit it off. She asked me to assist her with a wedding in 2004, and halfway through the wedding, she asked me to join the Storybook team. I absolutely loved it! Fast forward to 2007, and I took over Storybook Wedding Consulting and continued to grow the business into what it is today! I am a full-time wedding and event planner, a wife, a mom to two beautiful girls and a cute morkie. I love the thrill and emotion of weddings, and being part of my client’s special day making it everything they have dreamed of.
Please tell us about your art.
I create elegant, timeless weddings and events. From the very beginning, I meet with clients to find out what their dream is so that I can incorporate details that reflect their personality, all while staying within their budget. It is also very important to me to work with vendors that share my goal of making my client over the moon, ecstatic with the end result. I stress that weddings are created by a team of vendors, no one is more important than another because we all have to work together in unison to make it perfect. Weddings aren’t like other events; you only get one chance to make it splendid!
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
Today, I think there are many challenges for those in the wedding industry. The biggest challenge is how deceiving it is to see a beautiful event in a magazine, on a blog or on Pinterest and not know that it is a styled shoot (a small space set up just for photos) and that it isn’t feasible to duplicate for a wedding of 200 guests. A lot of my job is an education process of teaching clients what will work and what they can incorporate from these photos without exceeding their budget while still being unique to them.
Other times, I have to reign clients from changing their vision from Pinterest. Wedding planning can be extremely difficult if you aren’t a visual person. I always tell clients that they need to hire a team that they trust, and that gets their vision because you have to know that what you’ve desired will be created for your special day.
Another challenge I face is that there are a plethora of new wedding planners that charge substantially less than the experienced planners in Atlanta. Potential clients call and don’t understand the difference in pricing. Experience is knowledge, and knowledge is power. With hundreds of events under my belt, I am continuously learning, and that knowledge has to lead me to be able to handle some of the most difficult circumstances leading up to weddings and on the wedding day. Not only is my experience substantial but I have an extensive network of vendors to reach out to create the perfect wedding for each client.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My weddings are in and around Atlanta. We post photos on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and would love for you to see our special events highlighted on these platforms.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stbkweddings.com
- Phone: 4045971905
- Email: jennifer@stbkweddings.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/stbkweddings
- Facebook: facebook.com/stbkweddings
- Twitter: twitter.com/stbkweddings
- Other: pinterest.com/stbkweddings
Image Credit:
Picture This Photography, Anna and Spencer Photography, Danielle Valimont Photography, Rustic White Photography, Vue Photography and Jill Doty Photography
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