I’m celebrating big things here in February 2020! My wedding planning business is officially five! According to the Small Business Association, 30% of new businesses fail within the first year, and 50% within the first five years. So I feel very proud to have made it to my fifth anniversary!

The Accidental Entrepreneur

I never planned to become an entrepreneur. I majored in history in undergrad, not business. I went to law school, not business school. I knew nothing about marketing, website design, SEO, or public relations when I started Risa James Events. But I sure have learned a lot in the past five years.

When I decided I didn’t want to practice law anymore, I was unsure as to what, exactly, I wanted to do. (I was recently on the Former Lawyer podcast, talking about my journey to law school, post-law school, and into entrepreneurship. Check it out here if you want to give it a listen.) My husband and I had just moved to Washington, D.C., and I was job-hunting. Not a single law-related job appealed to me, so my husband suggested that I look for event-related positions.

I always had a secret wish to be a wedding planner, but it seemed unrealistic. I’m not the kind of person who is comfortable not having a steady paycheck, paid vacation, and employer-sponsored health care. So I started by looking for event positions with large companies, mainly non-profits. But they all wanted 3-5 years of events experience, which I didn’t have. I had plenty of experience, but not the specific kind they wanted. Even my event-related experience planning corporate holiday parties and client functions as part of a larger job wasn’t enough for these companies to give me the time of day.

So I did what seemed like the logical thing to do: I started my own business. At the outset, the plan was to get the 3-5 years of experience these companies wanted and then try to apply for jobs. But now, five years later, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to do that!

Interning & Researching

I did not jump headlong into business ownership. I’m way too risk-averse for that. Instead, I decided to try to intern for a local D.C. wedding planner. I Googled around, emailed a whole bunch, and only heard back from one. (Side note to all of my fellow entrepreneurs reading this: if someone reaches out to you looking for work, even if you can’t hire them or help them, it’s courteous to at least write back and tell them so. There’s nothing ruder than ignoring someone trying to learn more about your industry.)

Thanks to the ladies at Rave Reviews, I started interning with them almost immediately after our first meeting. They were already well-established in the D.C. community, handling luxury weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs. They were very generous with their knowledge. I attended their weekly staff meetings, managed their social media, wrote blog posts for them, and tagged along on lots of vendor and client meetings. Most of what I did was unpaid—and I was fine with that—but when I helped them on event days, they made sure to pay me, which I appreciated. 

After eight months with them, I felt comfortable that I could competently branch out on my own. (I also had to stop working for them because a job at a law firm fell into my lap, and I had to take it, which prevented me from being available for their meetings. It’s a long story. Listen to the podcast, lol.) 

Searching for a Business Name

Step one was to come up with a name. You can’t reserve a domain name until you have a business name (I mean, you can, but it’s kind of dumb to have a website address that’s not your business name). There are a lot of wedding businesses out there who use the “Noun & Noun” format: Honey & Thyme Events, Fig & Flower Photography, Honey & Love Weddings (those are all made up, btw). I thought about going that route, but I wanted something more personalized to me. (Also, those domain names can be harder to come by.)

Because my first name is Risa, I knew I could incorporate my name into my company name and not really have to worry about someone else having the same name. There aren’t a lot of Risas in the world. But I didn’t want to use my last name because it’s hyphenated, so I decided to use my middle name, James. This has caused some confusion over the years, because no matter how many places I list my name as “Risa Weaver-Enion,” people still call me Risa James. I’ve had checks made out to Risa James, mail addressed to Risa James, you name it. 

I also considered putting the word “weddings” in my company name, because I knew I wanted to focus on weddings. But I also didn’t want to limit myself to weddings, in case I decided to branch out into corporate events someday. (More on that later…) And thus, Risa James Events was born!

Building a Website

Once I had a name, I reserved my domain name (I had checked availability before settling on the name) through Namecheap.com. I also got a custom email address through NameCheap. I didn’t want to just have a Gmail address; I wanted to be more professional than that.

Next I needed a website. Everyone knows Squarespace is one of the easiest ways to set up a website, and I was interested in easy, so I went with Squarespace. I’ve regretted that choice a few times over the years, but it’s really effing hard to change website providers once you have five years’ worth of content on your site, so I’m stuck with them now.

I officially launched my new site—and my business—in February 2015.

Advertising & Getting the Word Out

Once I launched, I needed a way to get the word out that I was in business. I knew that potential clients weren’t going to magically find my website. (This was way before I knew anything about SEO and how to get Google to show your site to searchers.) So I looked into advertising on WeddingWire and The Knot, the two biggest resources for couples trying to plan their weddings. I had used both when I was planning my wedding, but I didn’t know much about advertising with them.

Turns out, it’s expensive. The Knot was significantly more expensive than WeddingWire, and because I was starting this business with basically no capital and wasn’t really sure what was going to happen with it, I decided to go with WeddingWire, purely based on cost.

I wish I had known then that both companies have a free option. They don’t list your profile very high in their search rankings if you have a free profile, but it’s better than nothing. No one at either company said anything about the free profile option though, which I find super annoying.

In order to convince anyone to hire me for their wedding, I knew I needed some reviews. So I asked my family and friends whose weddings I had helped with over the years to write my first reviews. I’ve always been super organized, and I love weddings and know a million things about the traditions and etiquette of weddings off the top of my head, so everyone knew I would be a great wedding planner. I just needed a paying client to believe in me!

My First Client

After launching in February, it was pretty much crickets until the fall. My personal network was surprisingly unhelpful in getting clients. I knew a fair number of people in D.C., mostly law school classmates. They were all in their late 20s—prime marrying age. I thought for sure that someone would refer me to one of their friends, but they never did.

My first client found me through WeddingWire. They hired me in September to coordinate their October wedding. I talked to them on the phone, but I didn’t actually meet them until their wedding day! They didn’t do a wedding rehearsal, and I wasn’t involved in helping them hire any vendors. I barely even helped with their timeline; the bride did most of it. It was literally day-of coordination, which I always say doesn’t really exist because no one can show up on your wedding day and magically make it run smoothly without a little background work.

I worked my ass off on that wedding! I only charged them $500, which is outrageously low, and I worked a 13-hour day, plus close to two hours travel time there and back.

The wedding went well, and I really enjoyed it despite being run ragged and bone tired by the time I got home. I immediately vowed to never work for so little money again, and also to have more lead time before the wedding to find out more details. That first couple sprung a lot of surprises on me, and while I handled them all, I could have done with fewer surprises.

Relocating from D.C. to California

My second year in business was pretty robust. I had eight weddings (well, nine bookings, but one wedding was called off a few weeks before it was supposed to take place—that was a really sad phone call from a bride). I was working 30 hours a week at a law firm and running my business on the side, which was a lot of work.

Most of my clients were finding me on WeddingWire, but I did have several referrals, which was great. I did two weddings for sisters that year, which was super fun because I already knew the bride’s family when we got to the second wedding. Then their mom referred me to one of her friends, who hired me to help with her daughter’s wedding. Those three weddings were some of my all-time favorites!

But by the end of 2016 my husband and I wanted to leave D.C. We were tired of living in a tiny apartment, and real estate in D.C. was too expensive. We were also sick of the weather and wanted to move back to California. So he started applying for attorney jobs in California, and I started turning down loads of inquiries for 2017 D.C. weddings.

In February 2017, my husband was hired by one of the California state agencies, which meant we were moving to Sacramento. I immediately contacted my WeddingWire rep and asked her to re-target my storefront from the D.C. market to the Sacramento market. By the time we arrived in Sacramento in late April, I was already getting inquiries from Sacramento clients. My very first Sacramento client hired me to help with her large (500 people) Pakistani wedding later that year! And I ended up booking three other weddings that fall, all from WeddingWire.

Life in Sacramento

When we moved to Sacramento, my husband encouraged me to go full-time in my business and not find a “day job.” So I’ve now really made the transition from side hustler to entrepreneur. I get to spend much more time on my business, instead of just trying to keep my head above water with client work. I’ve taken deep dives into business education, really focusing on SEO, marketing, PR, and website design.

Each season I’ve been in Sacramento, my business has grown. I’ve increased the number of bookings year-over-year, I’ve raised my prices gradually, and I’ve increased my revenue exponentially from that first year. I’ve met tons of talented fellow wedding vendors and gotten to know many of the popular venues in the area.

But entrepreneurship is hard. At least once a week, I feel like quitting. I think about going back to a “real job.” But then I remember how much I hate having “real jobs.” There’s no flexibility. There’s too much B.S. And I love being my own boss. I could definitely make more money if I closed my business and went back to an office job, but money isn’t everything. My quality of life is much better as an entrepreneur. And for every time I want to quit, there’s another time where my job fulfills me so much, I can’t imagine doing anything else!

Next on the Horizon

While continuing to grow the weddings side of my business, I’ve decided to branch out into corporate social events—think holiday parties, picnics, and galas. Weddings are still my first love, but there are only so many weekends in a year, and I don’t want to work every weekend! I want to add corporate to the mix so that I can have some weekday events, but for now I’m limiting it to social events because I still need to feel passionate about my work. Am I ever going to feel passionate about an annual convention for dentists? Probably not. But I love the end-of-year holidays, and I love black tie events, and I love picnics—so I’ll start there!

I’ve also formed a mastermind group (which is sort of a business mentorship program, in a group format) with several of my friends from the industry. I’ve accumulated so much knowledge in the past few years that I wanted a way to share it with others. I’m considering starting a more formal business mentorship program, maybe one-on-one coaching, maybe a digital course. All I know is that you have to keep moving forward in life, so that’s what I’m doing!

If you’re a fellow entrepreneur reading this and you have any questions, I’m happy to hear from you! Just send an email to risa@risajamesevents and I’ll help you as best I can. And if you’re a future bride or groom reading this and you want help with your wedding, email me!

UPDATE: I was recently interviewed for The Wedding Report all about running a wedding business. You can check out the video on YouTube.