Adventures in Wedding Blogging – The Origin Story

I received the sweetest message this week from Life in Bloom Photography – they wanted to give me a shoutout but they had no idea who was behind this blog! I was simultaneously flattered by the message and struck with the realization that I’ve been remiss in introducing myself as the woman behind Hey Wedding Lady. An ‘About Me’ will certainly hit the blog sometime soon, but for now I wanted to draw back the curtain and say, “hi!”

Way back before there ever was a blog, I was a wedding coordinator. I gathered a lot of nicknames during my time on the floor – Macgyver, the Bridal Whisperer, Zeus (have you ever had to find the one twinkle light among hundreds that’s causing the short – right before the first dance?). Most of the time they came from guests who weren’t sure of my name, but were comforted by my official clipboard and headset, recognized me from the rehearsal, and knew that I could help. “Hey, wedding lady!” It took less than one season for me to start responding to the name. When it came time to find a name for my obsessive hobby-turned-blog of wedding ideas, there was really only one option.

Before the blog,  – and during, and likely after – there were actual weddings. I’m an organized soul, so planning comes easily to me, but my favorite part has always been design. I love helping couples realize their idea for their wedding day and I started collecting inspiration ideas long before I knew what to do with them. Before Hey Wedding Lady there were a lot of binders, full of ideas pulled from wedding magazines, neatly organized by topic. “I have the perfect design for you,” was a typical preface to hauling out the binders and finding just the right picture. Then I discovered inspiration boards, and it was a match made in heaven!

But this is supposed to be a post about the woman behind the (wedding) lady, so forgive me if I digress. I never expected to actually work in the wedding industry (although my mother loves to remind me that it was my dearest ambition when I was about twelve) – I studied Writing, Literature, and Publishing and I figured I’d work at a publishing house or magazine before I became a famous author. Clearly things have taken a slight turn, but I like to think I’ve put my writing and graphic design background to some use. It’s been so much fun creating inspiration boards for some of my favorite books – of course there are the works of Sarah Addison Allen, and Harry Potter, not to mention one of my favorites: I Capture The Castle.

I’d love to continue the literary series with some more of my favorites – the next book on my reading list is AWinter’s Tale (which has sadly been gracing my bookshelves for years) but blogging on top of my marketing day job hasn’t left as much time for reading as I would like. When I do get a free day, my boyfriend and I like to adventure up and down the Central Coast of California. We go for long drives along the coast or through the mountains, and I’ve loved recapturing the beauty of this place! These days my Instagram is full of our latest escapade along the coast  – and, ok, a lot of pictures of our weird, ginger cat.

I’ve confessed this before, but I have a habit of watching action movies or ridiculous shows while working on Hey Wedding Lady! Utterly girly job aside, I have a deep and abiding love for movies where things blow up. One of these days I’ll have to figure out a way to design a gritty, chic event based on Die Hard, but recently my love of all things Bryan Fuller has taken center stage with my boards for Pushing Daisies and Hannibal (new season starts next week)!