Your wedding florist plays a key role in your wedding planning process. Traditionally, flowers are the most expensive and customized décor you have invested in for your wedding and flowers can enhance your wedding and bring it to a whole new level!!! Wedding Floral Designers have the unique task of seeing your inspirational images, getting to know you and your wedding vision, and then using their creativity, knowledge of floral design and personal style to create the wedding flowers of your DREAMS!! That all being said… there are a few things that your floral designer would want you to know about your wedding:

Pinterest. This website has become an absolutely massive source of inspiration and creativity for women and men all over the globe, and a the most popular topic searched on Pinterest is weddings!! Now don’t get me wrong- I LOVE Pinterest. I’m on it way too much, and I love looking at all things weddings, and house decor, summer drink recipes, fashion, DIY projects… The list goes on.  As much as I use Pinterest, there is a slight issue with it for brides browsing for wedding inspiration. Pinterest can (unknowingly) “set the bar” way too high for brides!! 

For today’s blog post I want to share another business time-saving secret! In my opinion, one of the biggest challenges facing a small business owner is lack of time, am I right?! When I first began CIE I don’t think I even fully realized how much time goes into keeping up a small business, and when I sat down to complete a task, I found myself getting side tracked and scrolling Instagram instead!! Before this year even began, I knew that I wanted to have a planner that supported my lifestyle and my needs. I had heard of the Simplified Planner before, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to purchase a $50 planner.  When they had their annual Black Friday sale though, I couldn’t resist, and bought one. And it has been a LIFESAVER. Just as a disclaimer, I wasn’t paid to promote or blog about the Simplified Planner; I just love it so much I had to share!!

I’m excited to share with you a system that I have been using for my business that has changed my life!! When I first started my business, I was also working a full-time job (like many others), and I remember my “work”” hours were SO verrrrrry limited. Tasks like emailing, creating custom proposals, contracts, invoicing and keeping up with payments are crucial to your small business being able to operate… but those tasks take TIME! Even back then, I knew that the way I was operating wasn’t the simplest way, and that I needed to make a change!! Before I introduce you to my secret weapon, I do just want to say that this company did not pay me to promote their product or write this post; I simply want to write it so that you know all about this system and how it can help YOU!

So in the spirit of being accountable to myself, I spent some time today thinking about my year-long goals, and my word of the year: simplify. January is wrapping up, and I can’t believe it’s gone by as fast as it did! It was a WHIRLWIND. I booked four new CIE brides, spent time creating floral proposals, executed our Norfolk Botanical Gardens styled shoot, and managed the day to day details of CIE. Not to mention, I have been very busy at my full-time teaching job, taking an intense online class for an additional certification and handling my students at school during final exam/SOL time. So this month, I’m pretty sure I have epically failed at SIMPLIFYING.

Hello! I hope you had a Merry Christmas (or a married Christmas) haha! Congratulations to all the newlywed couples out there that had their first married Christmas together! I did, with my husband Jason, and it was so much fun!! We had a blast shopping for each of our family members and friends and spending time with them this past week. We both have such great families, and I never want to take them for granted. Our Christmas memories are so fun, like the Alexander Ornament Exchange, my dad stashing cash in our Christmas gifts (this year was a Pillow Pet) and seeing family that doesn’t live close by! One of my favorite Christmas morning memories was opening up the custom vendor apron my mom made for CIE! I was SO excited to open that!!