Khloe Jackson founded Wildflower Weddings Planning in 2017 when she was just 23 years of age. Khloe had always been entrepreneurial-minded and fueled with a Business degree from the University of Chattanooga she gained the confidence to start a wedding planning business from the ground up. Many businesses in this industry are known as hobby jobs, but her vision was always focused on something bigger. With the outline of an agency mapped out in industries like Real Estate, she strived to bring this same business structure to the events industry. Today, Wildflower Wedding Planning staffs three wedding planners under the brand. Khloe poured her heart and soul into training the planners on the team to execute a wedding better than she can do herself.
“I’ve always had the mindset to run a business, and combined with my passion for wedding planning – I am the perfect person to scale a business in my field.”
The planners at Wildflower Wedding Planning benefit from the seven years of experience Khloe has had in planning events and the mindset she teaches to find overall fulfillment in your career. They are trained with both hands-on experiences in addition to hearing knowledge from more experienced planners on the team. Khloe has a trusted and proven method for running successful weddings that she shares with the mentees.
“Having passion is not something I can train, but for those that hold a drive to be a wedding planner can be quickly involved in weddings rather than working their way up the ladder the traditional way.”
Most wedding planners that start their own business start off by charging next to nothing for their services to gain a clientele and gain exposure with other vendors. Typically clients that are accepting these services are what we can “budget brides” in the industry and have expectations that far surpass the capabilities of any one person. If you can make it out of this phase without a bad rap, planners can enter into getting contracted help for wedding days. Slowly they are able to charge more and pay for the help that is needed.
“It took me about a year of wedding planning being my side hustle to get to a point of working in my business full time. Six months after that I brought on help full-time to assist in the momentum we quickly gained.”
With signing on with Wildflower Wedding Planning, planners are able to skip all of that and dive into executing quality weddings with quality brides. They receive template wedding documents, one on one mentoring, a pipeline of leads, and guidance on how to build their book of business. Khloe built this structure based on all the things she was looking for when she was researching wedding planner positions in the area. It is a perfect platform for aspiring wedding planners that have an entrepreneurial spirit, but want to “skip pass go.”
“My hope for all the wedding planners is to continue to be hungry in growing their book of business in a way that allows them to earn more money and satisfaction in their role of helping clients with such an important day in their lives”
Today, Wildflower Wedding Planning has expanded its services from its home base in Chattanooga, TN to all brides in the Southeast area. Khloe’s role in the company is now focused on her true love of growing a business while the Wildflower Wedding Planners maintain what has already been built. In 2021, her team is driven to take the company to the next level by pursuing more luxury weddings, adding honeymoon coordinating services, and offering decor options to their clients.
“The pandemic of 2020 was quite the shock, but I like to say we were lucky that our couples were determined to find a way to unify their love and move forward with a celebration without canceling.”
There were so many different plan B’s they thought up for their clients during Covid-19. During the stay-at-home order, they worked with their couples to reschedule the wedding and all its vendors to a later date. Not knowing how long it would last, they saw couples either choose a 6 month or 12-month delay. In June, the company began executing what is now coined today as “micro-weddings.” A micro wedding is a wedding that includes all the aspects of a wedding you know of today but scaled down to accommodate 50 guests or less. These weddings would include the closest friends and family to the couple and portray all the necessary safety precautions outlined by the CDC. They planned for hand sanitizer at every table, monogrammed mask favors, plated meals, and socially distanced tables to make it through the Summer.
“Now that the vaccine is more readily available for all, we are seeing the wedding world slowly go back to normal. People are optimistic and ready to celebrate what life was like pre-pandemic. It’s an understatement to say that 2020 was a challenging year, but I never gave up on my clients or my team. I didn’t know when the pandemic would be over, but I kept a level head in knowing that eventually, it would.”