Wedding Industry Interns: Let the Circle be Unbroken

I'd like to think that I made a pretty rockin' intern back in the day.

On day 1, I always showed up fresh faced and eager to learn. Grunt work? Menial tasks that no one else wanted? Yes please. I spent my sophomore summer at an unpaid internship with the local United Way and taught myself Quark Xpress and then proceeded to design an entire marketing campaign while my boss was on sabbatical.

After my senior year, I packed two bags and made my way to the Nike World Headquarters (check number one off of the life bucket list) and despite the many generous opportunities they threw my way, I still asked for more work.

What always got me, however, was the general lack of enthusiasm about my presence. People! I wanted to shout, I'm educated, train-able and FREE. Yet I sat there, often underutilized.

So this summer, I decided to make things right and take on the lovely Shelley from JMU as OFD's very first intern. Shelley initially had impressed me by writing me a thoughtful thank you note following my presentation to her PCMA chapter.

I was thrilled- eager to show her the ropes and life beyond the blue stone. She was smart, ready to learn and enthusiastic about the wedding industry. I hearted her on site.

To seal the deal, I asked her to meet me for a final interview one weekend in Richmond. My new office was not quite ready so I selected a restaurant nestled in my neighborhood. Little did I realize we were dining post Monument 10k (non Richmonders: one of the top ten 10ks in the country) and the restaurant was jam packed.

So poor 20 year old Shelley had to interview at the bar. For her very first internship. Lovely.

And thus began the whirlwind summer. Officially going full time. Constantly changing appointments. Stubborn old lap tops. New clients. National accounts. The launch of an inaugural wedding event. Last minute meetings in my car. Networking and impromptu 30 second elevator speeches. Essentially, the life of a small business owner.

Suddenly, my master plan for weekly meetings, inspiring talks- heck an actual schedule, started to slip away. When push came to shove, my clients had to come first. And there Shelley sat- a boat load of potential. Suddenly, I started to sympathize with those who had hired me all of those years ago.

Interns are a wonderful opportunity to grow your wedding business while sharing on the job experience so often needed and appreciated by college students. Working with Shelley has been a rewarding experience and with this summer comes a few lessons for what I'm now affectionately dubbing the OFD Internship Program/Fast Track for Why you May Want to get out of the Wedding Industry.

1) A commitment to organization early on in the process. I fell prey very quickly to the "I'll work on it when I have more time." I would have been far better off by creating a schedule and list of projects as soon as the internship agreement was signed. I have no doubt that I would have been far more likely to stick to it, if it was part of the initial ground work.

2) Embrace the chaos. Those who know me will tell you that I'm a classic Type A personality, down to my color coded excel spreadsheets. Somehow I managed to balance this effectively during my chaotic years in the event industry. Ordered chaos as I liked to call it. When I made the OFD leap, I naturally assumed I had left that behind. Instead, I was able to see through Shelley's eyes that not only had the chaos followed me- it was officially a part of my existence, and I had gotten used to it. My wedding industry clients live in it, so why in the world would my life be any different?

3) Let "it" go. "It" could be a number of things- programs that needed bows, contracts that require creation, you name it. One may assume that I had trouble letting go of every day tasks due to the no so little control freak inside of me. Instead, I had trouble delegating because I didn't want anyone to have to handle the menial every day tasks. It took me all summer but I finally realized that part of the internship experience is giving myself more time to develop my business, while someone else can worry about the program bows. Lesson learned.

So with these new found revelations, I'm excited to welcome Intern Ariana to the OFD family for the Fall semester. I've broken my own "JMU only" rule as Ariana immediately impressed me with our mutual love of PR, mad writing skills and general eagerness to take this industry by storm.

As for my beloved Shelley, we're painting the town red tomorrow with a big thank you dinner and toast (sparkling cider mind you) to her future endeavors, as she makes her way to JMU. And the hope, that if we do find each other down the road, we won't have to interview at a bar.

Until next time,
Meghan

Meghan Ely is the owner of OFD Consulting, a niche marketing and public relations group servicing the wedding industry. She is also the Managing Director of the Richmond Bridal Association, Contributing Writer to Virginia Bride Magazine and has a regular column in the Richmond Times Dispatch, Wedology 101: the Reality of Being a Bride.