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We sat down with Alexandra, owner and lead designer at Alexandra Madison Weddings in Columbia, SC, for an interview about the company. Growing up, Alexandra always loved and was passionate about weddings. She would collect Martha Stewart Magazines and loved entertaining. She credits her love of entertaining to her mother, who, she says, would always throw fun, themed parties. In college, she studied Public Relations at the University of South Carolina. In 2013, Alexandra decided she wanted to follow her love of weddings and create Alexandra Madison Weddings. This led to her going into training for venue management, client relations, catering, rentals, and wedding planning. She received this training, as well as wedding experience, in Santa Fe, NM, Los Angeles, CA, South Carolina, and Georgia working with venues, other planners, and catering. In 2017, Alexandra Madison Weddings began servicing brides full time. Alexandra Madison Weddings now averages about 40-60 weddings per year.
What is a typical work day like?
“A typical work day varies from day to day. Monday through Thursday is typically spent in office meetings, walkthroughs for couples at venues, going to rental companies, vendor meetings, and budget meetings. After spending the day in the office, I like to listen to wedding podcasts, read articles, and scroll through Instagram and Pinterest looking for the latest trends and ideas for event planning.”
What is the most enjoyable part about your job?
“The most enjoyable part of being lead planner and owner of Alexandra Madison Weddings is being able to see the vision and design being executed on the wedding day. I also love the overall design process. Creating a new vision for each person I work with and helping to make it their own is one of my favorite parts of the process.”
What are the most rewarding parts of the job?
“There are many parts of wedding and event planning that I find rewarding. One of the most rewarding parts is being able to see the weddings turn out how the wedding couple and I envisioned them, and see the design come to life. In addition, having the parents of the bride and groom come up to me and tell me how much they appreciate my work and how great I did with the whole process makes me feel the most accomplished.”
What does the future of wedding planning look like?
“The future of wedding and event planning is constantly changing based on current trends and world events. The biggest change in planning that I think will greatly impact the work my team and I do in the future is couples paying for their own weddings. I am seeing more and more couples paying for their own wedding instead of their parents paying. This is causing a lot of wedding budgets to be smaller because the couples are not as advanced in the work field, especially if they are a younger couple that just graduated college. The smaller budgets are going to cause planners to have to adjust their pricing and services to couples budgets.”