I feel like this past week has been a dream… a really, really wonderful whirlwind of a dream. That’s because exactly one week ago I officially launched my very own little business, Kelly Golia Events.

Pinch me.

Over the years I’ve changed my mind – year after year, semester after semester, sometimes even day after day! – about what I wanted to be “when I grow up”. As a kid I doodled while dreaming of being an animator for Disney. As a teen I sketched floor plans in my spare time while making life plans to become an architect. One grueling semester of architecture led to three of graphic design, finally followed by a whopping four semesters of being a Human Services major after doing some traveling for volunteer trips. There were many, many other potential career ambitions in between, but you get the point.

Through all of the dreaming and planning and explaining yet another change of major to my horrified parents, two things remained consistent: I craved creativity, and I thrived on making other people happy.

Looking back, I realize now that almost all of those career/life ambitions were sung to a similar tune of “I love what I’m doing now! But if it weren’t for this, I’d love to be a wedding planner!”

It’s actually shocking that it took me so long to take this leap. Any time I’d hear of someone I knew getting engaged, I’d have borderline convulsions from pure joy and excitement (think Kristen Wiig as Sue on SNL… Yeah. Like that). Luckily I learned to tone it down a bit, but my feelings remained the same : I love love, and I love weddings.

Flash forward to my own wedding in September 2015. I never got tired of researching vendors or making timelines or designing inspiration boards (ask my bridesmaids about the creepy, err… I mean detailed photos I’d send of models in their bridesmaid dresses photo-shopped into our wedding venue, each with a bouquet in their hands. You know, just to see how it all was going to come together…) The point is, I loved every second of it.

After our wedding, we took a two week trip-of-a-lifetime honeymoon to Italy where I felt totally refreshed and inspired, and as I was sipping daiquiris in a lounge chair by the sea on the Amalfi Coast, dreaming of life-after-wedding, it clicked. OF COURSE I should become a wedding planner! Hasn’t my whole life led up to this?

As soon as we got home I started doing my research and creating lists upon lists of what I needed to do to make it happen. And that’s when I realized there’s also such a thing as wedding designers! What!? Can you believe that?

Basically, when it clicked, it clicked. There was no stopping me. I’ve been planning and list-making and dreaming and hustling ever since, and one week ago, I launched. This one short week has been a week of hard work and balance and learning and gratitude (shout out everyone who’s already sending me referrals!) and a little bit of fear and a lot of excitement. I can’t wait to see what this new adventure brings, and I just know that this first exciting, scary, fun, glorious week is going to be the first of many.

 

xo,

Kelly