Elana Walker has built up her empire in the Raleigh NC market. It started with her wedding planning company Elana Walker Events back in 2009, and has expanded to her inspiration blog Southern Noir Weddings, her Masterclass for wedding industry vendors, her month-of coordination company Carolina Fete, and she even co-authored a book…she really does it all. It seems like she never stops and always has ideas on how to improve and expand that empire.

Courtney Hopper and Dana Kadwell are sisters and serial entrepreneurs in the Raleigh wedding industry.  In this show, you’ll get a sense of what that means to really be an entrepreneur.  Courtney and Dana were willing to sell everything and go for it, knowing that their visions for their businesses would work. 

James Walters of Walters and Walters Photography has been in the wedding industry for 16 years, and he has some crazy stories to tell.  So he did!  

In 2013 he came out with the book, Accessory to Marriage: A Chronicle of Outrageousness from My Life as a Wedding Photographer.

In today’s episode, James talks about some of his favorite stories from the book and his code language when it comes to weddings, like who “Fluffy” and “Triple D” are.

Mikkel Paige is a wedding photographer and travel blogger, and she came on the show to give her Top 5 Destination Wedding Tips!

They are:

Destination Weddings can be Stressful! If you’re getting married and you need to be in control, a destination wedding may not be for you, because there is so much you CANNOT control.

Look Closely at your Contracts. A photographer might be included, but is that photographer right for you? And what if it’s not? Can you get a discount off of your package?

Review the Laws of your Destination. Are you allowed to get married there? Are there different rules based on the country’s laws on religion or gay marriage?

Don’t Forget Sunscreen! If you’re golfing or lounging or drinking or whatever before the wedding, use sunscreen. You don’t want the sunglasses or bikini straps showing in your pictures!

Consider the Weather. If you’re getting married on the east coast, a sunset ceremony is probably not going to happen for you. And if it’s windy that day, you can’t force pictures by the beach.

Shark Tank Winner Sara Margulis comes on the show to talk about her wedding to her Honeyfund partner Josh Margulis, how they came up with the business idea for Honeyfund, the company’s big break of being on Martha Stewart Weddings, the Something Wonderful Platform, the new partnership with Target, millennials, and some amazing vacations and excursions that they’ve taken.

Katherine Miles Jones joins Megan to talk about her career start in New York City, how she started in the wedding photography business, an amazing and breathtaking engagement shoot at the Rockefeller Center (see image below), the biggest regret of her wedding, the community of vendors and developing friendships with her competition, how she makes clients feel comfortable, her love of photography, how she recharges her batteries, and some crazy wedding stories, including photo shoots with Abraham Lincoln the alpaca (see image below) and Nacho the Donkey. 

“It was a hobby that turned into an obsession that turned into a business.”  That’s how Jared Plummer, the owner of Two Roosters Ice Cream, describes his start in the ice cream business.  He was experimenting and developing crazy concoctions of ice cream flavors in his apartment and bringing them to dinner parties, and then one day he decided to follow his passion.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

This quote, attributed to Maya Angelou, is how Ginny Corbett of Ginny Corbett Photography remembers what’s important on the wedding day. She wants to make sure that her clients are at ease and can take in the memorable moments, so when they look at a picture hanging on the wall from their wedding day, they remember exactly how they felt.