We’ve seen the film, but in this episode we meet real-life wedding planner from North Carolina, U.S.A., Megan Gillikan. Along with running a successful wedding planning business for luxury clientele, Megan is also a podcast host (“Weddings for Real”) and founder of “The Planner’s Vault”, an online site for wedding planners in the first five years of running their business.
Deciding that her childhood dream of becoming a pastry chef was a non-starter, Megan earned a degree and MBA in Hospitality & Tourism Management and started her career on the front desk of The Marriott Hotel in Washington DC. This was, bu her own admission, a huge learning curve in both management and life skills, which eventually led her to a Banquet Operations role working with event planners.
Just three weeks after getting married, she attended what she thought was a job interview and ended up buying a wedding planning business. This was unplanned but arguably the making of her – but it wasn’t without some significant early challenges. It took a lot of work and many sleepless nights to turn it around into the successful business it is today.
Dedicated to making life easier for her fellow wedding professionals, Megan shares the wisdom she has learned, much of it the hard way, from her experiences in the industry. She also shares with us some of her favourite moments, the importance of recognising whether you are a visionary or integrator (both equally important), and why it is so important to be able to prioritise and not forget who you are as a person.
