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Mike McAllen of Grass Shack Events & Media interviews Sasha Souza of Sasha Souza Events
Sashas Blog
About Sasha
Sashas Wedding Design Book:
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Transcripts:
Mike McAllen: Welcome back to the Meetings Podcast. This is Mike McAllen with Grass Shack Events and Media and today, we have event designer, author, speaker, Modern Bride’s Top 25 Trendsetter, Master Bridal Consultant given by the Association of Bridal Consultants, Event Solutions Spotlight Award winner, winner of Designer of The Year, Sasha Souza. Hi, Sasha.
Sasha Souza: Hi, Mike.
Mike McAllen: I just try to get through that intro. It was a tongue twister for me. You are based out of Napa Valley, which is very cool.
Sasha Souza: I am. Yes, Napa Valley.
Mike McAllen: And why don’t you tell us a little bit about your self and Sasha Souza Events?
Sasha Souza: Great. I have been planning mostly weddings and social events for almost 15 years. I have an office in Napa Valley. We have an office in L.A. We have an office in Tennessee now that just opened this year. We’ve been, you know, like I said, planning mostly weddings and social events and that’s our focus.
Mike McAllen: Very cool. So when did you open up your L.A. office?
Sasha Souza: That has been about three years and I man that office myself. But Tennessee, we have a girl in Tennessee who’s our planner down there but, you know, we’ve worked, you know, mostly weddings again from Tokyo to the Bahamas so we have, you know, clipboard-have-binder-will-travel type of a business.
Mike McAllen: [laughs] How did you get into this whole wedding business?
Sasha Souza: Oh, my goodness. The long story short is I started my business before Martha Stewart had a magazine and before the internet was what it is now. It was Prodigy and maybe AOL and randomly decided that I wasn’t satisfied in my internal audit career and had a background in theatre so found a book that was 101 Best Home-based Businesses and it had like, you know, underwater basket weaver and medical transcriptionist and one of them was bridal consultant. And I said to my family – I said, “I think I can do this job. I really do.” And the contact was for the Association of Bridal Consultants which I contacted, got their packet, took their training. I am 110 percent behind always getting more education for your business and for you. Personally, it’s the only way you can grow as a business and it has kind of been off from there. I think, you know, [Indiscernible] [0:02:43] came out, built my own website, things like that and now, it’s – I can’t believe, you know, 14 and a half, almost 15 years later.
Mike McAllen: Wow. So how do you – how did you get into marketing the business? Did you just right away find your first client to work with?
Sasha Souza: It was really the internet. I mean, at the beginning it was internet ads. You know, I took out ads and everything from the PennySaver to, you know, the local bridal magazines and just started getting calls, whether they were for, you know, partial service, full service weddings and as my business has grown, you know, in 2004, I hired a publicist and now we do – a 100 percent of our business comes from editorial work that we do.
Mike McAllen: Wow, that’s crazy.
Sasha Souza: I know.
Mike McAllen: Great story to hear how people get into their businesses and especially our event types business. So do you do other events also?
Sasha Souza: We do anything that’s social. So I’m not a corporate planner or a meetings planner but – and I never would ever pretend to be. That’s just not my forte. I’m much more on the drama end of things, you know. I like dramatic parties. I like dramatic people so – and, you know, much more dramatic than a bride.
Mike McAllen: Right.
Sasha Souza: Besides your mother.
Mike McAllen: Right. [laughs] So do you do much of your work in Napa Valley or in L.A. or where’s your – the most of your …
Sasha Souza: We do about 80 percent of our work in Northern California. The other 20 is somewhere else, whether it would be Mexico or L.A. or we’ve been to Chicago, New York, Miami, wherever that is but definitely 80 percent here. So my bed is in Napa. My point here was Starwood, you know.
Mike McAllen: Yes, how unfortunate you’re up at Napa. It’s such an ugly area.
Sasha Souza: It’s so terrible.
Mike McAllen: [laughs]
Sasha Souza: I don’t know. I just don’t know how I survive here.
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Sasha Souza: I don’t know, with the whole Napa Valley lifestyle, with food and wine.
Mike McAllen: Yes. So great, so wonderful. So I also see you’re a speaker and you’re speaking at the Events Solutions Conference and Trade Show in March of next year. You want to talk a little bit about your topic of wedding design from concept to completion?
Sasha Souza: I’m very, very excited and was so happy that Rachel and Caroline had asked me to give a session because again, I think that education is so important and what I wanted to focus on was when I go to a conference, I’m looking for a little bit higher level session that I can walk away with one or two things that I can apply to my business and one of the things I thought that would be a really good topic was, “How does the designer get there?” I mean you can see the pictures of the parties. They look beautiful and – but really, how is it that – as a designer, I go through my initial conversations with the client, you know, and I say to them, “Here’s what’s it going to be.” I really wanted to walk people kind of through what a creative person does to get there, whether it would be the design board, the schematics or anything of that matter. So for me, I felt like this is the right topic because I haven’t seen this in this format done prior.
Mike McAllen: Very cool.
Sasha Souza: Yes.
Mike McAllen: Yes. It looks very interesting. So do you do – do you actually like storyboard out things?
Sasha Souza: We do. You know, we do storyboards more for our work here in the office like an interior designer would do. What a client gets are more like inspiration boards so the initial inspiration of their party was going to look and feel like – especially for those that aren’t necessarily terribly visual people, it kind of gives them a mood, you know. So it’s more like a mood board in that way and then they also get a design board which has all of their [Indiscernible] [0:06:50] of linens and the chairs and the – you know, any other types of fabrics and has the schematic or a layout on it, you know. And then that kind of gives them the nuts and bolts portion of it, you know.
Mike McAllen: That’s so great because I know a lot of people do a lot of text writing that’s going to be like this and here’s your proposal, a few pictures and that’s such a great way to explain things to – for anyone in any kind of business. I know we do the same thing for proposals. We try and use, you know, images instead of writing because nobody wants to read. I think you hand somebody a proposal and they always flip to the end and they go, okay, here’s the price. [laughs]
Sasha Souza: Yes. Right?
Mike McAllen: So if you could put images, then they really can sell it.
Sasha Souza: It’s very true and the thing about me is – because weddings are not an RFP type of business, I don’t have to worry about somebody coming to me for a proposal, putting together an entire proposal for them. They’ve already hired me.
Mike McAllen: Right.
Sasha Souza: So I’m already on board. They already know – I already know what their budget is going to be, what it’s going to cost them. And then I’m just dreaming, you know.
Mike McAllen: That’s great. You’re right into the creative – that’s awesome.
Sasha Souza: Yes. So it’s not like I’m throwing something out there for them to copy.
Mike McAllen: Right. Right.
Sasha Souza: Yes.
Mike McAllen: So can you give us like five tips for planning a wedding? Something out there that you have that might help somebody who’s listening to the podcast right now?
Sasha Souza: Sure, of course. I feel that it is so important and anybody who’s planning a wedding, whether they’re planning their wedding for their first time, this is obviously not the bride and groom but, you know, the planners that are listening to this, are – you know, get to know your clients, number one. It’s a little bit different than doing it corporate because there’s a lot of emotional investment. So who is this couple that you are planning this party for? You know, what do they love? What do they wear? How do they vacation? You know, let’s find out a little bit about what they love to eat when they can – and what do they do when they do nothing at all? Those types of questions would appeal to a bride.
Number two, it’s so personal. Weddings in the last five years and I’ve seen obviously everything from white table cloth and peach napkins, you know, to these amazing things that wedding designers are turning out today. But, you know, the most personal things that you can incorporate into the wedding make it much more successful.
Number three, don’t think that the food has to be standard food. Okay? We put a lot of effort into our food and wine. You know, none of our brides are looking for a banquet experience even if they’re in a banquet facility. They are looking for a very specified, again, customized event that, you know, whether you make – you know the banquet facility does, you know, [Indiscernible] [0:09:48] as part of their, you know, family’s heritage or brisket or whatever it is that makes them feel comfortable and really showcases who they are.
Number three, invitations are so – or number four, sorry. Number four is invitations are so important. A lot of people think they just throw – people throw them away. I feel like it is the gateway to the event. Okay? And it really gives the guest a first indication of the style of events they’re planning – style of wedding and party.
Number five is consider your adjectives. I always ask my clients for five adjectives to describe their wedding and in those five adjectives, I hear fun is the first thing out of their mouth. Fun and elegant, you know, fun and romantic, fun and intimate, whatever it may be. But by really asking them that question, you’re going to get a very broad overview as to what they’re looking for and a baseline for where you want to go.
Mike McAllen: What a great question.
Sasha Souza: Yes. It really is and it’s funny. It came up – the five adjectives to describe your self was a question that I was asked by an interviewer when I was interviewing for the internal audit job at the National Lab I used to work for.
Mike McAllen: [laughs]
Sasha Souza: Right? And I’m like, what a great interview question. And so really – you’re interviewing your couple, you know. You really are. I mean, even if they’re interviewing you, you’re still interviewing them.
Mike McAllen: Very, very cool.
Sasha Souza: Yes.
Mike McAllen: Well, thank you. Those are great tips. So can you tell us also a little bit about the book you just wrote? Maybe the journey and what it took to write this wonderful book.
Sasha Souza: I am thrilled. We have a book coming out in January called Signature Sasha: Magnificent Weddings by Design and it’s one of the very first wedding books that focuses solely on the design of the party. There are no time lines in there. There’s no, you know, what you should do six months prior to your wedding. It is all design-focused. It is, you know, color. There’s a whole section, 36 pages on just color. There’s a whole section on setting the stage, on cakes and food and libations and lighting and there’s inspiration boards and then there’s eight real weddings that we’ve done where we talk about really the focus of what this client wanted and what it looked like so it’s kind of similar to what we’re doing, the concept to completion idea for Event Solutions in March.
But it’s a 256-page, four color, 9 by 12 design book and it retails for $50 and it’s really – right now, it’s January 1st and the journey was interesting because we were scheduled to do a book in 2007. But for many, many reasons, it just didn’t work out. The timing wasn’t right. The type of book I wanted to do wasn’t right, which was this book. Everyone was looking for a planner type of a book and I really felt like it was important to showcase beautiful photos of, you know, people’s appearance [Phonetic] [0:13:06] that are inspirational and very approachable. The book has a much more approachable design type of an aesthetic so it’s not designed by – you know, something that nobody can do. Everybody can find inspiration in this book for something.
And it was very cathartic to write it because it’s almost like looking back on your – 15 years of my life and what I’ve done in order to get where we are now. So, it was a great – a really great experience for me to go through. I did all the writing myself. I had a great editor and lay-out artist based in New York and yes, I’m super thrilled. I can’t believe it’s actually going to be in my hands in like two months.
Mike McAllen: Wow. That’s very cool. I like – I love the idea of having kind of the case study things too that people can look at how to – how it has been done. That’s fantastic.
Sasha Souza: I love it.
Mike McAllen: So first, I wanted to ask you, do you have your cell phone next to your phone?
Sasha Souza: I probably do somewhere.
Mike McAllen: Because I think that’s that little buzzing we’re getting. [laughs]
Sasha Souza: Oh, I can’t hear the buzz. You know what it is?
Mike McAllen: Oh, you can’t?
Sasha Souza: No, it’s the headset. I have a …
[Crosstalk] [0:14:21]
Sasha Souza: … but I’m not using it. It might be too close to my phone.
Mike McAllen: Now, it’s not there?
Sasha Souza: Yes. I moved headset away from the phone.
Mike McAllen: Fantastic.
Sasha Souza: Yes.
Mike McAllen: So – no, it’s okay. Tell us a little bit about your blog because I thought that’s interesting that you have a blog and a lot of companies are doing that now and what made you start it and what the benefits you think are for …
Sasha Souza: Yes. I am …
Mike McAllen: … your company and your self.
Sasha Souza: You know, I have a very good friend too who’s a videographer who is very technologically smart and she was saying to me, “You know, you really need a blog. You need a blog. You need a blog.” I’m like, you know what, I don’t have time for a blog. I have enough stuff to do than blog everyday and she’s like, “No, I really think that you should consider it and start reading someone here.” She sent me like her top 10 blogs and I started reading it and what I saw was that the difference between a person’s website and a blog was the difference between their brochure and their voice.
You know, your brochure shows who you are professionally and what you’re able to do for a client on a professional level. For me, I look at the blog as kind of, you know, the fun people that we are. It is reverent, it is funny, it is, you know, odd. There’s great, beautiful inspiration photos but it’s a mix of things that I find interesting and that really gave my voice to people so they could get a better feel for my personality and it has been incredibly helpful for me because, you know, potential clients will read my blog and I found that some of them have been reading it for like three and four months before they’re even engaged. And then they’re engaged and they’re like, “Oh no, I know who I want to hire,” and they come in and then I realize after talking to them that they already know me and they already know Melissa and they already know my company on a funny kind of interesting personal level instead of, oh, here’s all the, you know, fabulous parties we’ve done.
So it has been very important to me and so there’s Twitter. I am on Twitter and have 1600 somewhat followers, you know, who I chat with and I think that that gives a very personal side to you and with your peers which is really important.
Mike McAllen: So great. Yes, it’s funny how things are changing because you really can have a voice out there but that you can also – people – you’re accessible also. Someone can ask you a question …
Sasha Souza: It’s so important.
Mike McAllen: … on Twitter or on your blog, they can comment and you can actually have a – without having to make the big phone call and ask …
Sasha Souza: Yes.
Mike McAllen: You know, it’s such an interesting world that we live in now.
Sasha Souza: I know …
Mike McAllen: So how could …
Sasha Souza: Yes. The people could, you know, do their wedding planning in their night gown, you know, in the middle of the night. Well, I mean, now they can like go back to my Twitter feed and they could find things, you know and …
Mike McAllen: Yes.
Sasha Souza: … it really has upped my value in the wedding industry as being an accessible kind of, you know, normal person, you know. It’s – you know, I think it debunks the whole celebrity wedding planner aspect of it which is totally fine by me because I feel like I just – you know, I just want to have a good time doing this job and I like people and I – and a lot of us work alone and we work in our homes by ourselves. We work in an office with two or three people. This really gives you an opportunity to kind of have conversations with people outside …
Mike McAllen: Right.
Sasha Souza: … you know, your circle.
Mike McAllen: Right. Right. And don’t let it take over your time though too because this thing …
Sasha Souza: That’s true.
Mike McAllen: … suck it.
Sasha Souza: It can be a vortex of time. That’s true.
[Laughter]
Sasha Souza: But if you invest a little bit of time, it can really pay off in [Inaudible] [0:18:12].
Mike McAllen: Yes. Yes. Well, that’s the same thing with this that I’m doing for – my company to do this podcast and the blog that goes along with it, the same kind of thing. It has been really fun to be able to meet all sorts of people like your self, you know.
Sasha Souza: Yes.
Mike McAllen: When would I have ever talked to you really if we weren’t doing this podcast. I’m already married.
Sasha Souza: Oh, wow. So am I but that doesn’t stop me.
Mike McAllen: [laughs]
Sasha Souza: No, I’m kidding.
[Laughter]
Sasha Souza: You can delete that. Anyway …
[Laughter]
Mike McAllen: No. It gives you personality, I guess. That’s great.
Sasha Souza: [laughs]
Mike McAllen: So, how …
Sasha Souza: Wow.
[Laughter]
Mike McAllen: So how can people get a hold of you? What are the ways to get a hold of you?
Sasha Souza: Oh, my goodness. Okay. Well …
Mike McAllen: … the different ways.
Sasha Souza: You can tweet me as Sparkliatti. You can find me at SashaSouzaEvents.com. You can find out information about the book at SignatureSasha.com and I’m also on Facebook which is Facebook.com/SashaSouzaEvents and my blog is Sparkliatti.com.
Mike McAllen: Wow. Great. Alright, Sasha. Well, thank you so much for your time and …
Sasha Souza: Thank you.
Mike McAllen: … I hope we can do this again some time. I would love to talk to you again and see how when the book comes out and see what’s going on. I’m sure you have …
Sasha Souza: I’m all for that.
Mike McAllen: … lots of new stuff going on.
Sasha Souza: Yes.
Mike McAllen: So – alright. Well, thanks again and I’ll talk to you soon.
Sasha Souza: Thanks, Mike.
Mike McAllen: Okay, bye-bye.
Sasha Souza: Bye.