How a Little Girl turned her Dreams into Dream Come True Weddings
Welcome to our very first blog, we are so excited to bring you behind the scenes of Your Sparkling Event and share our passion, creativity, and inspiration with you. For those of you new to our site, my name is Jenna (Smith) Wittbold and I am the founder and owner of Your Sparkling Event. One of my most #FAQs is how I officially got into the #eventindustry and why…so sit back, relax, and enjoy the story and learn why I genuinely #love what I do.
It all started back in Kindergarten, my birthday was fast approaching and my parents told me I could plan my own party. I was bright eyed, excited, and knew exactly what I wanted. I sat down with them and discussed in detail the theme, decorations, guest list, food options and of course the cake. I was blessed that they (within reason) allowed me to let my creativity shine. From that moment on, my passion was ignited and I couldn’t wait to start planning for the next year. While most five year old’s were asking for toys for Christmas, I asked for party planning books. I would sit in my room for hours looking at magazines and thinking of ways to create the perfect party. Luckily for me, I am one of five so before long, I was planning all of my siblings parties as well.
Fast forward to my Senior year of High School, I consider myself very blessed to have been given the opportunity to attend The Benjamin School and work with the college counseling team to pin point my passion and future career. I vividly remember sitting there with my mom and the counselor, taking tests and discussing what I wanted to do when I graduated. My generic answer? A pediatric doctor or a lawyer. Though my mom and college counselors believed in me and knew I would excel in whichever path of those I chose…they both saw right through those answers. It was very clear to them what I was destined to do and that my passion was for planning events. When they each suggested I considered event planning, I honestly thought they were crazy. My response? There is no way to make a career nor living through planning events. They both laughed and told me to give it a whirl and commit prior to college to see where it takes me. They knew what I was capable of and without their support, Your Sparkling Event would not exist. In applying for college, ‘event planning’ was such a new area of specialty in hospitality that many schools didn’t even know where to place my focus for courses. I generally stuck with hospitality as a major, until I found my other love at Appalachian State University, where they had a specific ‘event planning management’ as a concentration within the general ‘hospitality’ major. This was when my eyes opened and I went for it! All of the course loads were geared specifically towards business projects and while they were simply projects to my classmates, I took it seriously and was creating a website, LLC., business plan, contracts and marketing material that I planned to use upon completion of graduation to launch Your Sparkling Event.
That’s where it all began… At age twenty two, I moved back to Florida with a Bachelor’s Degree, my own company and dream job. Eight years later, Your Sparkling Event has proven to be an extremely successful event and wedding planning company in South Florida and across the country! I am so proud of how far we have come and look forward to what the future has in store for Your Sparkling Event. I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge my beautiful mother who constantly inspired, guided and believed in me and always reminded me to follow my dreams (even if they weren’t always the ‘cookie cutter’ path). She helped me build Your Sparkling Event and I vow to continue to always work hard, put my utmost effort forth each and every day in her honor.
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