What is this blog even about?

While working on my branding, I've posed the question "what kind of blog do I want to be?" a number of times, and I never really knew the answer! But I think that's okay. I'm sort of a mixed bag, and maybe it's necessary for me to write about lots of different things to generate enough content. I don't know. It's always been that way for me. I was never all business, I needed a little art. I love organized spaces, but my closet is definitely "organized chaos". Healthy eating is one of my top priorities, but somehow I find myself eating dessert daily (especially during pregnancy). The little part of me that's very "type A" loves a strict budget, my simplified planner, to-do lists, a clean car, sheets washed every Sunday and a meal plan I can rely on. It pushes perfectionism, it pressures me to do more, be better, work harder. I'm thankful for the part of my that's type A.

beauties.

But there's another whole half of me that's wildly and unapologetically type B. This side shines through when I decide to throw my clothes on the floor and leave my dishes out overnight, but it's also the part of me that feeds on inspiration, that helps me let loose and create things. When I can abondon my to-do list and go on a date with my husband and not feel guilty, when I step away from work, take a break from my exercise routine, throw together a floral arrangement or paint canvas for the nursery and actually like what I come up with. It's the part of me that writes on this blog, and that loves to cook without recipes and that lets loose and drinks fishbowl margaritas on Friday nights. I like this part of my personality. I'm thankful for the part of me that's type B.

So in the spirit of keeping things interesting, this blog is also going to have a split personality. Yes, I am a wedding planner. I love writing about weddings and spending hours pinning bouquets on Pinterest. But I'm also passionate about true love, dreaming big, goal setting, and my family. A little bit about me, a little about weddings, a little about baby, and a whole lot of random in there. It took me a long time to commit to blogging because I didn't know what to write about. I was afraid of sticking to a particular "theme". But I realized today that I want my blog to be a reflection of myself, and the same for my brand. And not just myself, but the best, most authentic version of myself. After all, when you hire me as a wedding planner you won't only get budgets and timelines, you'll get flowers, spraypaint and lots and lots of e-mails filled to the brim with excitement and passion. So there's that, a little bit about what this blog is even about. Will you stick around?

Surprise! A new look for Sincerely, Ginger.

Today I got my final logo proof from Juliet Jones (aka my new BFF) and it looked so stinking amazing that I have decided to re-work my whole launch. Details tomorrow, but for now just enjoy the beauty above....

 

UPDATE: Good morning, lovelies! As you can tell, I got pretty excited to see my final logo yesterday. I joked about Juliet being my new bestie, but truly honestly I wish I could just hug her. I hired her knowing how beautiful her work was, but feeling pretty anxious and vague about the concept I wanted. Not only was she so open to my ideas, but she made them better than I expected. We're still working on a few final touch-ups, but you guys, Sincerely, Ginger is coming to life. And it's better than I imagined.

 

 

 

So in honor of being way too excited, not being able to keep anything mysterious or build any type of excitement or hype around anything as a blogger, I'm going to launch my new site early. It's going to be a "soft launch", meaning that I'm going to switch over my blog to my new domain sincerelyginger.com, and start using the new business name. This blog will reroute to the new domain so expect to be redirected! Hopefully monday. :)

 

I can't wait to share all about the little strawberry, it's significance, and the big story behind the name and why it's so important to me. The small version is that it's my heart & soul in the form of a business. I've spent a lot of time thinking through each little aspect of my brand. By the time it's finished, it's going to be big. I decided early on that I was never going to enter this field and be mediocre. Average isn't for me. If I'm going to do something, I do it full out. It's the reason I've been putting off an official launch for so long! I didn't want to start until everything was just right.

 

True love is a big deal. Celebrating marriage is important. There is no way I am going to settle for a so-so planning experience. It has to be amazing, filled with joy, trust, inspiration and encouragement. It needs to be beautiful, better than you'd expect- but somehow exactly what you'd hoped for. Weddings are a big deal. Being a part of the journey to marriage, at least for me, is sacred. It's exhilirating, exciting, and really FUN. Sincerely, Ginger was inspired by natural light, summers along the coast of Lake Michigan, locally sourced & farm fresh food, love letters, putting a spin on tradition, the first blooms of spring, soft & romantic color palettes, gorgeous calligraphy, and of course... a little bit of sparkle. It's a blend of meaningful and beautiful, just like a wedding.

 

I don't have it all figured out. I'm still working on branding, designing a website and building an office with limited time and a super limited budget. It's worth it though. Some days I wonder if I should just let the business go. I would have more money, more time with my husband and baby (once he gets here), less stress. I could just work my part time job at the flower shop! But then my heart sinks and I think about my long term goals and why they are important to me in the first place.

 

By planning and designing weddings, I'm fulfilling my calling. My business is worth the time I'm spending right now figuring it all out. Eventually it will get easier and I won't be working 60 hours a week, pregnant, juggling 3 jobs. We won't always be sharing one car, sacrificing food for sleep. I won't be at my full time job forever (even though it feels like it some days). There is a brighter future ahead. It's closer than I realize. So that is why I'm not wasting any time on getting the elements of my brand in place. I'm doing this my own way, taking physical steps to make what matters happen.

 

Thank you so much for reading and sharing with my in my journey! I can't wait to show you the rest of what I've been working so hard on. Juliet, thank you a million times for the thought and care you put into designing my visual brand. It's simply perfect. Current & past couples, you keep the heart of my business beating. You inspire me daily, and seeing your wedding day come together makes my heart sing. So much love!

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Rachel

Branding Inspiration for Sincerely, Ginger Weddings & Events



Good afternoon, everyone! As you probably know, I've been working mega-hard on branding my business under my new name, Sincerely, Ginger Weddings & Events! The name fits me and my personal brand perfectly, and it's so important that visually that's represented. In my last post I talked about finding inspiration, and here I wanted to share more specifically how I was doing that for this huge project I'm working on. As Lara said in the webinar I attended, "A brand is not your logo!". I couldn't agree more.

 

I'm aiming to showcase who I am, and what I can offer brides as a wedding planner & designer. A logo is just part of that equation. Colors, images & how you write are just three little pieces of the equation. There's lots to thing about!

 

Sincerely, Ginger is about love. It's about appreciating and celebrating the little things that make life so special. Once I understood this, everything became more clear. I plan weddings in little Traverse City, Michigan to bring real love to the forefront of our daily lives, and I do it beautifully! I'm so proud to be able to do that for my clients.

Images sourced on my Pinterest Board

 

Here's a little snippet of my brand inspiration board. Before I even got to this place, I wrote my story. I thought about my grandma Ginger and what matters most to me. From there, I honestly just started pinning images that stood out to me, things that I evoked the feeling I wanted brides to feel when they're first introduced to me & my brand. Miraculously, a cohesive board came together... and I was like "this is the best thing ever". Looking at these images makes my heart burst.

 

Friendship, love, lightness, anticipation. Big smiles, happy hearts. Soft colors and big bold blooms screaming with color. Those peach juliet garden roses get me every time. :) I asked a few people for feedback about the board. I heard things like, "it's so YOU", and words like happy, feminine, inviting, pretty & pink. I think I got it right. Celebrate with me?

 

I could have probably made a smaller board to make it more aesthetically pleasing on the blog, but I didn't want to leave anything out. :) I can't wait to tell you all about who I hired to design my logo. She's pretty much the coolest, and I know she'll do a great job with such an important task. Because even though your logo isn't your brand, it IS a big part of it!

What do you think?

A Heaping Dose of Huge News!

Once I had the revelation that I was meant to be a wedding planner, an obvious step was choosing a business name. I knew that using my name (Rachel Moger) wasn't the path I wanted to take. It just didn't feel right. I also new that I wanted the name to be timeless, classic, and explain what I was doing! So I settled on Occasions, later Occasions Event Design and just said that's that. It was easy, communicated what I needed to say and also feminine (which is a big component of my brand). I had a logo designed (see above) and thought it was good enough.

 

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It was good enough, but I always had the feeling that it just wasn't me. It didn't explain my brand and my journey- Occasions was too vague and not unique at all. I had an itch to choose something different but nothing came to mind. For MONTHS I prayed about it and thought about it, did research, chose 15 words and tried to combine them into some trendy, girly business name. (Remember when they did that in Julie and Julia, for the book title? It worked for them!) It wasn't a good idea. My "ideas" were a product of my culture and surroundings, just mimicking event planners that I admired with my own special "twist". They were all too trendy, too posh, too something. They were just wrong.

 

After I attended a webinar hosted by the Making Brands Happen girls (Emily & Lara), the new business name that I'd been working on just hit me, and it was like nothing I had thought of before. Learning more of the importance of building your business from your CORE was so obvious yet extremely tricky to put my finger on.

 

I started thinking about what I valued about our own wedding (family & friends, flowers, Northern Michigan, local vendors) and what the most important thing of all was. LOVE. Joining in a sacred union with the absolute love of my life, celebrating the day we were joined together in Holy Matrimony so we can love each other and those around us even better. A beautiful marriage. That is what I want to inspire couples to aim for in their wedding planning process.

 

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I mentioned on the blog before that on the day of our rehearsal dinner my sweet Grandpa gave me a letter to read. It was written one week before my Grandparents' wedding. My Grandma Ginger wrote the sweetest note about LOVE, and GIVING, and how exited she was to begin their lives together. It was the sweetest thing. She passed on a beautiful June day from breast cancer when I was in 7th grade. Her life impacted me more than almost anything else, and her legacy is so strong.

 

In honor of my late grandmother, her beautiful life, her love for family and her love for love, my new business name will be Sincerely, Ginger. The name represents everything I love about wedding planning. It reminds me of what matters. Our memories together are my most cherished. She was so beautiful. Obviously, the exact name of the business I got from the letter I read, which is my most recent experience feeling the depth of her love for me and our family.

 

 

Over the next few weeks I'll be writing about some of my favorite memories with her and how they relate to my mission as a business. I'm so excited about this news- I could just burst! It's all coming together for me in a big way. I can't wait to share more.

 

Sincerely,

Rachel

The Stress of Measuring

This post is inspired by what I read this morning on Leo Babauta's blog, Zen Habits. As you know, this year I've been focusing on living an intentional and fulfilling life. My time is spent designing my "ideal day" and closing in on what really, truly fires me up. Thanks to Making Things Happen (Lara, Emily, and Gina are superstars) I've gotten some much needed clarity on what this means for me and my business.

Leo's post talked about the stress of measuring- why we are constantly tracking everything by a number. How many miles did I run, tweets sent, likes on my facebook, hours slept, etc. His examples were supreme and really hit home for me. Especially ones like, calories consumed, e-mails sent, etc. I started to think about what I measure. It was time for me to "get real" (a phrase that my husband loves). Clients booked, dollars in my bank account, "real life" friends, twitter followes, body weight, items on my to-do list. My friends, these are all very real parts of my life that either make or break my mood. It's not easy to come to terms with my fears. I can feel my heart start to race when I think about my bank account being drained or not booking clients or gaining weight over the holidays. Is that what I value? Lara said that to name your fears is to destroy them.

Since I've finished school and started this journey of building a business, a marriage and a life in a new city, I've been so thoughtful of each step. Planning everything so carefully, to the point of praise by my friends and family. It was only this morning that I took a giant step back and realized that I am not following my intention of authenticity by measuring each and every thing in my life. Planning out the next 10 steps will get me nowhere if I'm not happy and making the right things happen in that moment. I know that's what will make my long term intentions come to fruition.

A few weeks ago I turned down my first client. It was really, really hard for me to do. She was amazing and truly looked like my ideal client. When I went home from our initial meeting, I got this nagging feeling that it just wasn't right. For one, it could have been great financially for Occasions, it was a large event and would have taking a lot of time and creative thought. Serious thought went into it and eventually I let her know that I wasn't going to be able to serve her in the way that she deserved, or give her the level of service that I pride myself on- for a number of reasons. After I sent the e-mail I immediately felt better, relieved. My number of "clients booked" wasn't increasing, but I felt so much better and like I was doing the right thing. I was turning down this client to make room for something bigger and better, but not in the traditional sense. In business school, we called this "opportunity cost". In my heart of hearts I knew my business wasn't ready to handle the wedding this client needed. And by reccomending another vendor in my area that will truly knock it out of the park, it was a win-win situation.

I hope that as Occasions grows into the elegant, fun, flower loving, rose-colored, rustic-but-refined brand that I've been dreaming of and creating that I can continue to make tough decisions on behalf of my intention. In other areas of my life I hope I can slow down and enjoy the little things. Isaiah and I are headed to Mexico for the next week and I cannot wait to hug my mother in law and dig my toes into the sand. Things not on my packing list: laptop, alarm clock, to-do list. Instead I'm going to wake up each morning, practice some gentle yoga and put my swimsuit on. We're going to walk to the cafe down the street and eat fruit, toast and coffee before we head to the beach with our books and towels. I'm going to soak in each moment with the people dearest to me. I can't wait for that quiet time. It'll be the perfect way to spend Thanksgiving.

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Next week on the blog, some really exciting news. I cannot wait to share with you all!