Midwest Finesse Blog, Updates, & More
October 17th, 2023
Mackenzie here, owner and founder of Midwest Finesse Wedding and Event Planning LLC. I thought I would share with the world what it has been like to start this journey of starting my own business.
Now, I could sit here and write out all the details as to how I did it, but there are hundreds of articles and blogs for that already. I want to more so share the feelings I have felt, and the struggles that I have struggled.
One thing that I have always been self-conscious about was the fact that I never went to a university or college. No one in particular made me feel this way, it was just my own thoughts. I was supposed to be the first in the family to go and make a name for myself. (That’s what I thought anyway). My biggest issue was that I couldn’t find that ONE thing that I was passionate enough about to spend all that money, time, and energy on.
So naturally, I did what anyone else would do in my situation. I entered the workforce. I started out at a small coffee shop where I worked my up to assistant manager. After that, I was in a warehouse working receiving for almost two years where I had become a Mentor before moving across the state of Minnesota to live with the man that is now my husband.
I worked some odd jobs between customer service and sales. Sales is where I seemed to finally get some sort of traction into what I actually liked doing. That was, until my husband I decided to move to Watertown, South Dakota in the spring of 2023.
He has a stable job, so we made the collective decision for me to be a stay-at-home wife. I did enjoy it quite a bit. I got to be with my pets all day, cook, bake, read, etc. However, there was always that underlying dread in my gut that I should be doing more. No matter how much my husband tried to convince me that I was already doing more than enough, I could not shake that feeling.
I started to reminisce about our wedding and the whole time leading up to it, which led me to thinking about how much I truly enjoyed being that busy and working towards a goal with an amazing payoff. (A.K.A. our wedding day).
Before I knew it, I was researching courses and certificates and gathering any information that I possibly could to become a wedding and event planner. I diligently chose a course that fit me, graduated in half the time expected, and immediately got to work on starting my business.
From then on, my biggest struggles have been going back and forth in my mind about whether or not I should actually be doing this. Does my area actually need someone like me? Will clients actually get in contact with me? These were some of the questions I asked myself that kept trying to get in the way of an amazing career that I am so excited for and passionate about. I simply kept chugging along, going through the motions.
After the internal struggles, as I pushed forward, I seemed to have hit a brick wall. I wasn’t sure what to do next. That is when the local Small Business Development Center helped me immensely. They were able to ease my mind, let me know that I was taking all the necessary steps, and give me all the information I needed to get closer and closer to the finish line.
So I started working on all the legal things, like tax documents and getting licenses. I built my website, got ideas for business cards, gathered information for a business bank account. Now here I am.
As of today, October 17th, 2023, I'm almost ready to take on my first client. I mainly just have to cross the T’s and dot the I’s at this point. And I could not be any more excited!
