It’s New Year’s Eve, and as always, I’m feeling very retrospective.
As 2020 rolls in and I’m looking at a full calendar of weddings, I am feeling incredibly proud of how far I’ve come in the past 10 years.
Because of this, I thought it would be fun to reminisce on my past 10 years.
10 years ago, my husband and I were just getting through our first year together. It wasn’t a fairy tale year, that’s for sure. We had a really topsy turvy relationship for a while, and it resembled a romance novel: “bad boy with a past of breaking hearts falls for smart, introverted book worm (literally-I worked at Barnes and Noble), but doesn’t know how to handle a relationship. Chaos ensues as he wrestles his feelings for her.”
Seriously, it was rough. But as our first year together was coming to a close, big things were ahead on the horizon.
We moved in together by February and began figuring out this thing called life together.
My husband was working at his tree company by day, and bartending by night. I was going to school, and working full time as a before and after care manager. I was planning on becoming a teacher, but eventually realized I just couldn’t handle a 9-5 job. I hated that I was smarter than everyone yet couldn’t do anything about it because I wasn’t the boss.
Mr. Wild Soul proposed to be in the Bahamas in November of 2011, I graduated college in May of 2012 with a BA in Anthropology and a certificate in Non-Profit Management, and was working as a bank teller, and then a full time pre-school assistant teacher. Both paid around $8/hour, and the going was tough. I was finding it pretty difficult to find a full time job that paid well in the non-profit sector, but then the non-profit I volunteered on the Board of Directors for began looking for a new secretary, and I secured the position.
By May of 2013, just one month before we got married, I got my first full time job as a non-profit secretary and was making around $23,000/year.
We got married on June 1, 2013, and this was a day that will forever live in infamy for me. So much of our wedding planning process and the day of our wedding was plagued with drama and sadness.
I didn’t start therapy for a while after the wedding, but eventually found the right person to help me figure out my emotions surrounding my wedding day.
A few months later, I picked up a camera for the first time to take my friend Sammi’s maternity photos. Everyone went crazy for them, and thus, Big Sky Photography (my old name) began.
I shot my first wedding in May of 2014, and was IN LOVE. I believe I shot 2 weddings that year, but unfortunately my full time job caused me to have to work Saturdays, so I couldn’t take on a lot. I had 2 weddings in 2015, and I wanted to take on more.
Knowing in my bones I wanted to make more money AND not work weekends so I could take on more weddings, I got a new full time job mid-2015. At this job, I was making $31,000/year plus bonuses, and it was the most soul sucking, but most important to my personal development. I stayed in this position from mid-2015 to mid-2016.
The year working this job was soooo stressful. Mr. Wild Soul had JUST gotten his first initial injury, and needed my help a lot, all while I was struggling to be a rock star at work and keep up with their demands. I couldn’t take all the pressure anymore, and figured it was time for something new.
I got invited to interview in a position for a part time Director of a non-profit, and it was this job that allowed me to take the big leap into my business. From 2016-mid-2017, I worked part time and HUSTLED for my photography company. In only made around $12,000 in this part time job, and my company offered additional income during this time, but nothing major! There were many times where I was afraid we wouldn’t have money to eat, and our electricity almost got turned off a couple of times. But I was determined to make this company work.
It was around this time as well that I rebranded to Wild Soul Weddings, and we added videography to our list of services.
While I was happy to FINALLY use my degree, and be the Director of a non-profit (it was small, but still counts!), I knew my heart wasn’t in this job, and that my heart was waiting for me to go full time with my photography company. I also knew that I had a BIG year ahead: in 2017, I scheduled 37 weddings. WHEW 37 WEDDINGS IS A LOT OF FREAKING WORK!
So, I quit and became fully self employed in June of 2017:
THAT my friends is the face of a woman who worked her ASS off to build something special.
By the end of our 37 wedding year, I was pretty tired, but enjoyed a few months off in the winter. And barely made any money in 2017...only $26,000, So I raised my prices.
At this point, I knew I had something special going. All of my life experiences, from being a camp counselor, to a pre-school teacher, to being a bride who needed therapy for a whole freaking year after her wedding was giving me the skills I needed to help my couples have the best freaking wedding day ever.
At the end of 2018, we were nominated in 3 categories o the first annual Wedding Choice Awards, and in January, Brittany and I represented the company with our beaus to win a bronze, silver, AND Gold awards.
In 2018, we had 27 weddings, and Wild Soul Weddings grossed $93,000 as a company, which blows my freaking mind. I paid a lot to our associates and second shooters, so of course, I didn’t make all of that as personal income 😉 We had about $46k in expenses, and therefore, around $47k in personal income. I raised our prices again because I was SO EXHAUSTED after this year.
I had 5 months off of weddings from our 2018 season to our 2019 season, and I desperately needed it. Do you feel tired after your wedding? Well that’s how we feel almost every weekend, and it takes its toll.
In 2019, I started to really find a better balance at work and play. This is really difficult for me because I want to provide the BEST for my clients, and I feel guilty living my life while I have work to do. But I know that I became an entrepreneur so I could control my own time, so I worked harder to actually LIVE instead of be chained to my desk all the time.
I actually batch work now based on the phase of my menstrual cycle, which has allowed me to tap into my natural energies perfectly. It’s not a flawless system yet, but I have a feeling it will be even better in 2020.
In 2019, we had 25 weddings and grossed $78,000. We did less associate weddings, which accounts for the gross income, so my personal income stayed about the same or even increased a bit! However, by the end of 2018, we only had a partially full calendar, so I had to hustle to book weddings the entire year. I booked many weddings only a few months beforehand. Constantly hustling to find the right clients can get tiring.
In 2020, we are currently sitting at $70,000 for 18 weddings, and I could not be more thrilled. I am going to be working the exact amount that feels good to me, and making an amount of money that feels abundant to me. We only have one associate wedding booked this year, so 2020 is shaping up to be my most profitable year yet personally.
My favorite part of this is that we are ALREADY full, with the capability of adding a few more weddings. But I don’t need to hustle to fill my schedule all year! What a relief this has been!
This has allowed me to have enough energy to bring to life a few dreams that I have been holding in my heart, waiting for the right time to be born:
I will be opening the doors to the Hot Sexy Marriage Club, a monthly membership program for women who want to have a strong, sexy marriage, and will also be releasing my Journey to Becoming a Sexual Goddess e-course, a course for women who are ready to have an incredible and satisfying sex life with their long term partner or spouse.
As you may have read in my previous post, my husband and I were on the brink of divorce about 3 years ago, and we have spent the past 3 years figuring out the exact ways to build a strong marriage. Our sex life went from great to out of this world, and I can’t wait to teach others what we have learned.
My big business goal for 2020 is to HIT SIX FIGURES!
Building this company has been a rollercoaster, emotionally, physically, financially. But it is finally becoming all that I have hoped it would be! I am making exponentially more money while working for myself doing the thing that I am so passionate about. I basically get paid to be a wedding crasher and I feel so thankful every day to the girl I was back at the beginning of the decade. Even though she had no idea what she really wanted to be when she grew up, she kept following her heart and her intuition, and created something amazing.
I could not have gotten to where I am without my HUSBAND constantly supporting me through all the highs and of course the lows, and I definitely could not have gotten here without my best friends, Sally and Brittany.
These two beautiful and wild souls have been with me since before I went full time. They encouraged me to keep on, to charge what I’m worth, and have been the biggest assets to my company. I love you girls!
For ease, here is a graphic I made to show my income from college until now:
I know that we will be making even more in 2020, and I cannot wait to see what is in store for Wild Soul Weddings, and for my family.
Thank you to anyone and everyone who has been a part of this wild and crazy journey! We love you so much!
CHEERS TO THE NEW YEAR!
La Rae and Chris Randall
The Wild Souls