When running a wedding stylist business, the day to day operational tasks can often take up far more time than your actual weddings. Below is an example of what a typical week running a wedding styling business would look like for me.
First thing every single morning I would reply to any urgent emails from brides and work through any new enquiries. I believe that new enquiries should always be replied to within 24 hours. Once I had my morning coffee made it was straight into emails for the first hour or two of every morning. Having a clear inbox for me was like having a clear desk space and I knew once this job was taken care of I wouldn’t need to check my emails again until later in the afternoon. I also tried my best to structure my weekly tasks into key categories and allocated each group of tasks to a specific day which helped keep my weeks well organised.
A typical week might look a little like this –
Monday – Invoicing
Often my client consultations were done on a Friday or Sunday (or occasional Saturday when I didn’t have weddings on). This meant that my Mondays would typically be spent putting together quotes and proposals. My goal was always to have a quote back to a bride within 2-4 days max. Sometimes this was difficult if I needed to wait for pricing from other vendors but I always tried to have at least 90% of the quote completed and ready to send off to my couples within a few days after the initial consult.
Tuesday – Accounting!
Accounting for me was the area I most disliked about running a business but staying on top of this task was so important in working towards having a successful business.
There were always a few key tasks I liked to complete on this day. Firstly, if I had just done a wedding from the previous weekend I would often spend 20 mins or so doing a mini profit and loss. This was a great way for me to continue to work on my pricing and services. Tuesdays were also when I did my weekly payroll so a great day for me to tackle all my other accounting tasks at the same time. I would make sure any receipts had been entered in my accounting system, outstanding invoices had been followed up and any outstanding suppliers had been paid. Once a quarter this day was also solely dedicated to completing my GST return.
Wednesdays – Marketing
Everything Marketing! In the early stages of starting my business I would spend a whole day every single week solely dedicated to marketing. I know this may seem like a lot but in my opinion it was very necessary to continue to grow my business.
My marketing activities for the day normally included –
- Scheduling a week’s worth of Instagram & Facebook posts including editing any images that needed to be used for the week
- Writing and scheduling 2 blog posts for the week
- Uploading any recent weddings/styled shoots to my website
- Checking any active ads running and how they are progressing such as Facebook Ad’s, Google AdWords, directory listings etc.
- Having a quick look at my analytics across Google, Instagram and Facebook
- Planning for any upcoming styled shoots or wedding fairs
- Sending weddings/styled shoots to publications or blogs for feature
Thursday – Client Work
This day would typical change depending on if I have weddings/events on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Whether I had an event coming up or not Thursday was a day for me to spend the morning focusing on any client work. I would contact vendors and confirm details for upcoming weddings, work on timesheets, run sheets, floor plans, styling proposals etc. Normally I would also need to spend time sourcing items or even creating my own props for upcoming weddings. I can’t remember how many times I spent this whole day cleaning hire pieces or putting together signage for weddings!
I liked to have all my office work wrapped before Friday so Thursday’s are often spent finalising any details and double checking through everything before it gets sent off to my clients or vendors I’m working with.
To read more about what a typical weekend looks for when I have weddings on please check out this post here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Former Creative Director and named one of Australia’s Top 25 Wedding Stylists, Lisa Macale is an integral member of our Academy Tutor team. Lisa is passionate about mentoring students as they make the transition from student to successful business owner. She now also offers wedding business coaching via www.lisamacale.com
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