Shafonne Myers, Wedding Revolutionary
Shafonne Myers of Making Your Event Special, L.L.C. is the live wire organizer every bride and groom want working for them. She’s charming, meticulous, and enjoys a wide network of professionals who excel at putting polish on every facet of a gala event. In touch with trends and our times, Shafonne considers and gracefully solves issues some wedding planners would gloss over. Remarkably innovative, she offers bi-monthly socials where couples mingle at an area hotspot, discuss elements of their impending nuptials, and become better prepared for their big day. Shafonne is a singular matchmaker, bringing couples together with the wedding of their dreams.
The Claim: “I am in the process of revolutionizing wedding planning in Richmond. I am providing services to brides and grooms that no other wedding planning company is doing.”
The Proof: Shafonne is behind Virginia’s first Wedding and Event Planning Institute, a radio talk show, airing Wednesdays at 7 p.m. on www.LoveBroadcasting.net. The show can also be streamed from her Website, www.MakingYourEventSpecial.com.
Dossier: Graduated Freeman High School, 1997, and Mary Baldwin College in 2001 with a B.A. in Biology. She began by planning her own wedding, and then offered to do a friend’s, who was her Web designer. She’s been a professional wedding planner for almost two years. Six months ago, she formed her Limited Liability Corporation for “Making Your Event Special.”
Home: Shafonne married her high school sweetheart, Jimmy. They have one daughter, Saniya Alexis, who is 2 ½. “My husband is wonderful,” Shafonne says. “He really is. I try to make sure Sundays are the one day I spend with the family.”
The Innovator: “Etiquette is there to show how to do something and how it can be. It’s not there to show you how you must do something.”
Singular Specialty: While in an effort to save money, couples often scale down the level of involvement they seek from a wedding planner, Shafonne affordably offers her expertise to those who still want her discerning eye and savvy problem-solving. With “Day-of-Wedding Services,” Shafonne will enter the process at the penultimate stage, zero in on what needs to be done, and voila!
Actually Shafonne begins her scrupulous coordination before the big day. “It starts a month before the wedding,” she says, “I take over all the vendor information, contact them, review all contracts, and then I compose a Wedding Day Itinerary and a Wedding Day Agenda.”
Typical Workday? There isn’t one. But the common denominator to any day, Shafonne says: “Lots of phone calls, personality and organization. I’m very bubbly. But when it comes right down to it, I can be very put together, very stern.”
Marketing Missus: Shafonne is a regular contributor to Urban Views Weekly, and she says, “People want to learn. People want to know. If you give them this information, you’re essentially marketing yourself just by giving them information.”
Challenges: “I’m the one who owns the company. I’m the one who has to make every decision.”
4-Year Goal: To franchise. She is going to expand her workshops to include Virginia Beach, Roanoke, and other cities in Virginia.
Join Shafonne Myers Sep. 28 at Blackfinn, 1001 Haxall Pt, for one of her Wedding Planning Socials. This week’s agenda: Tour the area’s limousine companies!
