EPISODE SUMMARY
Today we are welcoming Julie and Courtney of Invision Events onto the podcast. We are diving deep with them about how you can serve luxury vendors. Learn how they grew their business together by nurturing their own passions, complementing each other’s strengths and supporting the community around them. They will also give great advice for vendors while working with planners, and designers on the actual wedding day.
MEET THE INVISION EVENTS TEAM
Julie Bunkley is the owner & creative director of Invision Events, a Birmingham, Ala. and Atlanta, Ga. based design and plan firm. A PR and design maven as well as a longterm, strategic visionary, Julie’s aesthetic and passion for building a brand is well over a decade in the making. Her eye is always on the long game, reminding us that a sustainable and successful business is a marathon and not a sprint.
Courtney Wolf is Invision’s principal planner and is a business and life coach wrapped up in a wedding planner’s body. Dubbed a “personal trainer for your small biz” and a “small business therapist,” her background includes a degree in Marketing as well as her MBA. With this lens, she views our industry objectively and runs all things operational and client facing for Invision.
Together they serve couples from coast to coast and are known for their refined and tailored aesthetic as well as their thoughtful and intentional approach. Featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, People, The New York Times, Fortune, BRIDES, In Style and Bridal Guide, they’ve been named by Southern Living as one of the South’s Best Wedding Planners.
INVISION EVENTS DARES YOU
We dare your listeners to take a leap, put themselves in the ring and in the game. It is time to pull yourself off the bench.
Don’t worry if you make a mistake, embrace it. A mistake is a moment to have reflection and to pivot and to learn from. I’ve made plenty of mistakes and they’ve been turning points that have been massive, both in my personal life and in my career. So embrace it as a new opportunity and don’t worry if you might skin your knee while you are playing.
FAST FACTS ABOUT INVISION EVENTS
What is your favorite tool in business?
Julie: For me, I am in the Adobe Creative Suite constantly. InDesign is my go-to.
Courtney: Trello! It is a cloud-based app that’s on my phone and on my laptop. And it is basically, notes and to-do lists.
What’s your favorite post-wedding or event snack?
Courtney: I am a little partial to a leftover piece of wedding cake. I’ll take home just a sliver, put it in the fridge, but then the next morning, pop it in the microwave so that it is warm.
Julie: I also will take home a slice, but in addition, when I’ve worked really hard all day, a good chicken finger makes me happy.
What’s your favorite wedding/creative pump up jam?
Courtney: What really gets me pumped up is anything Whitney Houston, it’s my happy music.
Julie: For me, I think it depends on the wedding, what’s involved with that day, depending on the level I need to pump up. Some days it’s a Jay Z pump up versus Carly Rae Jepson.
What is your favorite thing to do outside of your business?
Courtney: My home is my retreat where my husband and dog are. And so I love just being at home, taking a slow morning on the back porch or Netflixing and chilling with my husband.
Julie: We travel when we can, but my husband is a home builder and we take renovating our home as our hobby.
What is your favorite education you’ve learned from?
Courtney: Listening to The Wedding Biz Podcast with Andy Kushner. We also loved Maria’s Irresistible Selling – I came from a corporate sales background. Taking her sales course, geared towards creatives, really changed a lot of things for our business.
Julie: I am also a huge fan of the same podcast. So enlightening to hear from other creatives and their journeys. I love hearing where someone gets their inspiration or how they’ve developed their design process with their clients.
What is one daring the leap you’ve taken in your business?
Courtney: Leaving my corporate career and jumping with both feet; taking a leap and just jumping in together.
Julie: I would say the same thing, beyond starting a business, after being in business and working hard to grow a team and volume-based business. We then took a 180 and said this doesn’t work, I’m going to completely restructure the business, and doing it so everyone is on board with how it happened.
What is one thing you feel like your business partner is really great at in your business?
Julie is incredibly talented at taking a big step back. She has this incredible sense of objectively viewing the matter and gathering her thoughts and not just be completely irrational about it.
Courtney is so gifted at connecting with people, I marvel at how she’s able to connect with people over Instagram. Courtney’s just so quick to jump in there and connect with someone right away. We foster so many amazing relationships, and I feel like I would not have if Courtney wasn’t here.
Where can our listeners find you?
Website: https://invevents.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/invisionevents/
Do you have any special announcements / offers for our listeners?
We would love to tell your audience about Educate, Empower, Encourage Community. In this group, there are incredible nuggets of information being shared from the hosts, which are Julie and myself, along with a good friend of ours, Wendy Kaye, who is a high end, designer and planner based out of Dallas, Texas with Birds of a Feather Events. There’s lots of learning and growing from the community.
Join here: www.invevents.com/educate-empower-encourage
We had previously ended an offer. The first couple of days of our launch, we did an offer that we would match your monthly subscription. But for anyone listening who’s with the Dare to Develop audience, if you’d like to jump into our community, we will offer that subscription match. Enter “Dare to Develop Podcast” as your referral when you apply.
RESOURCE LINKS from TODAY’S EPISODE
Engage Summits // Trello // Irresistible Selling Course // The Wedding Biz Podcast with Andy Kushner // Educate Empower Encourage Community
OTHER D2D EPISODES YOU MIGHT LIKE
We dare you to check out the other Dare to Develop Podcast episodes including 000: Welcome to Dare to Develop where you get to meet your hosts Kristine Herman and Ashley Baumgartner.