Today we’d like to introduce you to Bailey Brooks Mashburn.
Hi Bailey Brooks, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
On March 7th of 2009, I fell in love with planning weddings! I was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada to a German father and Trinidadian mother. I moved to the US in 2001, just the month before 9/11. Growing up to parents who had never graduated high school, I was never post into a career or post-secondary education. After graduating high school, I joined the army for three years but very quickly realized that was not for me. I tried modeling in New York and ended up making connections with the team at Bad Boy Entertainment and kinda just kept bouncing around from there. I never truly ever learned what I was meant to do! I had always been phenomenal at sales because I went to so many different schools and had to quickly try to make new friends almost every year. When I moved to the US, I rent into real estate. I started as a loan officer, then became a mortgage broker and realtor associate at which point I decided to open my own mortgage company at the end of 2006. Then 2008 came and wiped me out completely. Late 2008, my very good friend from Winnipeg and I reconnected in of all places…Florida! She was engaged and needed help with the wedding which I had time on my hands to fully commit too since the real estate market had taken such a massive hit. But this is when the planning bug bit me. I was in love with the details and the creation of the whole event. The planning process was literally made for my OCD characteristics and fostered my attention to detail. Once I saw the entire day come together and how happy they were when they saw the work, I was hooked.
For the next few years, I continued to do other things like join the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders and work in corporate in the bridal industry for Alfred Angelo. All the while in the background, I was still doing weddings. But I was doing them for FREE! Yikes. It wasn’t until 2014 that I decided to take the jump and open my own planning firm and start making some money! On January 1 of 2014, I had a business after spending all of my New Year’s Eve building the website, ordering business cards and setting up the marketing plan. Back then, I opened as Weddings by Bailey and was known as Bailey Smith. I did my first bridal show that month and walked away with 13 booked brides. I was in business and have been ever since. Today we are Bailey Smith Events, after transitioning to include corporate event planning as well. We have now planned or been a part of events with up to 75K guests at Hard Rock Stadium and in different countries in the Caribbean and Canada. There isn’t anything we can’t plan! Turning moments into memories has become a very rewarding career. The weddings or “emotional events’ will always remain my favorites.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t always been all the glitz and glam people think it is since they watched the movie, “The Wedding Planner”. That movie literally made everyone think differently about what we do but honestly is pretty accurate – minus the ending up with the groom part! My very first client event was for Alfred Angelo Bridal who wanted to do an event in their Boynton Beach store celebrating their debut on Undercover Boss. That event was so successful the owner requested my resume and I was hired on with a contingency that after two years with them, I would close my company. Reluctantly I agreed after I saw what the annual compensation was, however in the background my company starting picking up clients at a very quick rate. I was juggling time like crazy and at this time, I was a single mom to three, but I knew I needed to keep going. In 2016, the company was sold and the new CEO supported my personal goals and actually used my brides for round table discussions and data to support our bridal gown efforts. Then in 2017, they went bankrupt and I was forced to work for myself, with no bi-weekly paycheck from corporate to fall back on. Did I tell you I had literally just closed on a house in December of 2016!! It was the scariest thing ever, but I did it and am still doing it. So grateful I kept on going because now I don’t do Mondays anymore, that is my standing day off and I don’t have to request any time off for personal days or vacations. I love it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We specialize in taking a client’s vision for their best day ever and making it an event and an experience that the guests can rave about. Everyone wants to be highlighted on their day and we make sure that they feel like they were able to plan their event with their best friend. We have worked with the likes of Jamal Mashburn (NBA), Darius Slay (NFL), Daymond John and AT & T, just to name a few. I am most proud of becoming the go to planning company in partnership with Rosenhaus Sports Agency. They handle celebrity sports clientele and we couldn’t be happier working for that team.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters to me the most is that my clients trust me throughout the planning process. We do everything we can to remove the speed bumps from their planning journey leading up to the event. So much is happening in the background that is on a need to know basis. We want them to feel like the process was effortless, so they can enjoy the journey. You have to be able to trust the team of professionals you hired in order to have that experience. The days of being so overwhelmed with planning your event are over, we absorb that stress and handle the rest so they can look like the star of the show on the day of!
Pricing:
- Pricing is flat fee based and customized based on the event details.
- Pricing starts at $2500 for day of services
- Pricing starts at $4000 for Partial Planning & Production Services
- Pricing for Full Planning starts at $6000
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.baileysmithevents.com
- Instagram: @BaileySmithEvents
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/pg/BaileySmithEvents/photos/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0
- Twitter: @EventsbyBailey
Image Credits
Micheal Wright Photography Ron Wood Photography Travis Daniels Photography
