Changes

  

  I'm sorry its been so long since my last post, but, as you can see, there have been a few changes.  The new name (same web address) of the blog is only the beginning of the changes yet to come.  As I slowly dip my toe back into the wedding industry, I decided to put together a plan that's been brewing since my very early days of wedding planning; The Fairytale Effect.  This new endeavor has multi-level phases, but the first phase is what I want to focus on for this post.
  The idea of The Fairytale Effect came from watching Live with (at the time) Regis and Kelly.  Every year around Valentine's Day, they would throw a wedding for a loving, well deserving couple.  Being a giving person, I decided I wanted to contribute this idea with my wedding planning.  I also happen to be a big dreamer with grandiose ideas and imagined a worldwide effort complete with an ABC reality TV show (don't know what I was thinking!).  My first attempt at this project was a total disaster! (And I'd be happy to tell anyone about the fiasco; just send over an email to austinbudgetweddingplanner@gmail.com.)  It was so much so that not only did it discourage me from continuing anything like this, but it also made me reconsider my career choice.  It has taken me a long time to move on from this failure and it is still very emotional for me to even think about it, but after a lot of growth and development, I realized that this hurt was only holding me back.  This was a defining experience in my life and I had the choice of letting it define me in two different ways.  I could allow the situation to control me by forcing me out of a career that I loved and that I am extremely good at.  There are so many people out there that are stuck in careers that make them miserable and in which their talents are wasted.  When I was first dealing with this turning point, I decided that I could find another career.  I could be great at something else.  But then, through the relationships that I've developed recently, I realized that the way I am treating this situation is wrong.  When asked why I would never get back into wedding planning I would respond with, "I believe that God is shutting this door in my life," followed up by a summary of the doomed charity project and how my meager attempts to reestablish myself in the industry had failed. And then I thought to myself, is it God that is behind my failed attempts or am I letting the hurt define my life?  Am I unconsciously sabotaging my attempts out of fear?  The answer was a big YES.  So I decided that I could take back control of the situation and instead of letting the failure define me as that, a failure, I am going to turn into a success and do it the right way.

  In that revelation, I decided to come back to The Fairytale Effect, but to do it the right way.  Phase One of The Fairytale Effect is to find loving, well deserving couples that are pillars in the community and have a limited wedding budget ($5,000 and lower).  Pillars in the community is to be defined as socially and spiritually offering encouragement, support, and love to all individuals that they meet.  As is the same way as good deeds won't get you to heaven, good deeds will not get you a free wedding planner.  This is the mistake that I made the first time around.  I learned that just because a person looks good on paper, it doesn't mean that that is a good person.  Please contact me if you are interested in this project (austinweddingplanner@gmail.com) and we will sit down and meet.  I will tell you about my qualifications and guidelines and then after we meet, I will conduct a background check to make sure everything is as it seems.  If you are selected, you will receive a free wedding planning package.  I do ask one thing in return, if you are satisfied with the work I do (and you will be), please tell everyone you know and everyone you don't know.  A fair price, I think, for free wedding planning.  I know that there are good people out there, deserving people that are a positive influence to everyone they meet. I want to find you and I want to hear your story!  Let me create your Fairytale Effect.