What do you expect from your client? and what don’t you expect?
I think it’s vice versa – you expect every client to be understanding and you expect every client to understand you. You expect to have a good healthy relationship so for me that’s what I look out for – a good healthy relationship with my clients. I wouldn’t want to lose any clients. No matter what it takes I try to save and salvage the situation to keep the client. There are bad situations but we always disagree to agree; we agree to disagree so it’s vice versa.
What is the most rewarding aspects of providing your service? What are the most frustrating aspects?
I think the most rewarding part for me is the text messages I receive the next day from the bride and groom expressing how very happy they were and how happy they were choosing our brand. Also telling other people how happy they were choosing us to the point that they go on social media platform to express. To me the client’s feedback is the most important to me. There are frustrating aspects; there are moments where you have a nervous breakdown. You feel on edge because food isn’t in, the drinks are not chilled and all. It gets frustrating when you work with a client and you don’t know the vendors involved. That is what leads to a frustrating situation. If you get to meet and know the vendors beforehand I think you should be able to work in sync. We are able to work with any vendor. We work hand-in-hand with any vendor of our clients choice. We work as a team to make sure the wedding is perfect. We work with everyone as long as we are able to meet and know them beforehand. I remember I had an instance where I had to do a friend’s event here in Lagos – it was her mother’s passing, we had to work in Ilesha, it was a four (4) hour drive and I had to work with people I didn’t know but we were able to work because we worked hand-in-hand as a team and as team players I believe that the other party members were able to also play their role because we worked together with a common understanding.
What advice do you have for future brides and grooms regarding decoration?
The advice I have for them is very simple – they should:
- try and work towards making sure they have a budget for their wedding.
- document everything they do,
- have a wed plan,
- have a planner to advise them,
- seek advice from both families before they do anything because it is both families coming together.
It’s not just two people who are in love coming together. Marriage is between two families and I believe both families have to be accorded respect. That is something I would like to tell my bride and my groom – that they should always communicate all they do to both families to avoid misunderstandings and pressures because communication makes everything easy.
What advice do you have for up-and-coming decorators?
I believe that if you’re new in the industry you ought to be very submissive, very understanding, and very respectful. I urge you to be very accountable to whatever you’re paid to do as a decorator or as a planner because an event is an ongoing process that cannot be stopped. So you have to make sure that you plan properly to make sure an event is successful. You need to put everything that you do into your program outline / timetable before the event – what you’re going to do. On the event day – what you’re expected to have done and you should keep track by ticking off as you work. It’s a good guide to tell you that nothing has been left out. I believe that there are a lot of people out there that are like me that work on their passion and talent without having had formal training but yet realizing that when training is needed, they go for training because education is everything. I learn a lot. I don’t say “because it’s my talent I’m good at what I do so I relax”. No, I keep learning everyday because I want to keep evolving all the time.
What awards, if any, have you received?
I think I’ve received three so far. The eminent award for being one of the eminent decorators in Ghana in 2016 and I had an award from my school. There is an association called ‘the Spark Plug Ghana’. It’s a movement in the school where I go to have talks with students on grooming, etc. We need to talk to the people to help build their confidence. These are people who I believe, once upon a time, I was like them. They see me as a mentor although I still see myself having room for growth. The little knowledge I have acquired I try to impart in them because I believe they look up to me. Some tell me I’m their role model; some tell me they look forward to knowing what I’ll do next. When I realized that I wanted to channel some positive energy towards them, I do my best to attend whenever they held an event and if there’s a talk show, I talk, if there’s any program about getting to know more about business and life I would participate so it came unexpectedly that I was awarded for being one of their leadership program influencer that imparts knowledge we also had an award from Echo leadership for women from the tertiary women’s awards for being one of the women who is actually giving Ghanaians a positive aspect of whatever they do and it’s been a beautiful journey this year (2016) having three (3) awards within a year.
