I recently had the privileged of interviewing Lara Casey. For those of you who do not know of her, she is jack of all trades in the wedding industry. She is a publisher, editor, event planner, consultant, teacher, social media expert, and… I could go on but I will just let you read her bio. The interview turned into such a wealth of knowledge for brides and vendors alike, that I couldn’t bare to cut anything out. The interview is being posted as a three part series for your reading pleasure. I hope you enjoy reading and learning from the interview as much as I did, and look for Part Two next week!



Part One: Introducing Lara Casey

Lara was born in Washington DC. She spent most of her youth growing up in the small beach community of Pensacola, Florida. Ms. Casey graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University and studied art and design at Yale University. Lara is a member of Mensa and an avid fitness buff. Mrs. Casey has a wide array of successes including having been a celebrity personal trainer in Manhattan and a contributor to Shape Magazine. Lara is currently Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Southern Weddings magazine and launched Lara Casey Reps, a luxury market wedding consulting firm, in June 2009. Lara is the founder of MTH2010 (Making Things Happen in 2010) which is an intensive designed to help release fear, discover your authentic personal brand and harness your passion in business. Ms. Casey frequently speaks on the use of social media for business, personal branding and the luxury wedding market. She is a self-confessed Wired magazine and Luna Bar addict. Lara lives in Chapel Hill, NC, and loves to travel. She frequently gives people her Delta Skymiles number instead of her social security number.

What initially drew you to the wedding industry?



My mother is a trained French chef and entertained almost every week when we were young. From lavish dinner parties to poolside grilling to banquets for the masses, she is like the Francophile Martha Stewart. She went to the Cordon Bleu in Paris and currently writes a food/entertaining column for our local paper. I caught the entertaining bug from her.

How did you get started, and what do you like most about it?

This is such a loaded question for me. My story is rather unconventional, but then again, who lands in the wedding industry conventionally? In short, I went to school for music, theatre and dance. I spent my summers studying graphic design just because I loved it. I graduated from Carnegie Mellon, moved to New York with a great agent, and quickly became disenchanted by the business of the business. I wanted a more consistent life where I could relax a little.

As a dancer, I had always had a great interest in fitness and health. I started training people at Crunch in Manhattan and after six months became the top trainer for Crunch nationally and was living the high life in the city. I started training an event planner and became fascinated by her creative life. Hurricane Ivan hit my family in Florida and I decided to move back home to help them. Inspired by my mother’s entertaining background and encouragement from my client, I started my event planning business, Bliss Event Group, soon after. I was still training people at the local gym when I started Bliss. I ended up meeting my husband at the gym, moved to California with him (where I worked for Mark’s Garden and Corridan and Co.) and had an incredible time learning from the best in the biz and building my event knowledge.

When my husband, a Navy flight surgeon, was deployed to Iraq, I moved back to Florida to be with my family. Needing a project to fend off the nerves, I started the Southern Weddings blog. What began as a small publication designed to showcase local vendors quickly became a fat, glossy magazine featuring national vendors with a circulation deal from Curtis. It was all perfect timing. We started the blog right when wedding blogs were starting to gain popularity, and the idea of something new, fresh, modern and different for the South caught on like wildfire. We ended up revamping the small test issue and had a national magazine within three months. I have no formal training in publishing, but I was determined. I am completely self-taught. I laid out the magazine by myself after teaching myself InDesign simply because I couldn’t afford a designer. I still do all the magazine layouts.

Well, that’s the short version of how I got started. What do I love most? The opportunity to be creative every day, support people’s growth in business and life and the relationships I’ve made because of my work. I genuinely love my job. It’s my life and I’m very happy with that.

How did you and your husband meet?

We have a rather unusual story. Here’s the whole shebang: http://www.swsmag.net/blog/2010/3/18/our-editor-in-chiefs-wedding-happy-anniversary-lara-ari.html Enjoy.

How did your wedding reflect your relationship?

Well, if you read the story linked above, I’m not sure how to answer that. Haha!

So what’s next for Lara Casey? Where do you see yourself in 5 years and what are you doing?

I’ll take whatever God has planned for me, but I hope to have a family, be writing more, teaching more, and have a continually deeper relationship with God and my family. It’s hard for me to look into the future. Odd coming from a very driven person, but I really try to stay open to where I’m needed. Had I not been open, I never would have gone out on a limb and launched the Making Things Happen Tour (or started an event planning firm, a national magazine, and a luxury wedding market consulting firm for that matter). I saw a deep need for people to conquer fear and start acting on their dreams. So, I hope to continue on that path and glorify God all the way through.