Meet Laura Dunbar of Laura’s Events & Weddings Unleashed in West Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Dunbar.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Laura. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My love for event planning began before I knew event planners existed. I typically begin this story by stating I am the oldest of 9 siblings. Being the oldest child always made me feel responsible for my siblings, gave me a natural take charge position, and made me a person people sought out for help and advice. As a child, I loved being with my younger siblings and putting together their birthday parties or other celebratory events. I was the friend who loved to have people over, hosted sleepovers, parties, get-togethers, etc… I have even hosted Friendsgiving for my friends and I since the age of 14. Fast forward to age 24, I got engaged and began planning my own wedding. This life-changing experience made me fall in love with ALL things weddings! At 24, I was educated in medical billing and coding. However, after my wedding planning adventure, I started to educate myself on the event planning industry. I wondered if I could create a wedding and event planning business of my own doing what I loved most. After receiving positive feedback from family and friends in 2012, I decided to take a chance of creating my own business to follow my dreams and talents of forever being surrounded by love, fun, people, and positivity. After I began my business, I went back to school for various business educations to help me succeed and here we are today.

Today, I feel accomplished, positive, and thankful for where I am and where my goals will lead me in the future.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Honestly, it was a smoother road than I anticipated. I think building my dream and doing what I love makes it easier. The hardest part was figuring out how to get my first couple of clients! Other than that, problem-solving is something I love to do, so my issues were not struggles, but rather challenges I was excited to learn and conquer.

Please tell us about Laura’s Events & Weddings Unleashed.
Today, Laura’s Events & Weddings Unleashed specializes in wedding planning. Over the years, we have done ceremony officiating as well as many private and corporate events. It was recently we decided to direct our focus primarily on weddings. I live for the tears of love, what can I say? However, we still provide other planning and officiating services through referrals and for past clients.

LE&WU is different from other planning companies because we live to create unique events that reflect our individual clients and their personalities. We never push our own agenda’s or style, instead, we listen to the client’s wishes while sharing our professional knowledge and experiences to arrive at the best outcome. Another difference is we never accept commissions from vendors to refer them. Instead, we pass these types of offers onto our clients as vendor offered discounts. We prefer to pair our clients up to vendors who fit the client’s style, needs, and budget the best, not necessarily to the vendor offering the best incentive. Your wedding planner should be your biggest advocate after all! Additionally, our planning packages includes one professional event staff to work your event the day of. This means you not only have your planner working hard leading up to and on the day of your event, but you have another set of hands and eyes on board without increasing your budget. When an event requires more than one staff member and planner, we have additional staffers available at low rates. You can count on my staff and I to work extremely hard to deliver the best results possible!

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I was to start over, I would have started my business sooner.

Pricing:

• Complete Wedding Planning – $3500 + travel expenses if applicable
• Partial Wedding Planning – $2200 + travel expenses if applicable
• Day of Coordination & Planning – $1200 + travel expenses if applicable
• Hourly Rate – $80

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lauraseventsandweddingsunleashed.com
• Phone: 602-697-4889
• Email: laurascustomweddingservices@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/laurasunleashedevents
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/lauraseventsandweddingsunleashed
• Twitter: www.pinterest.com/laurasunleashedevents
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lauras-events-and-weddings-unleashed-peoria?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
• Other: https://www.weddingwire.com/biz/lauras-events-weddings-unleashed-llc-peoria/43476d88cdb98980.html

Image Credit:
2 Comforts Photography, Jonathan Allison Photography, Heather McLellan Photography, B N Love Photography, De La Fontaine Photography

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