56 HARMONY WALTON: The Bridal Bar and Jet Fete

May 21, 2018

It takes but a moment to see that Harmony Walton’s path to success had everything to do with how she handled perceived challenges along the way. Her career is marked by her own fearless ability to focus on giving direction to her dreams and focus on doing work that she loved and would succeed at. She credits her work with a well-known Hollywood Celebrity as the best training she could have had, especially when it comes to high touch client service. 

 

About Harmony:

 

Harmony Walton is the founder of The Bridal Bar and a luxury destination wedding and honeymoon blog, Jet Fete. She hosts Bridal Bar Radio, powered by Clear Channel, airing weekly and on demand at iHeart Radio.  Since it’s inception, The Bridal Bar has been featured in over 100 media outlets, including The New Yorker, The NY Times, Entertainment Tonight, People magazine, Martha Steward Weddings, US Weekly, and many, many more. She also has over a decade in marketing, consulting, and brand-representation experience in the luxury wedding industry. Some of her celebrity clientele include Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Kendra Wilkinson and Hank Baskett, and Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelly. As a wedding business consultant and wedding expert, she speaks frequently worldwide to both consumers and companies.

 

Show Highlights:

 

• Harmony grew up in San Diego, went to UCLA, and worked for Dustin Hoffman’s family for 3 years 
• Why she wanted to do something completely different from everyone else in her family
• How her competitive nature manifested itself brought challenges that lead to success
• At 24, she started her first business, always knowing she would find her way to entrepreneurship
• How she took a course on how to be a wedding planner, and it made it clear to her that wedding planning wasn’t necessarily for her
• The biggest lessons she took from her work for the Hoffmans, learning the “other” side of the service industry, and realizing it really is “who you know”
• Truly understanding the service side of what it takes to create parties and luxury events
• Having a focus on legacy clients: becoming AND remaining the person everyone wants to work with
• How Harmony maintains relationships with great communication, attending networking events, always remaining organic, authentic, and true to who she really is
• How little gestures of “thank you” can go a long way
• When she took a job in a Hollywood PR firm for 9 months and had an “I can’t go back there ever again” moment
• How she started a party and gifting business, and discovered something more enjoyable
• How she traded content for advertising in Inside Weddings--and actually got them to pay her!
• How the idea of The Bridal Bar came about, even though Inside Weddings wasn’t interested in her original pitch
• Being open to pivoting, learning not to give up, changing when you need to, and staying ahead
• Why you shouldn’t be disappointed with your failures
• The mission statement for The Bridal Bar: to “educate and inspire couples in order to influence their vendor decisions”
• How The Bridal Bar works, as a marketing agency for vendors and as a free service to the public: “an interactive concierge experience”
• Why many creative businesses struggle with the business side
• The consulting side of The Bridal Bar and how it grew as Harmony tried to help other businesses
• The ability to successfully market with creativity
• Working with social media platforms, and how it can be  “a necessary evil”
• Going deeper to create emotional connection
• Harmony’s biggest Master Class tips to take your biz to the next level”
  • It IS who you know
  • It costs more than you think and less than you have
  • The hustle / “bootstrap” mentality is important

 

Resources:

 

www.bridalbar.com

 

www.harmonywalton.com

 

www.jetfeteblog.com

 

 

Find Bridal Bar on iHeart Radio