NC PANDEMIC PROFILES: Heather Thomas
(c) 2021 Kate Pope Photography. Unless otherwise indicated.
HEATHER THOMAS (Bonafide Events)
Owner, Lead Event Planner
I am Heather Thomas, Bona Fide Events. I’m an event planner. I plan weddings and other events: corporate and social. I’m based out of Hillsborough, NC.
We are almost exactly one year out from the first NC Stay at Home order. Can you think back and remember when you first felt the impacts of the Stay at Home order on your business? I can remember so specifically. It’s been on my mind, actually. I did a surprise 60th birthday party in Hillsborough in the backyard of someone's house with tents. It was a big shindig, too. They were having all these people come in from California, New York and fly in from all over the place. We planned to have the Shoal Diggers playing – a local band - and all this fun stuff. We ended up going ahead with it on the 14th of March as planned, but they had half the amount of people attend, and the Shoal Diggers confirmed they’d could still do it, but they required that there be no side walls on the tent to keep the air flowing and that sort of thing.
Then, I started taking it more seriously. The news started reporting that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson had COVID, the NBA basketball was put on hold. Then I remember the avalanche starting. I remember actually going to coffee with industry friends, and all of us trying to guess what was going to happen. But, even then, I thought it would be a couple months. Oh, this is going to be terrible timing because - as a small business and I was just really coming up to speed that was my first really, really packed spring and as a planner I've already done all the work for a lot of these events, and I had to navigate through that as well.
So, at that point, I moved a lot of things. Started the learning curve of rescheduling events which I am now an expert at – whether I want to be or not, unfortunately.
How have your work or business practices changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? I know some other people have done some small things along the way, but I just kinda shut down. I didn't want my business to be associated with anything that might come back to haunt me and it started to really work on my brain. I had one client who was going to do an August event and they were going to do it at a local venue where things were really well thought out, but then that ended up not working because the Governor clamped down. So, when they could no longer do what they wanted to do at that venue they moved it to someone’s backyard, and that’s where we split ways. I didn’t think they really needed a planner anymore, so they were fine with it, but also, I just didn’t feel comfortable [with the new plan].
One thing about being my own boss is I'm able to tell myself: if you don't feel comfortable, you should follow your heart on this.
I’ve clarified how many events I will take a year, though I’ve already broken my own rule a couple times. I've worked on my website a little more, got the messaging a little better.
I put together my recommended vendor list over this time and it's still evolving but I have some folks who have really been super through all of this. First, I know their work, but they’ve also been super helpful, and accommodating and easy to communicate with.
Contracts. I mean, I think everybody in this industry the contracts are going to be the thing that comes out of this. I think we’re all going to have these pretty good, solid contracts. Then, going forward, too – I don’t currently charge for rescheduling, but I’m thinking about whether I need to put something in my contract now for new people; hopefully, we’re out of the woods here, but who knows what’s going to happen next. I hate to be that way, but you have to prepare. I think that's something we didn't do well before. The worst thing we had to worry about was rain or hurricanes and this was beyond any natural disaster.
Are you a solopreneur or do you have employees? It’s actually changed during a little bit during the pandemic. I took time to take stock of what was going on in the business and what I wanted out of it; when and how I wanted to grow it but still keep it manageable. One thing that came out of that reflection was that I now have some team members, but nobody is a full-time employee. I didn't have to lay anybody off or anything like that, in fact, I on-boarded people.
I brought people in because I saw the coming avalanche this fall into the spring of next year and then onwards, so the juggling act became real. I brought in a couple of women, so we’ll be able to do two weddings on a one day now. Do I want to do that all the time? No. With respect to the reschedules, I feel pretty strongly that if I was going to be the planner to begin with, then that I have to stay that planner because it just would seem wrong to me to say, ‘oh yeah, now that you’re rescheduling, I'm going give you a different planner.’ I’m sure it would be fine, but I didn’t like the feeling. I also know some people this has happened to with other vendors, and I didn't want to be like that. I think the integrity of a business owner is so important to me.
How many events did you end up moving, canceling or rescheduling from 2020 to 2021? And, then there's the rescheduling from 2021 to 2022. (laughter) I've actually had to move some people twice and so I'd say [I moved] 20-30 from 2020 to 2021. The corporate work disappeared altogether, and the university work all disappeared overnight, too.
I've been really honest with folks. Some folks wanted to move from one season to the next and I told them that my crystal ball has been broken so it’s hard to say for sure, but this is what I think will likely happen and maybe you should reconsider moving your event. These conversations are super delicate. I have a degree in psychology that I've used a lot; its come in handy.
Some couples can see the light so they're going ahead and getting married, having a small ceremony, small reception or dinner, and then they're planning a big party for their first anniversary; hoping for no masks and dancing. A lot of my clients seem to think of the wedding reception as a party.
The social things are kinda coming back a little bit now. I have another mitzvah, mutterings of a vow renewal, maybe a birthday here and there. And I really like doing those social events that are not weddings sometimes to even it out.
What’s been really challenging about running a business during the COVID-19 pandemic? One thing that's been really challenging is I've had some vendors go out of business: a catering company, for example. That was a big challenge. A baker - one of my favorite people to work with – retired and pivoted to something else.
I’ve also been feeling like the scope of the job is being encroached upon. It’s my own fault in a lot of ways because I feel so badly for these couples that I want to help them navigate through a time that they never ever should have been in a position to navigate on their own. I hope this extra effort will get me to Heaven or someplace good, like The Great Wooden Nickel in the Sky. (laughter)
But, seriously, I looked at how much extra time I've put in; how much gratis work I've done and it's getting a little bit easier to navigate now. It’s getting a little easier to facilitate introductions between my couples and vendors by email or to introduce them to a venue owner so that they can speak to them directly. I lost my boundaries there for a little bit and I lost my mind a little bit - we all did – but I'm starting to develop boundaries again.
This is going to get esoteric for a second but: every one of us feels we're in our own selves right and we're all thinking that we're going through something and at any point in time a family's going through something or a town’s going through something but how often in our lives is the whole world, your whole country, going to be going through something at the same time? It's all brand new to us. And we all experience it differently and we all have different challenges depending on where we are in life and work.
Another one of the hardest things for me [during the pandemic] was how to get motivated? I think a lot of us felt like, ‘what we're motivating for?’, ‘where are we doing to go with this?’, and ‘when will we start back?’ I still don't feel amped up about corporate. I think the whole corporate model may have changed in a lot of ways. They’ve figured out how to do things virtually. I think that's going to save our corporations a lot of money. On the other hand, some people will just want to gather. I'm going to be curious what Christmas looks like – not just for me, but for the industry at large.
COVID has changed a lot, and I don’t think we’ve seen the end of those changes. I have a such a sports background and I like to say I think everything is in the third quarter right now. It’s not over till it's over. I always try to have a good game plan for what could happen, but I think into the summer we're going to see a lot of businesses that are still second guessing themselves or pivoting in response to the pandemic.
I'm a people person to begin with so it's hard sometimes separating personal and work lives and this was certainly the case during COVID. You build a relationship with your clients – I'm very pro building relationships with my clients and I like to think that's one of my calling cards.
But you also have relationships with the vendors. Has it been challenging to be the middleman navigating those two relationships? How do you protect your vendor friends who are struggling to keep their doors open, but at the same time also protect your clients, serve business well and not burn bridges? I hope I haven't burned any bridges. I think empathy is a big, important word. You have to be empathetic, authentic and honest. Some of these trite terms along the way, ‘we're all in it together’ etc. - I stopped using those after the first month. I wanted to hear: ‘what is it that the vendors are doing? ‘how do you feel’ ‘what do you need from me?’ Getting the message across to the vendor that I am the hearing them and that that I'm understanding where they're coming from but then taking that information to my client and keeping it very nuts and bolts: this is what the venue’s doing. I'm not working for a lot of full-service clients though, so I could often just connect the vendor and the client, and let them work it out, so I was a little bit easier for me than someone who has mostly full-service clients.
I do now look at contracts differently. I redid, added things to my contract. I'm not as lock, stock and barrel some other folks. I think that's one thing that we're all a little gun shy about now. Some people had rescheduling fees and some people didn’t, so that was hard. There’s no right and wrong but trying to communicate it all to the client is challenging.
Also, some folks aren’t allowing reschedules to move to Saturdays, and luckily, I can explain this to my clients: this is our income, these are big wedding weekends and October 2021, you're lucky to even get the same people. The couples that I'm just signing now must think I'm crazy because I tell them: first thing we have to do is get your vendors! It’s been so complicated.
I’ve improved the organization of things. I thought I was a pretty organized person, but I've been working on my organization, incorporating questionnaires for clients, gathering information and putting it in the right place. I organized a bunch of old photos from photographers. I had time to do some of the behind-the-scenes sort of stuff.
Was 2020 setting up to be one of your biggest years in business? Yes. I'm young company, too. I had industry experience prior to opening Bona Fide. I started this business on-the-side while I was working for someone else. I was working quite a few quite a few weddings but officially went out on my own in the spring of 2019.
2022 will likely be my banner year, I hope. And I hope what comes out of this debacle is that I'm prepared for it.
What are some things that you’ve learned about your work or business during the pandemic? I've learned that I don’t want to grow my business huge. I’m bringing on some people, but I don't want to complicate my life. That was one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing. I’ve also become more provincial. I’ve homed in on the venues that I really want to work at and I’m focusing on venues in Durham or Orange county. That’s my jam.
I'm trying to simplify my life in all sorts of ways and that's just part of it. I'm a go-go person and the pandemic let me just stop-stop-stop. To the point where my mother-in-law was worried that stopping was too hard for me, but actually it wasn’t at all and I feel kind of guilty, but I really liked it. It was good for me as a human to slow down. We have an outside sitting area – the SDL: social distancing lounge – we sit out there, listen to music, have a fire and visit with people from afar or read a book some. I worked on the website for instance and clarified who I felt were my ideal clients, what my message is, who I am as a human, which all boils over into who I am as a business owner. And hopefully, as a person who works with a lot of good people.
In what way do you think that the events industry has improved as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic? Again, we’re only in the third quarter! (laughter) It’s a little too early to say. I'd like to think - and what I've been seeing - is there is a little more camaraderie, maybe a little more like shared experience and, hopefully, we’re all going to be so darn busy that we’ll need each other more. I may have to call upon my planner friends and be like, ‘Hey, do you have an assistant I can borrow? There’s going to be so much juggling. There are some vendors that seem to have really gotten that message and there are others that it's still too early to tell. It’s a big industry, but we all kind of seem to know each other.
It’s even nice when people just ask how you're doing. Nice to hear from people.
I've had friends who decided they were going to do something else [during COVID]. Let’s be honest, the events industry isn't easy. It’s a lot of work. It's a lot of people. It’s a lot of saying the right thing when you really want to say something else. You have to be a little bit of a chameleon.
Are there specific adjustments that you've made to your business practices during COVID-19? Yes.
Are you as a planner requiring clients to follow specific COVID-19 protocols at their events or are you deferring to venues? I mostly in defer to venues; however, in a backyard wedding type scenario, I follow the governor’s mandates. I've talked venues – a lot have been really good, and they've put their policies out to their clients: this is exactly what you’ll be able to do here, and these are the things you can’t. Any clarity that anybody has now is so important. And, as for the places that are a little flim-flammy, we all know that as soon as Uncle Henry has those 3 drinks, he’ll be out on the dance floor boogeying with whomever, mask or no mask. So yes, I appreciate and support the venues that give specific policies and procedures.
Do you feel like the event industry got enough clear instruction from the governor's office and NCDHHS during the pandemic? No. [COVID restrictions were] really hard for me to figure out. I consider myself an educated human who is very resourceful. And I was really confused sometimes. And the confusion just led me to not want to do any events. If there had been more clarity and more direction, I think that I may have been a little more likely to do [events] because I would have understood what I was able to do.
We were getting information from different venues who felt they fell under different sorts of guidelines (restaurant, hotels, etc) but none of it was really clear. It was frustrating. I felt like I was missing something at some point, and it made me feel insecure talking to my clients sometimes. I didn’t really know how to guide them because the guidance wasn’t concrete enough for me to say: this, this and this has to happen. For lack of a better term, [the guidance] was a little half-assed.
We were kind of cast out there in this little lala land. I was really cognizant of the fact that events can be a luxury item, and people were dying so I'm not bitching about not being able to have a party, but on the other hand, it’s our livelihood and we want to do things the right way without jeopardizing our reputation or someone else's.
I did the best I could. I talked a lot to the venues to make sure we're on the same page before we did masked tours at various places. And I would talk to the venue about what they’re doing before our visit, so I didn’t put them or myself in a bad situation. The messaging can be different from venue to venue, and one month to the next too. What phase are we in? What phase will we be in?
I try to do it all with a wink and a smile. But I’ve had to go into conversations with a client with my game face on because I don’t know how [the conversation] is going to go down. I've had brides break out into tears; I had one bride curse out Governor Cooper. I have I have big shoulders, I can take it, but I have had that conversation with some folks, ‘yes I know you’re upset. I wish I could do more, but these are the options I have for you. And this will happen. It will happen.’ You can't dwell on what’s not happening; it's sad, it's frustrating and it might not be your prefect day, but what can we do going forward is make sure that at some point in the future you get what you want, even if it’s a little different than planned, but that you’re super happy with it.
I've had some people say they’re okay with bringing my guest list down to 30 and we're gonna go ahead and get married. Then I have other people who really want those 200 people there no matter what and so, they’re gonna wait and this is why. And you have to honor that. Our industry is not cookie cutter.
Have you had a postponed event happen yet? Nope, my first one is Monday. I have one in May that's a 30-person wedding and I'm really looking forward to it. First of all, they knew they had a little more money in their pockets, so they've been able to do some special things, like a little more lighting in their tent. I just think it’s going to be enjoyable. I think that 30-50 is a really good number [for a wedding]. I have done some other non-event things in the past year. I did tours at the opening of The Colonial Inn, so that felt like being around people and doing something that was almost event-like
Do you head do you think smaller weddings and smaller events are going to be the norm going forward or you think will get back up to 200-250 guests at events? I'd like to think that it’ll fall in the middle. I think that people realize there is some intimacy in the smaller events, but then again intimacy to some people could be 100 people. (laughter)
I do think that there's gonna be a place for elopements, intimate weddings. I'm keeping that in my packages, because I like doing those, too. They’re a little less money for me but a lot less headache in a lot of ways. I don't think they'll go away.
The other thing is people will talk about their experiences and how they had 30 people here or 25 people there, and it will be in the media and print and you’ll be seeing more people saying it’s a great trend. A lot of brides, especially young couples, rely on looking at social media and blogs/websites and there’s going to be a lot of fodder for small, intimate gatherings. Weddings, birthdays, all that. I do think that people will celebrate more other types of events, too.
Does smaller wedding mean smaller budget? Not necessarily. Double the tables, double the linens. I haven't had to have a lot of these conversations yet but I'm going to have to address that soon. Linens are expensive and people don't realize that until they're into it and they get sticker shock. Also, people have been really sticker shocked by how expensive tents can be.
I’ve been trying to advise my clients that there have been so many events moved from 2020 to 2021 that rentals – and other vendors - are going to be harder to come by. I feel very competitive about this, unfortunately. I want to get that vendor first and I want to get my clients in to pick out our rentals and make sure all that stuff is taken care of as soon as possible. What I've said to a lot of clients is, even if we have to make some changes later, there are certain vendors you’ve got to get: your photographer, lighting. Then I have to have backups if these vendors aren’t available. I'm trying to be creative with my vendors and figure out some good strategies. Mainly the strategy is: make a decision and pay them a deposit now, but then clients are still nervous because, what if?
Is there any anything in particular that you want the general public to know about the event industry coming out of this experience?