My brides often ask me how I got into wedding planning. Here’s my story:

I was an actress for a long time. I graduated from Carnegie Mellon and worked non-stop from minute I got to New York. It was a crazy, fast-paced lifestyle and I loved it. I was on Broadway, and I traveled a lot with national tours and regional theatre.

When I met my husband, I’d been in show business for 20 years. I started to crave something different. Something bigger than just me. I wanted a real solid home—and a family.

We got engaged, and hired a wedding planner to arrange our wedding.

Then I fired her.

Why? Because with 6 weeks until the big day—nothing was done. Not even a florist had been secured. How could this planner be so unprepared? How could I have let this happen?

My mom and I did everything in a weekend. It was like a recon mission, and we tackled it. We planned a nearly perfect wedding, with only 6 weeks left.

The day was beautiful—but there were certain instances where I wish we had someone guiding us. I wish we made a little speech, but we didn’t have anybody reminding us. And what about the presents? We hadn’t planned a way to bring them home.

That’s where a planner would have been helpful.

And this is when I got the wedding bug.

I started spending time at the Wedding Library, learning everything I could about weddings, reading books, and looking at portfolios for photographers, florists, caterers, invitation makers, and musicians.

Soon, they hired me as a wedding planner. It was intense, and the experience I gained was incredible.

A few years later, I moved to New Jersey with my husband and worked at Vera Wang. During that time, I got to know New Jersey, tracked down the best vendors, made relationships at the most sophisticated venues—and decided to go for it. I started my own wedding planning business, An Affair to Remember.

I’ve been a wedding planner for 10 years, and I love it immensely. Weddings are like really good Broadway productions, only the actors are real people, the emotion is real, and so is the joy.

When I fired my wedding planner, it was devastating. But it gave me the motivation and direction to find my calling. To the wedding planner who I fired all those years ago … I couldn’t be more grateful.

Until next time…