Sarah Burton has one of the more unusual business models around: getting paid by vendors instead of by clients. It’s an arrangement that has been going strong for three years, and she is as happy as can be with it. Burton owns Simply Love Studio, a wedding resource center.
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Sarah Burton, owner of Simply Love Studio
Sarah Burton, owner of Simply Love Studio
“There are several wedding resource centers throughout the United States,” she said. “It is becoming a more well-known concept.”
Brides-to-be are Burton’s clients. She works with 35 to 40 vendors, whose services she refers to brides, in such categories as caterers, DJs, florists, hair and makeup experts, photographers and venues, as well as fitness, premarital counseling and real estate.
“I don’t have any vendor here that I wouldn’t use for my own wedding,” Burton said, although she has not yet walked down the aisle herself. She makes sure each vendor can offer packages in different price ranges. “Photographers, for example, charge from $1,750 to $4,000,” she said. “I want to make sure we have vendors in each category that can fall into a bride’s budget.”
Providing free wedding planning for brides in Central Kentucky sometimes presents a good-to-have challenge. Burton finds herself explaining “there are no catches and no gimmicks” to brides. “It really is free to them.”
Originally from Monticello, Kentucky, just south of Somerset, Burton is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration, with a focus on management and human resources.
“I thought I would have that corner office in the corporate world, probably in human resources,” Burton said. “I did that for about six months after college and realized that was not for me.”
She was back in Monticello at the time, wanting to do something on her own.
“I don’t even know how the idea came about, but I thought, let’s do some wedding and event planning,” Burton said. “No one was doing it at that time in Somerset.”
The time was 2008. Burton joined the local chamber of commerce, started networking and meeting people, and opened her own company called Ido Signature Events. Within four years she had moved to Lexington and phased out her Monticello-based business. In 2012 she purchased an existing wedding planning business, Simply Love Studio, and soon moved the studio from National Avenue to Woodhill Drive beside Purdon Rental. She can walk next door with a bridal client to see linens and china, tables and chairs, arches for ceremonies, tents and any other items that can be rented for a wedding.
“Truthfully, it’s a phenomenal location,” Burton said. “It is such a benefit to our brides, vendors and the rental company as well.”
The vendors on Burton’s roster can use Simply Love Studio’s space to conduct their own meetings with bridal clients. For the various events throughout the year at Simply Love Studio, interns help Burton with planning and implementation. Burton typically takes on two interns in spring, one in summer and two in fall, from students who are majoring in hospitality, marketing or communications. In September and January, Simply Love Studio offers a series of informational seminars for brides called Vacation Bridal School. In the spring, Burton takes brides around town in limos to various wedding reception venues. Known as the annual Venue Hop, each location has tables set out with linens and centerpieces, while different vendors showcase their offerings — cake samples, for example.
“It’s our version of a bridal show on wheels,” Burton said. Venue Hop is the only Simply Love Studio event where brides are charged a fee, to pay for the limousine service.
Being on the consulting side of the wedding industry, Burton’s yearly calendar is almost the opposite of wedding vendors. She is busiest during the first three months of the year.
“Right after Christmas and during the engagement season,” she said.
August and September are the next two biggest months for her business.
“But brides are always getting engaged and needing help,” she said.
She meets with some brides once and others six or seven times, never charging them for her wedding planning services.
“I do, from time to time, have the nonprofits or corporate people call and ask for referrals for venue recommendations for a gala, or a photographer for an event,” Burton said. “I do help other people with referrals besides just brides.”
Learn more about Simply Love Studio at www.simplylovestudio.com.