Interview (recorded/discussed May 19, 2020) with Allison Welch, founder of As You Wish, an event planning business based in Denver and Boulder, Colorado (founded ~2010). The conversation covers the company’s services (weddings, social events like birthdays/anniversaries/bar/bat mitzvahs, philanthropic/charity galas, and personal assistance), how COVID-19 disrupted spring 2020 events (cancellations and rescheduling), practical adaptations (small legal ceremonies of ≤10 people in Colorado with a later reception, rescheduling to fall/2021), advice for planners and clients (stay positive, be flexible, think creatively), Colorado-specific strengths (outdoor/mountain venues like Vail, Aspen, Telluride), and contact channels (website and social handles).
Questions this video answers
May 19, 2020.
Around 2010 (As You Wish is 10 years old as stated).
Denver and Boulder, Colorado (events throughout Colorado).
10 people (state limit referenced at the time).
Website: 'as you wish Colorado' (spoken); Instagram: 'As you wish co' (AsYouWishCo); Facebook: As You Wish Co; email (spoken roughly as) 'allisonsyou wishcolorado.com' (transcript form).
Chapters
All right, welcome back to Grand Slam Event Organizers Podcast. I am super excited today to have the one and only Alison Welch with as yous Wish. Welcome, Allison.
Hi, Andy. Great to see you. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about you and as yous Wish.
Sure, sure. So I started as yous Wish. We're in the Denver and Boulder markets, and we, you know, our events go throughout Colorado, but started here 2010. And we work on events being under the philanthropic umbrella, social, and also day of wedding coordination. And then the other side of our event is personal assistance, which, you know, often lends to these events that we're doing for our clients.
Okay, so quickly, if you don't mind, you've got social events. You said weddings. That's obvious. Philanthropic and social. Would you mind just going into those quickly about what, what is a philanthropic event and what is a social event? Event?
Absolutely. You know, we consider more of our social events to be birthday parties, anniversaries, bar and bar mitzvahs, baby showers, graduation. So anywhere that you're, you know, having a group of folks together to celebrate an occasion. But more on a personal level, it could even be in someone's, you know, backyard, or we could rent out a venue that adheres to them. And then on the philanthropic level, any charity events from, you know, maybe it's a local organization, nonprofit here, locally that we work with that just, you know, they need assistance. They don't have a full time event planner. So we would step in and contract with these folks to just spearhead the event from everything from invitations to live auctions, silent auctions, whatnot.
So you've been at it for a couple years. How long have you had as you wish?
As you wish is 10 years old. And pirate.
10 years old, man, that's on me. I apologize.
Yeah, that's okay. And then doing events in New York City prior.
Oh, so, okay, you haven't heard. If you didn't hear her right, folks, Denver Boulder used to be New York City. So I got to imagine Denver Boulder just a little bit of a different atmosphere than putting on an event in New York City.
It is.
It is.
It absolutely is. That was more gala centric. Obviously, the philanthropic events raised a little bit more money. But you know what? You use the same principles, Andy.
So before we get into the obvious question, which is what the moment we are all in right now to you, Alison, what's your favorite thing about holding a live event?
You know, I love just to see our clients honestly have the event pulled together and everyone you know, coming together to celebrate something, whether it be their wedding or an event or their child graduating from high school, you know, that makes the most fun for me, having these live events and also working with our vendor friends. So whether it be our caterers or florist, we get to see these folks every weekend. So it's been a little sad not, you know, seeing the smile on the client's faces. Also working within our industry.
Awesome. So let's get to the obvious.
We're doing this interview on May 19, 2020, which means we're still in the middle of the COVID pandemic and the faucet for live events has essentially been turned off. Sure.
Yeah.
Question for you is how has that impacted you and what are you doing as a result of that?
Sure. You know, and I have a team of, you know, staff that are wonderful and we all work on the event. So my priority is obviously to keep us all busy annually. But, you know, as this first started in early March and we were seeing, you know, the immediate shutdown, a lot of the events that were springtime events, like we said, graduation, we had a lot of Cinco de Mayo's party parties, bar mitzvahs, we had temples, obviously closed. So those are all canceled. So we're sort of in two realms. One is being the cancellation, the other is being in the world of rescheduling. So if we do have that option to push and reschedule some of our, obviously the day of wedding coordination, we had to move those out. They're technically now either in 2021 or they're this fall. But you know what we started to ask our brides is you, why don't we keep your date? We can have 10 people in the state of Colorado. Why don't you get married? Because you know, we have the location or you know, you have a smaller venue, if you will. But let's keep the date, get married, and then on your one year anniversary, let's throw a reception. Let's start our party and get everyone back together. Use the vendors that you love, your same dj, your same caterer, cut your cake again. But this way, like we can do it and you're married. So. So we've got, we have a lot of brides and grooms that have sort of adhere to this. So they're still getting to like celebrate this year because I think that was part of the sort of letdown for them as well. So.
But I hear you, right? Let's get the legal piece.
Right.
So you're married, but Then now Let's look into 20 later. 20, 20, 20, 21. To have the party, the celebration.
Right. Because we do have a lot of these venues, you know, in Vail and Aspen and Breckenridge, where, you know, we are quite a bit. We. We just can't have, well, as of now, more than 10 people. Our governor's gonna put something at the end of this month, so hopefully there'll be more. But as of now, what are they to do? So. And we don't know what the future holds.
Absolutely. Absolutely. This question might not actually apply to you, but I'm gonna ask it anyways. So I know the answer for weddings and social events with your philanthropic events. I know. I hear from other others that hold other event organizers. Sometimes getting good speakers is hard. Do you get outside speakers for your philanthropic events?
You know, it really depends. So, for example, a few that I'm thinking of locally that we do annually here we do. One of them is 500 people for the Third Way Foundation.
Okay.
Their 50th year anniversary. It's huge. It's big. It's like, oh, my God. So, you know, we have live silent auctions, and we do have, you know, we hire a speaker that's sort of, you know, someone of maybe an athlete or someone who's been through the program, but someone. So we haven't run into it quite yet because those are further this fall.
But that being said, if we do have speakers coming in from around the country, you know, do they want to travel? Do they feel safe? Are they working? You know, so we have to go through all the vendors before we're changing dates and.
Awesome. So this is a very important question I love asking, especially in the moment.
Sure.
Whether it's a conference planner, a wedding planner, an event planner, or a social planner. Philanthropic. What's the number one piece of advice you would give him or her right.
Now to the actual planner or client?
The actual planner, actually. I like how you said that. Let's flip it. I'm gonna ask you both. I'm gonna ask you both, what would you give? What advice would you give to a Planner right now? May 19, 2020?
Sure. And I'm on a lot of colleague boards and I'm in WIPA for a wedding planners. You know, we really just try to stay completely positive. And there is, you know, some planner. I mean, we're kind of waiving a lot of fees now because we are changing everything. But just out of the goodness of karma, and it's a pandemic. These poor you Know, brides or, you know, whoever it is doing their event social too, they're moving it. So it's kind of sad. So I just, you know, because I've been doing this almost 20 years, I just said, you know, try to be positive, it'll happen. But we can't control these things.
What about the flip side? Now you had an event plan, whether it was wedding.
Sure.
Philanthropic event. What advice would you give someone like that right now?
You know, along those lines for the clients, please let us, you know, kind of go, go back and sort of reschedule everything, but do it on, you know, you know, let's see what works best for you and then we'll circle back. But honestly, we just try to say stay really positive, like it's going to happen. Or, you know, if it doesn't, then that's okay. You know, if they're at peace with it. I always say, are you at peace with it if you're not having a blowout graduation or we'll do sort of a, you know, you've been seeing a lot of those, like little drive by parties or at least we can get cakes delivered. So thinking outside the box, maybe a huge balloon display, just make it fun. But people still want to be celebrated.
That's a, and that's a great point. I think what you just said is, you know, whether you're a planner or you had an event planned, this is out of your control. Like nothing you did, no one did anything to you. This is really out of your control. This is the one thing you have to control is your mind.
Exactly. And we're all going through it.
So here's my favorite question, especially for you. I'm up in Fort Collins, Colorado. You're an hour south of me.
Sure.
You do a lot of it. Sounds like a lot of your events are local. In Colorado, which we have some amazing destinations. Aspen, Vail, you know, the mountains in general. What would you say is the coolest thing about hosting an event in Colorado?
Well, absolutely, like you said, the atmosphere. I mean, we could be at the top of Vail Mountain or Aspen Mountain doing a wedding or we've worked, you know, food and wine festivals. That falls under our social category. So we're in Telluride doing, you know, just being outside. And this is another thing we kind of go through with are we moving the events? How many people do you have? Is it indoors or outdoors? Because like you said, we're not as traditional here in Colorado where we have like a church wedding, we see 2% of that a year.
A lot of outdoor weddings, a lot of outdoors.
So I think that adheres to us and where we are. If you're on Grand Lake, we can do it. Let's go out to the dock, get married, and then, you know, do something smaller later when we can. So try to think outside the box.
It's a nice place to be an event planner, and I can imagine.
Oh, it's so much fun.
Okay, last question and then we'll wrap this thing up for you. Sure. If I'm in need of a wedding planner, I'm in need of a social party planner or I'm wanting to hold a charity philanthropic event. What is the best way somebody can get ahold of you in as yous Wish?
Well, great. Our website is as you wish Colorado. And then we're very prevalent on, you know, Instagram is As you wish co as well as Facebook. As you wish co email is allisonsyou wishcolorado.com awesome.
Well, that's it, folks. That's Allison Welch with as you Wish, an event planning service out of Denver and Boulder, Colorado. If you are looking to have an event in this beautiful state of ours, you have to hit up Allison. You will not be disappointed. Until next time. Take care.
