Can throwing parties help your business? In today’s episode, I’m sharing all about the fourth annual Witchy Women Celebration that my Mom and I are throwing here in Arizona, and how this tradition has brought so much to my personal and professional life. I’ll also be breaking down the opportunities that come from hosting events, and sharing ideas so that you can get started planning one of your own!

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Review The Show Notes: 

The Importance Of Creating Traditions (2:08)

Blending Your Life And Business (5:01)

Five Ideas To Start Your Own Traditions (8:01)

Quarterly Parties (17:03)

Mentioned In This Episode:

Episode 028: Hosting Events To Book More Weddings

Review the Transcript:

Welcome back they have in today’s episode, I’ll be sharing a bit more personal life experiences, but I’ll also be sprinkling in some business education. I’m sorry, I can never turn off my marketing and business brain. When I started this passion podcast, it was important for me to share my life experiences, business journey and stories, not to just turn these episodes into weekly diary entries, but to share encouragement, tons of business education and introduce you to my favorite souls. It’s important for me to not only tell you about these stories, and make connection call introductions, but I love sharing how I’m applying these lessons in my daily life, and weaving together my real life adventures and business life together as a personal brand.

This month, Mama and I will be hosting our fourth annual witchy women party here in Arizona and I cannot wait to share more about this tradition. In today’s chat, I’ll be breaking down the importance of sharing traditions for your life and business and how this witchy woman party aligns with both my real life and online life. I’ll be breaking down the opportunities that come from hosting events, sparking genuine friendships and connections, and hopefully stir up some ideas for you to host future events and parties just for fun, even if you’re not into witchy vibes or Halloween is just another holiday for you. Stick around to the end of this episode when I’ll wrap up with a handful of ideas for you to consider any time of the year.

Welcome to Quianna Marie Weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast.

Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party ready loves though. It was really important for me when I first moved to Arizona to create some fun traditions.

If you have ever experienced Losing Someone You Love or moving out of state, sometimes our traditions can stain or never feel the same with empty seats at the table or stockings with names that have become our angels. After losing my dad over 20 years ago and moving away from my brother and his little family. Our family traditions and holidays just aren’t the same.

It was important for a moment and I to create new happy memories and to give us something to look forward to year after year with a love for the movie Practical Magic and living by the phrase just like the moon or always hold no matter what phase we’re in. We both agreed that hosting annual witchy woman parties near the full moon in October or for this year we chose Friday the 13th would be the perfect tradition for our new home.

Every year we welcome family, friends and neighbors into our home to wear black dress with witchy vibes and breakout those which hats share yummy food and surround ourselves with kind hearted, impactful and mini intuitive women. We love to welcome small businesses like the happy Cosmos, Sophie may boutique Hello sweet sugar by my friend Mallory. If I had a cupcake by our friend Melissa sound baths with plant based Rachael mamas doTERRA essential oils and this year we have the honor of featuring Christie hydrogel with soul vibes life coaching to lead us through a visualization and burning ceremony to release the things we cannot control.

We’re literally going to live on fire, sort of like a pop up party for local vendors to share their products and make connections. Now to give you a visual of our home, it’s actually pretty small and cozy. So it’s not like we have this full vendor fair going on when we are hosting these parties, right and no one is ever ever pressured to purchase. But we do love to feature one or two businesses and introduce them to our community and highlight opportunities right here in our neighborhood.

You may be thinking, Okay, that sounds fun. But what does this have to do with my business? Well, I’m a firm believer that friendships and genuine connections are the backbone of business. When you give yourself permission to be silly, dress up, get creative, bake, cook, host and even deep clean your house because you have company coming over. You’re releasing energy, getting your creativity flowing and making room for magic. If you’re nervous about hosting an event, just to have everyone stared at each other and not sure what to say how to entertain them or exactly what to do.

Collaborating with friends and local businesses is a great way to break the ice and offer some value to your guests. It’s most important for my mom and I to have everyone that enters our home. feel loved, accepted and appreciated exists. exactly as they are now back to business. Hosting annual events can quickly build your community gain brand awareness and easily create a ton of content to share online. Just to be clear, I love hosting these events because they light me up.

There’s so much fun for reference. As a photographer, I’m not even really photographing the event. Yes, I have my phone out to grab behind the scene videos, and capture group pics and all of the cute char karate details that I love. But it’s totally not a photo shoot. In fact, I’m not even breaking out my big DSLR camera. It’s really a time to gather, catch up, share stories and connect with my local favorite ladies. When you get a group of women together, someone is bound to know someone else in the room.

Since Matt and I have moved Arizona we quickly connected with lots of amazing people. It’s such a fun surprise when a neighbor knows someone that works at the moment Trader Joe’s, or when a party guests know someone else in the room through a mutual friend. It’s so fun to see the magic of connection spark right in our kitchen. blending your life and business doesn’t have to feel like a major production.

We love to celebrate and create fun traditions. But I promise creating these connections doesn’t have to be expensive or a ton of work. If you’re a photographer or business owner, scroll way back to episode number 28, amplifying your weddings with events to hear more about hosting events for your past, current and future dream clients. I share a ton about collaborating with vendors, hosting at different locations, aligning yourself as the expert and creating a ton of brand awareness.

Over the years I’ve been prioritizing adding more fun going on more adventures, and finding excuses to make more memories. Adding a bun tradition like the witchy woman party to my calendar gives me something to look forward to every year. And many friends still have their affirmation cards that they pulled from past parties, on their bathroom mirrors or on the desks in their offices, even years later. Having that type of impact and sharing experiences like this with my friends is the best feeling.

You and I both know that the biggest compliment anyone can give your business is a referral. The best types of referrals come from our friends, family and neighbors. I love hosting events, showing up to conferences and events to support my friends and make the best connections everywhere I go. I’m passionate about celebrating and hosting because it brings my heart joy and gives me something to look forward to naturally these events spark opportunities. But none of those referrals new friendships and opportunities would happen if I wasn’t putting myself out there. If I wasn’t deciding, you know what? now’s a great time to host something now’s a great time to show up.

Let’s break down some more ideas to start noodling over for your business. I could talk about witchy woman vibes very literally days and days. I think it’s so fun, especially when we can connect with the phases of the moon, we can pull affirmation cards, all that woowoo stuff just lights me up. But today, I have five quick ideas to hopefully spark some encouragement and start creating your own traditions. These events could be fun to start with your best friend’s business besties your clients and even just a date with yourself. Like let’s start creating traditions and fun rituals for ourselves without including everybody, right? Like let’s start that.

And I hope it’s time for you to create some memories to boost your energy and bring in more business opportunities. I am all about rattling the universe, right? We need to create our own magic. We cannot just wait around for opportunities to just come knocking on our front door right like we have to open the door and welcome the magic. I challenge you to come up with an idea for your next tradition and start planning so let’s get into this list of ideas.

Number one, let’s break down to the New Year’s celebration. The new year is a great time to start fresh welcome the new year with vision boards make healthy choices and even layout the entire year and make some big quarterly goals. I suggest planning something fun with your besties penciling some dates for girls weekends, so the year doesn’t fly by and it ends up being October like it is now and wishing that we had planned either a camping trip or just a Girl’s Day, right like just a time we can all get pedicures like that really just takes about two hours, maybe three to four hours out of the day, just one day and grab lunch and get a massage or get her toes done right like we need to make time for that now and the beginning of the year. So we don’t wait to the end of the year and then it’s gone. Okay.

So that’s a great time for you to connect with your your family with your friends, your favorite humans, but it can also be really beneficial for your clients. So maybe you have new offers for booking season that’s coming up or a new product to share. If you’re a photographer, this is a great time to check in with your couples to offer timeline help or any extra wedding planning tips to help their day run smoother and stress Free.

So New Year’s parties are so fun like I say like it can literally be for anybody could be a block party. It could be just you and your spouse or your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your children, you can have a New Year’s party, literally in your living room Hello dance party like we can start there, right. Number two Valentine’s Day party who doesn’t love to celebrate love Valentine’s Day week would be a great time to host a brunch for wedding vendors at your favorite local venue.

Offer an event for your current clients or just invite your besties for a Girls Night In wearing cozy pajamas. ordering takeout and sipping wine are your favorite cocktails. Last year at my friend Felicia hosted a Valentine’s Day party with a personal chef, Soul fancy. And it featured Bazi readings with French way by Jen who is absolutely incredible and was so spot on with her readings, it was so fun to get to know our group like our group of girlfriends way more intimately. And to share a lot of the things that kind of make us tick, right and a Bazi reading was just so cool. You got to check it out. And I highly suggest you learn more from Jen with that one. And it was just such a magical experience. It was one of those core memories. And so happy got to share it with our mastermind girls. And we still talk about it today. Right? Like we can’t wait for next year. We’re already so excited. And those are the type of memories that you can start planning now and create these fun traditions. Right?

Number three, International Women’s Day. So in case you didn’t know it always creeps up on me and then I see post about it. And I wish I would have either hosted a fun event or sent out sweet letters and words of encouragement to my favorite ladies, right? So March 8 is the day so mark that in your calendars. But what a great tradition to start to celebrate your favorite women, right? This would be fun to highlight other businesses to collaborate with brands or just honor the women in your family that you admire. Right? How cute would that be? I know I am personally so close to my mom, to my Auntie’s to my grandmother. Then of course, my cousins and my little niece, right?

Like, it would be so fun to host a sweet brunch or even just a fun cocktail hour. It doesn’t have to be a full day commitment. Right? It can just be one meal to honor the women in your life. Right? And maybe you live out of state, maybe you live far away from your family. Maybe you just want to celebrate and bring lunch or bring dinner to the sweet old lady who lives next door to you in your apartment. Right?

Like whatever that looks like for you. This is a good time to start noodling that, and maybe penciling in some ideas for next year. Number four, client appreciation parties. Okay, this type of party can happen any time of the year, I suggest looking over your calendar to find a slow season for this one. I know we’re all so busy. Like sometimes we can all argue there’s actually no such thing as a slow season. Because every day every week, every month, it’s crazy.

I totally understand. But carving time to do something fun to celebrate your past clients creates a ton of FOMO for future dream clients. Right? So I love hosting date nights for my wedding couples. I love wine tasting adventures and movie nights. Or even a fun like imagine going to a local park on some random day. It could be a Thursday night, it could be a Saturday night, and you are offering anniversary photos for your couples. How fun would that be? Right? Maybe it’s near your one year like our one year but like maybe it’s near your anniversary, right?

Like your business birthday, or maybe even like your half birthday for your business if it happens to fall on a busy season time for you, right. And I say this because it’s it’s something that all of your couples could look forward to. And it’s something that they have a mental note for. So maybe they’re planning a vacation, or they’re going to be I’m traveling or something’s going on. They know that next year. This is a tradition that you’re planning and they can look forward to. Right. So this is something that I really, really love for our couples because we cannot keep up with everybody’s anniversary, right? If we’re booking 10 2040 weddings a year, there’s no way that you can keep up with everybody’s anniversary, but you creating that time and that date that they can look forward to like plus or minus a week or something. Oh my gosh, your clients would love that. And plus two, I want you to always thinking about the future, right? Like thinking about planting these seeds.

So let’s say you do offer this anniversary style event for your couples. Okay, how cute would that be to know that other people that are kind of scrolling through either your past clients post right, they’re going to share about it right? They’re going to see that and say, Oh wow, not only do we get to work with this photographer who is so incredibly talented, is so professional and you can tell they just love their clients so much. But then they offer these fun anniversary shoots what Right, like I need to be a part of that. That’s why I love creating FOMO like Fear Of Missing Out FOMO. Okay, so client appreciation parties are so fun. I would love personally to host maybe some like x throwing party or a pickleball tournament just for fun. Does that sound like so much fun?

I don’t know, I just, this is the year of taking action and creating memories. And this is your reminder to have more fun and do things just because just because right? Find that alignment with the things that you truly enjoy. And go do it, create an event around it, create a party, celebrate, and those people that are going to be attracted to that are your people, right? Like that’s even more reason to host these things that you really love to do. Okay, and number five, friends giving, I love a good cozy fall celebration, anytime in November is the perfect time to gather with friends to share your gratitude. I love to add a special touch with handwritten letters or notes of appreciation.

Now, I suggest honestly, because we’re all super into our pumpkin spice lattes. And I know, you know, even since the beginning of September, basically it feels like people start hosting and creating all their decor and stuff for fall, right? We’re all so excited for our credit, like our crunchy leaves and the weather changing, you can host this Friendsgiving party as soon as November 1, right? In my opinion, you can host it whatever you want, of course, but you don’t have to wait for that busy Thanksgiving week, right?

It could be in the beginning of November, it could be the Saturday after Thanksgiving, right? Whatever it feels in alignment with you. And once again, like this is your reminder, like, these are fun traditions that you can create for your business they can you can create them for your friends, for your neighbors for your own family, it doesn’t have to just be that business mindset that I can’t turn off. Okay, now, if you’re still looking for ideas, maybe you don’t quite feel in alignment with these five that I just mentioned, let’s dig into a couple more ideas before we go. So quarterly parties to celebrate the seasons are always a great idea. You don’t need a plan to run a national holiday or a family tradition, which can be really fun because a lot of people have commitment issues, especially near the holidays, right. So even though your party or your event may sound so fun.

Then they want to go to maybe they have some type of like children’s boutique or you know, play or something else going on that week, and just prior commitments that they can’t get out of right. So planning something around the seasons can be literally anytime, celebrating an intimate dinner party with a handful of friends to honor spring, summer, fall or winter would be so fun. Keep the stress of hosting super low by coordinating a potluck or planet picnic or even just show up at a local winery or a restaurant for everyone to pay their way. And to keep it super simple, right?

I think sometimes there’s this like this barrier of entry or this wall of fear when it comes to hosting your own events that it’s going to be so expensive and you know, maybe your tiny apartment or the home that you share with your children. It’s just a disaster all the time. And it can be a little nerve wracking, inviting people into your safe space. Go outside, like literally, if it’s a beautiful day, go outside and meet people at the park, go to the beach. If you’re local to the beach.

You know, don’t be afraid of just reserving a table at a local restaurant, like it is totally 100. But a coffee shop like find a cool outdoor vibey space and leave the stress out Bay like Do not stress yourself out over this. In my opinion, in person events are always the best. But sometimes our besties and clients don’t live around the corner from us. So this is a reminder that it’s totally okay to offer online events, right? I know 2020 rocked is hard and some of us may be kind of burned out of zoom calls and connections. But if you create the right atmosphere if you create some buzz and excitement around that event, whether it just be with your cousins with your best friends, with your clients, whatever that could be right?

Let’s blend together our work life and personal life to make our careers more meaningful and impactful and fun, right? So it’s all about just bringing people together right fun game nights and stuff like that. It’s totally up to you. I hope you found this episode inspiring and not overwhelming with something else to add to your calendar.

Thank you for tuning in. I can’t wait to continue sharing fun connection calls with my favorite business besties and dropping more episodes with the motivation and encouragement and extra hugs you need to live the life of your dreams. Everything you need to be successful is already in your hands. Let’s follow our dreams together and turn our daydreams into our day jobs. Love you endlessly and can’t wait to see you soon. next week, keep on dancing baby. That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie Weekly.

Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing