My Intern Experience!

This summer I had the amazing opportunity to intern with Em Devaud, a highly respected wedding planner in the Newport area. She is the sole owner of her event planning company called Em Devaud Events, and I worked side by side with her in assisting with all of the elements of planning and coordinating weddings. Em’s role as my internship supervisor and mentor was to teach me the ins and outs of the wedding industry so that I could be successful when it came to the office work that I was completing with her every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and also at all of the weddings that I have assisted with this summer. Since Em runs this company by herself, she is the key person who was teaching me everything that I needed to know. Her role as a wedding planner is to assist her clients in planning their special day. This starts as early as a year before the wedding and from then until the actual date of the wedding, Em is in constant contact with the client, and vendors who are making their wedding day possible. Em normally takes on about fifteen clients per year so it is pertinent that she keeps organized in order to ensure that she isn’t getting any of her clients mixed up. Since she has so many clients per year, it is helpful to have someone assisting her in completing every part of the wedding planning process, so that is why she takes on an intern every semester to help ease her workload.

I would title my role in this internship as the “assistant to the wedding planner”. On Tuesday's and Thursday's I would help to complete all of the office work with Em, whether that be updating and adjusting timelines for the upcoming summer weddings, calling different vendors for pricing and booking, creating dream boards for clients, etc. In addition I also got the chance to attend meetings with Em; most of the meetings that I have sat in on have been vendor meetings, meaning that the client will go to their specific vendor and for example choose the linens that they want on the tables in their venue. During these meetings my role was to take pictures of everything and send them to the client so that they could have a visual memory of what was going to be at their wedding since these meetings were usually months before the actual wedding date. I also chose some of my favorite pictures to post on Em’s social media sites. In addition to posting these pictures, I was in charge of running Em Devaud Event’s facebook and instagram some of the days when I was in the office. Em had a wedding album on her ipad which was filled with pictures that I was able to choose from to post. I would come up with clever captions for the pictures and then would always make sure to add wedding hashtags like #newportbride, #weddinginspiration, #bridetobe, etc., in order to promote her account on a wider scale, leading to more views, likes, and followers. On the days where there were no scheduled meetings, phone calls or social media updates, we would go out to stores together and pick up items that are needed for wedding days. This included anything needed for wedding welcome baskets, which we then assembled in Em’s office and brought to the hotels of the guests attending the wedding that weekend. On top of these everyday intern tasks, Em provided me with the long term task of updating the wording and look of her pricing sheets that she sends to clients.

My favorite part of this internship is the experience that I am getting on wedding days. Almost every weekend I attend a wedding with Em and help ensure that they run smoothly. My role on wedding days is to ensure that we were keeping on track with the timeline. This involved me checking off each item as it was being completed, for example, five minutes before someone was supposed to give a speech, I would check in with them, tell them how many more minutes they had until their speech and bring them some champagne to toast with after they finished. There was one particular wedding this summer where my role somewhat changed and that was because Em, was actually in the wedding party. For this reason, I was the "head wedding planner" that day, meaning that I was in charge of making sure the set up of the venue was correct, and that there were no problems throughout the night. I had the final say on how the venue looked before guests arrived, and this time around, I was the one that the guests would come to if they needed anything instead of going to Em. Being the person in charge was a little nerve racking but because of my experience working other weddings and all of the tasks that I had done with Em prior to this day, I felt confident in my abilities, and the night ran smoothly with no hiccups.

I have loved every aspect of this internship thus far. It has allowed me to grow as a person and feel confident in my abilities, especially because Em has been so kind to put her trust in me to run some events on wedding weekends by myself, like for example the post wedding brunch. Em has also been surprising me lately with new opportunities that I am thrilled about including the idea of continuing to work with her after the internship is over as a part of her team for summers to come. I am so excited to continue working with Em and advance my knowledge in this industry. These small accomplishments prove to me that my work so far has paid off and continues to remind me how thankful I am for this amazing internship experience.

I believe that my intern experience was extremely effective. I have learned more in these last few months then I ever have at any job I’ve worked at or any class that I’ve taken. On top of the office work, I think that it really helps to get the hands on experience of actually attending the weddings, because then you are able to see everything that you’ve been working on come to life. I would definitely recommend this company to another student solely based off of the fact that Em is such an amazing boss, who creates such a welcoming and fun environment. Her positive energy radiates out of her and keeps me in high spirits every day that I am working with her, no matter how stressful and long the days might be. She is very accommodating and always makes sure to explain how and why she does certain tasks so that I am never confused. Em has truly become a role model to me, and someone that I really look up to; in the future, I can only hope to be as successful and wonderful as she is! I believe that one thing every student wants out of an internship besides learning new knowledge is feedback on how they are doing, and Em is great at providing this. I would highly recommend this internship to any student who is willing to give their time to someone who will actually appreciate their help and will teach them a plethora of knowledge about the wedding industry and how important event planning

is.