My Strength in Him

So, trust him. Even if you have no idea what you’re doing. Take the leap, do the thing. He will guide you, he will show you, and he walk you through it. Just be obedient.- By Savannah O'Grosky

Hi, my name is Savannah O’Grosky and I am a Southwest Florida wedding planner. I am also a wife, a dog mom, an auntie, coffee connoisseur, and a mentor for 9^th grade girls at my local church. I started my business, Make Life Eventful, in January of 2020. I always thought I was going to work in Athletics as an athletic trainer until one day I realized that I hated the classes I had to take to become an athletic trainer. I had always joked with my mom that I would just become a wedding planner if things didn’t work out with my classes. Well, I finally realized that I could actually become a wedding planner and it would make a really good career. 

My junior year of college, I switched my major to event management and started the process of getting a degree in hospitality and eventually went through a course to become a certified wedding planner. I had never planned a wedding or even been to too many weddings, but I knew that I loved the idea of helping people and a wedding is one of the most important days of people’s lives and I wanted to help make that happen. It also helped that I am naturally good at organization and loved bossing people around (at least that’s what my mom says). 

When I planned my first wedding in January of 2020, I didn’t have any wedding experience other than my 2-day certification course and tons of research online. Some friends from my church were super trusting and asked if I could help with their wedding. I eagerly said yes, and we started the process. I didn’t know most of the answers to their questions, but I made sure to research them and find out. In fact, I really didn’t know much about weddings but I sure as heck learned a lot while we were planning. I think we all did.

As the wedding day came, I just remember being super nervous as I drove to the venue to set up. The whole way there I listened to worship music and prayed. I asked God to be with me, guide me throughout the day, calm my nerves, and most importantly make sure the wedding went smoothly. I honestly do not remember much about the wedding day, but I do remember leaving, super late after clean-up, and just thanking God the whole way home. I had no idea how I did it or how the wedding went so smoothly but it did. I finally did my first wedding. 

Almost 30 weddings later and I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. People ask me all of the time, “How do you do it? How can you be a wedding planner? How do you know what to do?” Honestly, I don’t. And that’s okay. It’s okay to not know. I rely completely on my heavenly Father to help me get through each wedding. Yes, I have learned a lot throughout the 3 years of owning my own business and doing so many weddings, but there are still things I don’t know or am still learning. I feel like no matter how much experience I have or how much I learn, every single wedding has its own unique challenges to navigate. It is the incredible importance of the day and organized chaos in every single wedding that makes me feel like I’ll never know everything. But the truth is, that’s okay. I have to trust that I know what to do and that God will help me through each wedding, especially if I really don’t know what to do. 

I think that so many people go through life and work trying to have all of the answers or try to do everything on their own and they get so stressed out and so worried that others are better than them at what they do. I still get stressed and I definitely think that there are others that are better than me at wedding planning, but I have to constantly remind myself that what’s different is that I have a heavenly Father that I can ask for help, I can ask him to take away my anxiety and stress, I can ask him to help a wedding go smoothly. Some other wedding planners may be better than me at things, but I also know that there are things that I am better at then other wedding planners. The biggest difference I have, is I do everything I can to love and serve my couples like Jesus would. No, I am nowhere near perfect and there are a lot of things that I mess up at with this, but God’s grace is good. He forgives me when I start to do things for myself or by myself. He simply reminds me that “I’m here. You don’t have to worry about that. I’ve got it. Everything will turn out just fine.”

There have been so many things that have gone wrong at weddings but there have also been so many solutions that I would have never thought of myself. I made a choice when I started my business, that I would always rely on God’s strength and wisdom for each wedding I did. I would pray over each wedding and each couple before I showed up and I would let God handle the rest. Every single wedding, God has shown up, made the day better than I or the couple could ever imagine, even when things went wrong (like the caterer thinking the wedding was the next day and showed up 3 hours late, but that’s a story for another time). Every time that I tried to do things in my own strength or I forgot to trust God with the situation, I was always so stressed out and quickly reminded that I only can do this, my business, because of God’s help. I can, in no way, do this by myself and I would never dream of it. He is the foundation and heart of my business. He gets all the honor and praise for each wedding I do, because without him, I am nothing and my business is nothing. So, trust him. Even if you have no idea what you’re doing. Take the leap, do the thing. He will guide you, he will show you, and he walk you through it. Just be obedient.

By- Savannah O'Grosky