We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Elizaveta Malone. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Elizaveta below.
Elizaveta, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
I think I found my purpose gradually, long before I realized I was building a business around it. Looking back, the common thread was never just photography or weddings – it was always people, experiences, and the way meaningful moments are felt and remembered.
Before EZ Elopements became what it is today, I naturally gravitated toward organization, logistics, planning, and problem solving. Even outside of weddings, I’ve always been the person who enjoys piecing everything together – managing moving parts, anticipating needs before they happen, building structure around chaos, and making people feel taken care of in the process. There’s something deeply satisfying to me about taking dozens of emotional, logistical, and creative elements and turning them into an experience that feels effortless and deeply personal for someone else.
What surprised me was realizing how perfectly that translated into intimate weddings and elopements. It wasn’t until planning my own intimate wedding experience that everything truly clicked for me. My husband and I wanted something deeply personal and intentional – an experience that felt meaningful to us rather than following a traditional template that never quite fit who we were. As we pieced everything together ourselves, especially in an environment unfamiliar to us, I realized how overwhelming and limiting the process could feel for couples searching for something different from what the industry typically offered at the time.
At the same time, I also realized how naturally this came to me. I loved researching locations, building the flow of the experience, balancing logistics with emotion, and creating something that felt immersive and true to us as people. That experience made me recognize how many other couples were likely craving the same thing – something intimate, intentional, unique, emotionally connected, or simply guided by someone who truly understood the challenges of planning in a place they may have never been before.
A lot of people assume this industry is primarily about either photography or the planning, but for me, the camera was never the full story yet it meant more than just taking photos. What I truly fell in love with was guiding couples through one of the most emotional and meaningful experiences of their lives. I loved being there from the very first conversation – hearing about who they are, how they met, what matters to them, what they’re nervous about, what kind of feeling they want their wedding day to have. Then taking all of those pieces and helping build something that actually reflects them instead of a template.
Over time, I realized I wasn’t just documenting wedding days. I was designing experiences around people’s stories I get to guide them through in the end, whilst capturing all the special memories they get to live through.
That became especially clear as we grew and started working with couples all over the world. No two people are the same, and I became obsessed with creating experiences that felt intentional rather than transactional. Some couples wanted adventure and landscapes. Others wanted privacy, calm, family connection, or something deeply nontraditional. I loved learning how to balance emotion, creativity, hospitality, logistics, timing, travel coordination, weather backup plans, vendor management, and storytelling all at once while still making the experience feel personal and human.
Ironically, the more the business grew, the more I realized my purpose sits at the intersection of creativity and systems. I genuinely love both equally. I love the emotional side of storytelling, but I also love building processes, refining workflows, improving communication, and finding better ways to create meaningful experiences at scale without losing the personal touch that made people trust us in the first place.
That’s what still excites me most today. My passion is very literally what I do. I get to combine creativity, psychology, logistics, hospitality, leadership, and storytelling into something that impacts people during one of the biggest moments of their lives. Very few people get to say the work they do feels this aligned with who they naturally are, and I don’t take that for granted.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
What I do today sits at the intersection of storytelling, experience design, logistics, and human connection. I’m the Founder & CEO of EZ Elopements, an intimate wedding and elopement company focused on creating deeply personalized experiences for couples across the U.S. and internationally. Over the years, our team has helped bring more than 1,250 intimate weddings and elopements to life, ranging from private mountaintop vows and destination adventures to meaningful family-centered celebrations designed completely around the couple themselves.
What makes this work so special to me is that it goes far beyond photography or event planning alone. At the heart of everything we do is the belief that weddings should feel intentional and personal rather than performative. Many of our couples come to us because they want something different from the traditional expectations they’ve seen around weddings, something more intimate, immersive, emotionally connected, or reflective of who they actually are as people.
One of the things I’ve always loved most is guiding couples from the very beginning of that journey. We’re often involved long before the wedding day itself, helping couples narrow down locations, navigate unfamiliar destinations, build timelines, create experiences around their personalities, and bring clarity to what can otherwise feel overwhelming. My background naturally leans heavily toward organization, systems, logistics, and personalized client experience, so I genuinely enjoy balancing the emotional and creative side of weddings with the structure and problem-solving needed to make everything come together seamlessly.
Over time, I realized that what we were really building was not just a wedding company, but an experience-driven brand rooted in storytelling, trust, hospitality, and intentional design. Every couple is different, and I became fascinated with creating systems and workflows that allow experiences to remain deeply personal even as the business scaled. That curiosity eventually expanded into education, automation, client experience systems, and exploring how creative businesses can grow more intentionally without losing the human connection that makes their work meaningful.
That evolution is one of the areas I’m most excited about right now. In addition to continuing to grow EZ Elopements, I’ve become increasingly passionate about helping creative entrepreneurs and service-based businesses improve the way they communicate, personalize, and scale their client experiences. I think we are entering a very interesting era where creativity, storytelling, technology, and human-centered experiences are becoming more interconnected than ever before, and I’m excited to continue exploring that intersection both within the wedding industry and beyond it.
One of the areas I’m especially looking forward to is expanding further into education, creative systems, and resources for both couples and entrepreneurs. After years of building highly personalized experiences at scale, I’ve become passionate about helping others better understand the intersection of storytelling, systems, client psychology, and intentional design. Over the next year, I’ll be developing new educational content, tools, and client experience systems focused on helping creative businesses grow more thoughtfully while still maintaining the personal connection that makes their work impactful. I’m also currently working on a book project planned for 2027 that explores many of these ideas through both personal experiences and lessons learned throughout my entrepreneurial journey.
At the core of it all, though, my favorite part remains the same as it was in the beginning: helping people feel seen, understood, and genuinely connected to one of the most meaningful experiences of their lives.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Looking back, I think the three qualities that have had the biggest impact on my journey have been adaptability, emotional intelligence, and pattern recognition. None of them were things I consciously set out to develop at the beginning. Most came naturally through experience, problem-solving, and years of working closely with people during very meaningful and emotional moments in their lives.
The first is adaptability. I think a lot of people underestimate how unpredictable both entrepreneurship and life can be, especially in creative industries. No matter how much you plan, things shift constantly. Timelines change, weather changes, industries evolve, and sometimes your entire direction changes with experience. Early on, I thought success came from having everything perfectly figured out ahead of time. Over time, I realized it comes more from learning how to stay grounded while adjusting without losing sight of your vision.
Some of the biggest growth moments in my business came from situations that did not go according to plan. Instead of resisting those moments, I learned to look at them as opportunities to improve, rethink, or evolve something. My advice to anyone early in their journey would be to stop waiting until you feel fully ready. Most growth happens while you are actively figuring things out, not before.
The second is emotional intelligence, which I think is one of the most valuable and underrated skills in both business and relationships. So much of what I do revolves around understanding people, anticipating needs, creating trust, and helping others feel calm, understood, and supported during overwhelming moments. Technical skills matter, but people rarely remember every logistical detail. They remember how you made them feel throughout the experience.
I also think emotional intelligence matters internally just as much as externally. Learning how to regulate stress, navigate uncertainty, communicate clearly, and stay level-headed during high-pressure situations has been incredibly important throughout my journey. The more responsibility you take on, the more important it becomes to understand not only other people, but also yourself.
The third would be pattern recognition. Over time, I started noticing how often the same types of challenges, emotions, or decision-making roadblocks repeated themselves, both within business and in human behavior overall. That ability to recognize patterns helped me become much more intentional in the way I approached experiences, communication, and problem-solving.
Instead of constantly reacting to situations as they appeared, I became more focused on anticipating needs before they happened and creating clearer paths forward for both my clients and my team. In many ways, that mindset changed everything for me. It allowed me to simplify complexity, create more thoughtful experiences, and build a business that could grow without losing the personal connection that mattered most in the first place.
If I could give one overall piece of advice to people early in their journey, it would be to focus less on appearing successful and more on becoming genuinely skilled, adaptable, and trustworthy over time. Sustainable growth is usually much quieter than people expect. It is built through consistency, curiosity, observation, problem-solving, and a willingness to continue learning long after the excitement of starting something new wears off.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
One of my biggest areas of growth over the past year has been learning how to transition from constantly operating inside the business to building more intentionally around the life and future I actually want to create.
For a long time, especially during the years of rapid growth, I was involved in nearly every moving part of the business. I genuinely love what I do, so it was very easy for work and life to blend together. Because the work is so personal and experience-driven, I carried a strong sense of responsibility to make sure everything felt thoughtful, seamless, and emotionally aligned for every couple we worked with.
Over time, though, I realized that constantly operating in reactive mode, even when fueled by passion, is not the same thing as building sustainably. One of the biggest mindset shifts for me has been understanding that growth is not just about doing more. It’s about creating structure, clarity, and intentional systems that allow both the business and the people within it to thrive long-term.
I’ve become much more focused on simplifying, documenting, and refining the systems behind the experience, including integrating more intentional tools and technologies that help create greater clarity, consistency, and balance without losing the personal connection that matters most. That process has also pushed me to think more deeply about leadership, delegation, education, and how to create experiences that remain deeply personal without relying entirely on my direct involvement in every single step.
On a personal level, I think I’ve also grown a lot in understanding the importance of protecting space for life outside of constant productivity. Entrepreneurship can easily become all-consuming, especially when your passion and your career are so closely connected. I’ve learned that stepping back, creating boundaries, and building with intention actually leads to better decisions, more creativity, and a stronger ability to show up fully for both my clients and my family.
Looking ahead, I’m excited about continuing to evolve in that direction. Not just building bigger, but building smarter, more intentionally, and in a way that creates meaningful impact while still allowing room for presence, creativity, and life beyond work itself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ezelopements.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ez_elopements/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizaveta.malone
- Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/elizaveta-malone
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ezelopements
Image Credits
Elizaveta Malone & Tessa Schrader | www.ezelopements.com
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