Meet Emily Kutt

We recently connected with Emily Kutt and have shared our conversation below.

Emily, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome has been, by far, the biggest obstacle I have faced as a small business owner. Being in the wedding planning industry, I am naturally a perfectionist! If left unchecked, this creates a breeding ground for self doubt and the self inflicted pressure to achieve perfection in every area of my business instead of experiencing natural growth and steady experience.

Overcoming imposter syndrome is a continuous process that I continue to work on as I scale my business. I have learned to take steps towards centering myself any time the sneaky self doubt sets in.

First and foremost, I make an effort to allow myself to celebrate my achievements, both big and small! This seems like a no-brainer, but for many small business owners, we need to make a conscious effort in this area. Whether it’s meeting my booking goal for the year or receiving a kind compliment from one of my clients, I make time to be present and acknowledge my efforts and accomplishments in the wedding industry.

The next thing that has been so helpful is surrounding myself with fellow wedding professionals who just get it. A solid support system has shown me that I am not alone in my feelings, has made room for advice and inspiration, and has ultimately been a huge contributor to avoiding hitting burnout and kicking imposter syndrome to the curb.

Finally, focusing on progress and letting go of comparison has been imperative to overcoming imposter syndrome!

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Dearly Beloved Wedding Planning is a wedding planning service based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and serving couples all over the state. We offer three curated planning packages aimed to serve each couple’s unique needs.

Our packages are the following –
– Full-Service Wedding Planning, which provides start-to-finish wedding planning for the couple who wants complete peace of mind during their engagement season.
– Partial Planning helps those who have laid the foundation of their big day but need assistance keeping the remainder of the process on track.
– Day of Coordination package is for the couple who has planned their wedding day but wants to hand off the final details and execution of those plans to a professional.

I am incredibly detail-oriented and take great pride in the mechanics of my timelines. There are so many things I love about my job, but the logistics that go into the wedding day timeline are pretty high on my list. While building the timeline, I review contracts, communicate with vendors, and go through the timeline line by line with my clients to ensure that any fires are put out before they even begin.

What matters most to me is giving my couples the ability to be fully present during their engagement season and wedding day alike so they focus on what matters most – getting married! I accomplish this by handling all the details with an attitude of excellence and grace. The longer I am in this industry, the more I recognize how important it is to have a professional by your side throughout the process.

I wear many hats on the wedding day – I pride myself in being my couple’s unbiased advocate, logistics connoisseur, set-up guru, and emergency handler. No matter how perfectly you plan a wedding, there are likely to be a few hiccups along the way. I strive to continually improve my process to put out fires before they begin, but even if they do, luckily, I thrive in situations where quick thinking and problem-solving are required!

I truly believe your wedding day should be spent enjoying it instead of working it for the couple, families, and wedding party alike, so my ultimate goal is to handle everything behind the scenes so you and your people can be fully present and soak in every moment – it goes by so fast!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The qualities and skills that I contribute to being the most impactful in my journey as a business owner is self discipline, organization skills, and a strong emphasis on client relations.

My education background of homeschooling and online college courses fostered my self discipline that translated into being a small business owner. Still at times, it does not come naturally to me. My best advice to develop self discipline in order to reach your goals is to first to define your goals. Having a clear understanding of not just the “what” by the “why” will give you a clear vision and stimulate motivation. Next, I would recommend to plan and prioritize your tasks. This can look different to different people- dedicate specifics times throughout your week to the most important projects, figuring out what time of the day you are most focused, and breaking down the bigger tasks to smaller ones to make the process more digestible.

I would not be who I am without to-do lists! The best way to develop organization skills is to lean into lists and schedules and learn to appreciate the structure instead of dread it. Creating a strong workflow, having boundaries with business hours, and creating filing systems for documents and emails has helped to keep me accountable. This helped me to not only start my business, but also go throughout my day to day without feeling overwhelmed.

Having a strong emphasis for client relations is another skill that has felt natural to me coming from a hospitality background. If you are struggling in this area and are in a client focused industry, I would encourage you to go back to you “why” and spend time refocusing on your goals to find your passion again. Seeing things from the client’s perspective to anticipate their needs and find ways to meet those needs really drives it home.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I love supporting fellow businesses in my industry and connecting them with my clients! I’d love to learn about who you are and what you do so I can keep you in my for future projects. Send me an email at [email protected] to see what working together could look like!

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Mikayla Jean & Co.

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Highlighter Series
What would your closest friends say really matters to you?

If you asked your best friends what really drives you—what they think matters most in

Highlighter Series
When do you feel most at peace?

In a culture that often celebrates hustle and noise, peace can feel rare. Yet, peace

Highlighter Series
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?

Almost everything is multisided – including the occurrences that give us pain. So, we asked