Meet Hannah Grant Choe

We recently connected with Hannah Grant Choe and have shared our conversation below.

Hannah , so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

By realizing that there is no imposter if all you’re trying to be is yourself.

To be clear, this is an ongoing process and I’d be shocked to meet an entrepreneur at a similar stage in their career who doesn’t also struggle with imposter syndrome, or wonder if what they’re doing is enough. It’s something I am actively working on and probably will be for a while! But the whole reason I decided to go out on my own is because I knew that I had something unique to offer. I knew I had a special set of experiences and skills that made me both called to wedding and event planning and also really, really good at it. I also knew that I had an approach that I thought was different, and ways that I could improve the wedding industry as a whole. Leaning into those skills and experiences and the other nuances of my personality and the things that make me, me has given me the confidence to keep moving forward, even when I am uncertain. Because, after all, who I am and what I put out there is why people are choosing me!

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am the owner of HG Events, a wedding and event planning company based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. My mission is to create beautiful, intentional, and seamless events in celebration of love, in whatever form that may take. I love creative and outside the box ideas, and aim to help my clients make the event planning process just as magical, fun, and reflective of the magic of the milestone they’re celebrating as possible. I love working with people and couples in love period, and I am explicitly LGBTQ+ affirming. But I also love working with weddings of various sizes, settings, and budgets. I believe everyone deserves a stress free and special celebration, and I appreciate the uniquely different challenge of planning both high and low budget events.

Before entering the world of weddings, I worked for years in restaurants, both in the front and back of house. After college worked for a while in nonprofit development, which is where I fell in love with event planning and the joy of watching pieces of a planning puzzle come together. After settling back down in Chattanooga, I managed a wedding venue which is what made me certain that weddings specifically are where I wanted to focus. There is no greater thing on earth than love, and helping clients bring all of their people together in celebration of love is a kind of magic that gives me chills, even after years of seeing it!

I take intentionality really seriously, and love nothing more than helping clients translate unique details about themselves into their wedding day. I make it a point to never start the planning process with a list of boxes to check and traditions to uphold, but instead I ask the clients what boxes they’d like to even have! How do you want to spend your time on your wedding day? What values are important to you and how can we keep them close? I don’t think it’s an uncommon opinion that weddings can feel stale, predictable, and performative, especially in the world of social media. My mission is to help clients not only have a stress free celebration, but also one that feels like them and that they had a hand in shaping.

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?

Everything I need to know I learned from working in restaurants. Don’t get me wrong, I have a Bachelors degree and have worked in some higher paying and “high brow” roles in my time. But the skills that have shaped me the most as a wedding planner and business owner (and honestly as a human too) were best honed waiting tables, bartending, and working the line. Specifically I am talking about confidence, the ability to keep calm under pressure, and a true and genuine love for people and serving them.

Confidence is something that you can fake at first, but only for a while. For me, what builds true confidence is experience. In restaurants, this meant being in situations where you’re so desperately busy, in over your head, in the weeds, and you think “I am never going to get through this!” But then you do. And it feels good afterwards, you feel accomplished. It’s a notch in your belt, so to speak. And then if you do that with any regularity, you stop thinking “I am never going to get through this” and start thinking “I’ve gotten through this before and I’ll do it again.” The same is largely true for wedding planning. Just by seeing and being a part of hundreds of events at this point in various roles, I have a reference point and solution for almost anything that can come up. I think: “I’ve seen this before and I know what to do” and that kind of confidence changes both how you move and how you’re perceived.

Speaking of “I am never going to get through this,” is the ability to keep calm under pressure. My favorite metaphor for this is the duck in a pond POV. That is, if you look at a duck swimming on a pond from the shore, it looks so calm and peaceful. The duck glides, slowly, confidently. But if you were to look under the water, the duck’s feet are working HARD, almost frantic. The same is true for weddings (and restaurants!) No matter how desperately bad things are going, either in your own life or with the event itself, a peaceful and pleasant exterior is essential to the client’s or guest’s experience. In the moment, chaos is only meant for under the surface.

In order to master that component, I think it all boils down to the innate desire to serve others. If you’re a fine dining server or a wedding planner, your everyday job is to give people an experience, a memory. The people you serve are getting married, or celebrating a birthday or anniversary or new job, all of the things that make life so rich and full! It truly feels like such an unbelievable honor to get to help them make that experience even more beautiful. I loved providing excellent service, making great recommendations, anticipating guests’ needs and making sure they feel taken care of when I was a server, and I love doing the same with my clients now. My heart is and has always been in service of others and their experiences.

How would you describe your ideal client?

If any of the following are true for you, you just might be the perfect client for me:

–You’re planning a wedding or other milestone event and are feeling disillusioned with the process and expectations around it. Everyone has an opinion, and you’re not sure how to see through what’s actually important and what’s just fluff.

–Authenticity is more important to you than aesthetics, (but you care about those, too!)

–You feel a little icky around some or many wedding traditions. Why do so many vendors only seem to be speaking to brides?What if I don’t want to be “given away” by my father, or I don’t have a father to even do so? What if I don’t want to toss a garter or my bouquet or even wear a white dress or a dress at all?

–You feel like so many weddings you see look the same, almost as if they are checking boxes. You want a wedding that feels like you while also still being a wedding, and aren’t sure where to start.

–You don’t want a wedding day where you feel pressured to perform or be anything other than yourself.

–You want an experienced professional who feels like a friend to guide you through the process, and maybe even to help you figure out what that process even is!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hgeventschatt.com
• Instagram: @hgeventschatt

Image Credits

Our Ampersand Photo Co.
Alexis Dimmer Photography
Gabby Kline Photography
Hopkins Photo Co.
Indie Blake Photography
Peyton Nichole Photo