You know, I always used to say that my degree has very little to do with the path that I took. After all, I often write using entirely made up words in an industry that didn’t even exist when I was attending school. But as the years pass, I realize how trivial that makes my time at Vanderbilt seem. For me, those four years gave me a foundation for everything—being a good friend, communicator and leader, for giving me confidence to “walk on the grass, to carve my own path,” as a professor once guided us to do. My years at Vanderbilt built on what my parents have already given me, showing me that chasing my dreams with a sense of grace and equipped with knowledge is the only way to truly live.

I like to call my first adventure in entrepreneurship my Hard Knocks School of Business, because every single lesson learned was one that helped to make SMP successful. Run lean, move with gusto, make informed decisions, hire great people who know something different or how to do something better than you. I actually had no intention of selling Abby Jean; I honestly didn’t know that it was sellable. An industry friend approached me and the conversation got started. I realized that if the brand was truly going to succeed, I needed to invest money to grow or I needed to sell. Clearly, I chose to sell!

I started Style Me Pretty for a whopping $9 a month after realizing that brides were waiting three months for the next seasonal wedding magazine to come out. In those magazines, perhaps five weddings were actually shown. I wanted to create a space for the hundreds upon thousands of other weddings that weren't being shown in the glossies, but that in terms of style and taste, most certainly could have been. About four months in, with one wonderful employee, we launched the idea for our Little Black Book, a collection of our favorite wedding vendors around the globe, who helped us take the larger concept that we had for the site and transform it into what it is today.

Looking back, it was never a leap of faith. It was a really organic journey. I was actively interviewing for jobs during the early days of SMP. After about five or six months we partnered with Martha Stewart on their recently launched ad network. That bought me enough time to put my job search on hold and really figure out how to transform this little blog into something truly great.

Starting my own business has always been on the horizon for me. My dad was a consummate entrepreneur, owning everything from frozen yogurt companies to a line of costume jewelry and even a medical device service. He believed in—and taught me that—being your own boss is something that I should reach for. When I started Abby Jean, it was just a time in my life when I needed to do something with my hands, to create. Some of my friends were getting married, so I started helping them with invitations and such. But as I created, that little girl who was raised by that particular father was always thinking of how I could make money.

When I sold Abby Jean, looking for another job would only ever be a means to an end; a way to afford the ability to start another company. It was mostly about coming up with a great idea and finding just the right time to launch it. Thankfully, my stars aligned and thus SMP was born.

We have 26 employees on our payroll—varying from a small development team, an editorial team, sales and support. We receive around 400 real wedding submissions each week that our editors comb through to find the top 5% or so that will ultimately be published. From there we publish around 50 weddings a week across 12 different blogs (regional and national). We have developed a backend that makes it incredibly seamless and fast to digest and publish this much content and we happen to have some of the most driven, smart, lovely people on staff that help bring it to life.

From a visual perspective, the bar is simple: pretty. But not your every day, run-of-the-mill “pretty.” Real pretty. The kind of pretty that gives you goose bumps and makes you a little nervous in that excited-to-create and dream and plan kind of way. We look for an edited, thoughtful execution of a design. Not overly trendy. Organically beautiful—whether that is in a chic, modern way or a romantic ethereal approach.

From a practical standpoint: at least 100 images with about 80% being full color (or more). Vertical orientation images work best on our site; clean, beautiful photography that hasn’t been fussed with too much. And a story that people will simply want to read.

The book was a chance for all of the incredible vendors that we work with to have another gorgeous place to share their work. We wanted something as beautiful as a coffee table book, but as practical and approachable as the domino book. We loved the idea that brides could have a portable SMP, a perfect little something that they could tuck into their bags and bring with them to meetings with vendors or lunches with moms. We wanted it to be inspirational and yet practical, beautiful and totally approachable. Sifting through the gorgeous weddings that came through the door when we announced our new endeavor was as impossible as impossible gets. But our agenda was to give all brides—no matter their budget or their personal style—a bit of forever inspiration. So that helped us stay focused and to pull the weddings that rounded out the book.

The challenge was narrowing down all of the pretty into a digestible amount of content. We had so many beautiful weddings, so many incredible ideas to sift through that it was heartbreaking to not put them all into our book. We also wanted to make sure we balanced all that pretty with real, practical ideas and tips that brides could execute. And we wanted it to remain timeless as we finished the book nearly nine months before it hit shelves. So choosing weddings that had lessons built in their walls, that felt fresh and “now” and that would remain timeless for years to come were all challenges that we worked through.

Someone once told me to always hire people that are smarter than you. Give your business that gift. I thought that was kind of a clever outlook. It’s important to acknowledge that you aren't good at everything. Not even close. Sometimes the best investment is in hiring people that are good at the areas that you aren't.

We work in a largely virtual environment so setting everyone up with the tools they need to feel like they are part of the larger team has always been really important to us. Whether it’s weekly meetings or software programs that allow us to have a watercooler of sorts, we try really hard to keep the team invested and engaged.

We lead a really fun life. My husband runs the technical side of Style Me Pretty and together, we run our business from the comfort of our home, with our three babies laughing and playing in the next room. When I started Style Me Pretty, I envisioned a life in which business blended with family, where I felt creative and challenged and excited to go to work, all while picking my some-day daughter up from school and taking her to ballet. It certainly didn't work out as seamlessly and picture perfect as I dreamed, but it's pretty darn close. I live and breathe my work and my babies.

I love the life that my husband and I have built and the unorthodox way that all facets overlap and blend into one another. I thrive on creativity and style. I am excited by people who think in smart and innovative ways; I am always looking for a better way to approach a problem. And that, in a nutshell, is why I am so in love with both the business that we've built and the family that we're raising. Days are never the same, thinking on your toes is critical and finding yourself pushed to your limits is the daily grind. And we love every bit of it. 

As an industry, we are becoming smarter and savvier. And so are the brides that support us. We have to find ways to keep up with technology, with style, with etiquette in a way that also feels intimate and personal. I think that the web has really blurred the line between vendor and bride, or editor and reader. We are now so visible, so transparent. And we will only be more so as the years go by. But at the core of it, we are only as good as our work. For us, as a blog, it’s about acknowledging that we need to change, to develop, to grow. But also that we will never stray from putting out a really good, really quality product. And to me, this will be universal in the wedding industry. While embracing change is great, the core of our business should always remain the same.

I usually wake up from a dead sleep with a child crying or standing at the edge of my bed asking if I will make pancakes. So mostly I wake up looking forward to coffee. But if we’re being idealists, I look forward to watching these babies learn every day, watching them become little people. I look forward to seeing SMP at the top of its game, pushing boundaries, setting trends, defining what it means to truly service brides and vendors with limitless ideas and inspiration and tools. I hope to always be creative. To always get my hands dirty. To always find the charm in being a little scrappy start-up with huge dreams. And to work every day to make those dreams come true.