Happy Monday yall!!

I have been waiting and waiting to share this particular feature with yall!  In honor of the release of Southern Weddings Magazine I am BEYOND excited to share a small interview that I was honored to have with Lara Casey! Lara is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of my (and should be yours too) very favorite magazine, Southern Weddings. Oh and by the way Lara is as sweet as our favorite iced tea!

Meet Lara!

Lara Casey graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University and also studied design and art at Yale University. From there she has started Lara Casey Media, founded the Making Things Happen Movement, started a luxury wedding market consulting firm, Lara Casey Reps, as well as holding numerous responsibilities with Southern Weddings magazine where she is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. As you can tell Lara is quite goal oriented and you simply can’t help but be inspired by her true tenacity. She is without a doubt a seriously strong woman whose career can do nothing but continue to soar. Please enjoy our question and answer session!

Hi Lara! Thank you so much for answering a few questions for us! I honestly don’t know where to start I want to ask you so many things!

I guess we can start with when did you know you wanted to go into wedding industry?

My mother is a French chef, so I caught the entertaining/wedding bug from her. My grandmother was also a florist, so it runs in the family. I started an event planning company about 8 years ago and, long story short, the magazine was born out of that. I always wanted a place to showcase what fired me up. This all started when we launched the Southern Weddings daily blog in 2007. It was a place for me to share what I loved in weddings, what was inspiring me and to show Southern brides that there was more to telling their unique love story than tulle and stuffed chicken. The blog caught on like wildfire, and people got so excited about a modern look at weddings in the South. The print magazine was born out of the incredible feedback from the blog. I am so grateful for the work we do because our job is to tell these authentic love stories. I love my “work.” We’re not corporate or owned by some big publishing house. We do the layout, write the editorial, organize the advertising – and everything else – ourselves. We have a few other great people who help us, but it’s really just the three of us in the office every day. We are self-published, which is a rarity nowadays. We’re really, really small. We never want to grow to the point where we can’t give personal attention to what matters most. We are really grateful for that. Out of my work with Southern Weddings, I started Making Things Happen and Lara Casey Reps, which is where I spend the majority of my time now. I love working with luxury wedding professionals to build authentic profitable businesses.

After graduating what was your biggest accomplishment in the business world?

Getting through my first big business hurdle. It was a huge lesson and really made me see how much I wanted this path. All odds pointed to me quitting at that point, but I didn’t. Thank God for that! All the details: http://laracasey.tumblr.com/post/1127420085/two-and-a-half-years-ago-i-spent-my-life-savings

How do you organize your time with the many different roles you play on a daily basis? Focus and a strong sense of how to prioritize. I’ve written a whole series dedicated to building a solid foundation and clearing the clutter in life and business: http://laracasey.com/blog/2011/03/02/the-challenge/ I also have an incredibly driven team that keeps all the wheels turning. I couldn’t do my days without them. And… I pray. A lot!

With your Making Things Happen Movement, who is it geared towards? How did you decide to start this movement?

A wedding planner emailed me in November 2009 and asked me a simple question: How do you do you make things happen? So, I took a couple weeks to really think about it and I ended up writing this blog post: http://laracasey.com/blog/2009/11/24/get-fired-up-how-to-make-things-happen-vol-i/ It got such a powerful response that we decided to take those principles that I lived by every day and teach them to professionals who were in deep need of breaking out of fear. 27 cities later, I couldn’t be more grateful for the risk we took in taking it on the road!

Will you be making another tour schedule?

Since I’m expecting my first child this year, I’ve put travel plans on hold. I don’t know exactly what the future holds though, so we will see. No firm plans as of now.

As y’all are preparing for the next volume of Southern Weddings, what (besides uber wedding goodness that I know the magazine will be filled with) can we as readers expect?

This is definitely going to be our biggest and best issue yet. You can expect a lot of surprises. That’s all I’ll say : )

When the magazine first launched did you ever think you would be where you are now?

I tend to go at life full force – all or nothing – but I had NO idea we’d be where we are today. I’m so happy with where we are and we always have leaps and bounds to go. I couldn’t be more grateful for how our company keeps growing. I love the women I work with, the work we do and how we keep evolving! There is never a dull moment in this office.

When is the expected date for the much anticipated fourth volume?

V4 launches in September. We’re excited!

I really enjoy reading how grateful you are to God for blessing you with such a prosperous life and career! Would you like to share your testimony how God has worked in your life?

Absolutely! I’m learning more and more – especially lately – that faith and full trust in God always leads me down the perfect path. I just have to let go, surrender to His plans and trust. He never fails. My faith is 10000% tied to my happiness, growth as a business woman, friend, leader, wife, daughter, etc. etc. When I think about how different my life was even a year ago, it makes me so excited to do the work of surrendering to God. I could never have imagined He would take me here, so it’s hard not to be excited and hopeful about the future. I am, more and more every day, so grateful and hopeful! A favorite verse: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

As you can tell Lara is exquisite! I hope one day to meet her in person at one of her many appearances. I am so inspired by everything she has accomplished at such a young age! Hope you have been inspired as well! And leave Lara some blog love yall!