Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Perreault and Christina Troy.
Laura and Christina, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
For any recent college grads, it’s hard to think of what life after graduation can bring. For us in 2009, it was no different, but we had the added burden of a downtrodden economy. Jobs were scarce and that summer provided a lot of downtime. Sitting on a beach at the Cape brainstorming what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives, the idea behind OnBendedKnee (OBK) was born and what it could be. But at the time, it remained a “what if” as real life hit, and so did full time jobs with real paychecks to pay the very real bills that came with adulthood. But when Laura got engaged in 2013, the idea resurfaced as we worked to design her wedding decor and invitations. We quickly realized how much we were enjoying it, and how seamlessly we worked together. The results of her wedding led us to do a few more through word of mouth recommendations and next we knew, by 2016 we were launching an official LLC with the state of Massachusetts. OnBendedKnee was official, and so were we.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of our biggest struggles in starting OBK was finding the time to launch a fledgling business and drum up interest and support with minimal budgets while balancing full time careers. With full time roles in Marketing/Media and Advertising, both of us have demanding schedules. So finding the balance of when to ramp up and when to pull back has been key, along with recognizing the importance of balancing for the sake of personal lives and wellbeing. Loving what you do is important, but loving yourself is also incredibly important. Your business will only thrive if you are also taking care of who is actually driving it forward.
Identifying our business model was also a bit of a struggle for us. We knew we were planning on offering invitations and the stationery/print components as that’s what we were designing, but the further we dug into some of the weddings we were working on the more we realized we could provide. It wasn’t just the stuff printed on paper anymore, but full on decorations and table-scaping and alternative ideas to guest books and florals and anything else we could come up with. In monitoring a quickly evolving industry with fast paced and changing trends, we had to be nimble and offer more. That’s how event styling became part of our model.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about On Bended Knee – what should we know?
We are a custom wedding invitations, stationery and decor company that provide services beyond just the printed work. We’re event stylists that work to capture the vision of the couple for their memorable day, whether it’s creating pieces from scratch or renting out items that we can refurbish or rework into new and inventive ways. Custom shouldn’t mean costly, and that’s how we operate our model.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Both having a design oriented background, imagination and creativity are fundamentally huge in what we do. As we tailor everything to the couples we work with, we emphasize the themes and details for their day in particular. We don’t work template style because we want everything to be unique to the wedding we’re working with. Your day should be yours, not a carbon copy of someone else’s. And to that end, we also think being able to relate to our clients, empathize with what they’re going through and what they’re looking for, we’re able to help them create a vision even if they don’t fully know what they want that to be at the start.
Contact Info:
- Address: Bradford, MA 01835
- Website: www.onbendedkneedesigns.com
- Phone: 978-225-0857
- Email: info@onbendedkneedesigns.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/onbendedkneedesigns/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/onbendedkneedesigns/?ref=bookmarks
Image Credit:
Kayla Lynne Photo, Nature’s Design Floral Studio, PEAK Event Services, Nadra Photography
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