If the COVID-19 pandemic had a
silver lining, it would be that losing her job as an interior designer
motivated Samantha O’Donnell to make a fresh start in the career she always
wanted to pursue: Wedding planning.
“It’s been crazy,” O’Donnell
said of how busy she has been since launching Lavish Haus in January. “It’s because of
all the weddings that were cancelled last year.”
Her company is based in Center
Valley and provides a variety of wedding planning packages and a la carte
services to customers in the Lehigh Valley, as well as Bucks County,
Philadelphia, and Lancaster. O’Donnell’s service area is within two hours travel
time from her home base.
O’Donnell has a degree in
interior design - where she focused the first 10 years of her career. She sees
parallels between the two professions in terms of choosing a color palette,
linens, flatware, table settings and “making sure everything is cohesive.” Her
2018 wedding got her thinking hard about transitioning to wedding planning.
“I always helped friends with
events, and I did my wedding,” she said. “It’s always been something that I
loved to do. It’s been something that’s been in the back of my head for a long
time.”
In October 2020 after being laid
off from her interior design job, O’Donnell began mentoring with SCORE Bucks
County certified mentors Steve Scialabba and Steve Morello. Initially, she
consulted with her mentors about launching a dual wedding planning and interior
design business. After talking it through with her mentors and hearing their
suggestions to focus on one specialty, O’Donnell decided to do just that.
“As soon as I started it and started to
evolve it, I realized that I don’t want to do interior design,” she said. “I
will put my all into something. It’s either all in or not at all.”
O’Donnell has so far
delivered three weddings and has signed contracts for 10 more.
“I don’t think I
realized it would be this great right away,” she said.
Her SCORE mentors have
helped her stay accountable, gave her the confidence she needed to succeed and
assisted her in setting up various business-related tasks, including
establishing Lavish Haus as an LLC, setting up a business bank account,
insurance, and connecting her with an accountant and an attorney.
“Working
with SCORE even still during the growing pains is also super important,”
O’Donnell said. “They bring up a lot of points that I wouldn’t even think about.”
O’Donnell
plans to continue her mentoring sessions with Scialabba and Morello for the
foreseeable future as she brings on an assistant and looks to grow her
business.
“When I start to grow, I want to
make sure I’m being the best leader possible,” she said.
About SCORE
Since 1964, SCORE has helped more than 11 million aspiring entrepreneurs. Each
year, SCORE provides small business mentoring and workshops to more
than 375,000 new and growing small businesses.?With 50 members across the
county, SCORE Bucks?County?provides
over 1,500 free mentoring services annually to local small
business owners through one-on-one counseling and small business
seminars. To stay up to date on news and happenings, join SCORE Bucks
County’s email list. Text SCOREBUCKS to 22828.
