The Idea:
Prior to having children I was dedicated to my work and could never imagine staying at home all day with kids. Well, it didn't take a week after having my first child that the realization hit me that there was no way I could take my child to daycare (or even leave her with my mom!). Not that anything would be wrong with either choice, I simply felt my heart might break. I enjoyed the moments and wanted to be a part of each and every one. I worked on and off part time doing some consulting work, but by and large I was a stay at home mom.
When my daughter, Lindsey, turned six years old I really wanted a special birthday party for her. I went to my usual resources, Parents Magazine, the internet and friends, to see if I could find a tea party. She loved to dress up and I thought it would be a perfect time to show her the elegance of fine china, beautiful dresses and maybe even an etiquette lesson. The only companies I could find were either true tea houses (little girls don't really care for tea) or dress up Disney kinds of themes. Neither of those were what I was looking for. I wanted something special.
My mother, who lived nearby, agreed to help me create beautiful dresses for Lindsey and her guests. We made the first ten dresses for her party. The celebration was amazing and every little girl there wanted a party of their own. So with my first child off to school and my second turning two, I decided to start a business. I could be at home with my kids during the week and do birthday parties on the weekends when their dad would be home to take care of them. I could use my creative juices, my business acumen and leverage the tremendous resource that I had at my full disposal. My mother. She had a fabulous sewing room in her home and was (and still is, I might add) quite an accomplished seamstress. She enjoyed making the dresses as much as I did, and so it began.
Tea Parties were the first of the parties and once that was mastered, we had to have different types of parties because the girls who were guests of each birthday girl wanted their own party. So Spa Parties, Dance Parties, and Fairy Parties were created. We were also able to appeal to older girls with the spa parties, which was really quite fun. Each one had many trials and errors, outfits which didn't work (they can't be itchy!), party favors that were too hard to find etc.
The first couple of years was basically taking any money that we made and plowing it right back into the business. We always needed more dresses, more china, more curtains, more runways....I would say about three years into the business we finally had a good system going. I had several young ladies (early 20's) that helped me with the parties, some would do them alone and other times I would need an assistant or two for larger parties. We would have four parties going on in one day and maybe two the next day. Many of the teenaged parties were sleep overs, so Friday nights would also be busy. The business was a success and I was a very busy "stay at home mom" - but loving what I was doing.
Around that time, my marriage fell apart and I had to sell our home and try to keep above water. My husband's business had crashed in the dot com crisis and I now had two kids to support on my own. I bought an older home that needed a lot of work, so I was either doing work on the home or doing parties and taking care of my newly fragile children. I decided that perhaps I would get back into the workforce to increase my income and before I know it, I was a real estate agent, a loan officer for a mortgage company and had a party business. I was overwhelmed. And tired. I decided to let the party business take a back seat for a while and work only off of referrals, no advertising budget. I continued this way for another year or so, but life was just too busy. I let my website lapse, not realizing that I did not have all (or any really) of the beautiful pictures that comprised my beautiful site.
I was doing well in both of the other businesses and decided to just stop with the parties and save the business for my Lindsey when she was old enough to do them. Well, you guessed it....she's now 20 years old and much more interested in International Affairs and going to study abroad than she is in starting this business back up. The outfits are still just like they were when we made them and the concept will never lose it's appeal to young ladies (or their mothers). It is a treasure and I know that the right person is out there to bring this business back to life and give it the love and energy that it so deserves.