Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Gonzalez
Hi Daniel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started my business very young and I believe my story may resonate with a lot of readers, especially with the uprising of small businesses being developed by today’s youth.
I took the leap of starting my business after graduating high school. I completed my first year at California State University Fullerton, where I was studying Architecture. However, after that year, I realized that the major wasn’t aligning with the rest of my interests and passions. I wasn’t yet certain if it was the right path for me long-term. I felt the need to explore other options that better matched my evolving goals and hobbies. Growing up I always volunteered to decorate and setup for our family events and celebrations and overtime began to receive positive commentary that I had an eye for design. I never paid much attention to everyone because since childhood, having always had interest in designing houses from cardboard boxes, I really thought architecture was my end goal. When I was faced with having to decide whether to continue school or pursue another career path I considered all my hobbies and remembered the consistent appraisal when I would decorate a family event. Without second guessing I decided to take the leap and go all in. At the time it seemed the odds were against me considering society was just getting back from Covid quarantine & nobody was throwing events. Starting an Event planning business at a time where no one was celebrating occasions was a risk, but I trusted my gut. I had the privilege of being asked to plan my cousins small intimate wedding back in 2021, it was post covid and my first wedding ever and I was so honored they saw the potential in me and trusted me. Safe to say everything was beautiful and after that day I knew I was on to something. After that I promoted myself and began to get bookings for backdrop setups but I knew my end goal was the wedding industry. In December of 2022 I was asked by a family member if I would do the florals for her wedding and I agreed. I had not done a wedding this large scale yet so it was a lot of pressure but I knew I was up for the challenge. Everything went perfect and the bride and groom/ guests loved everything. From that day on I was 100% certain that I wanted to pursue the wedding industry. Since that day we have had the privilege to Plan, Coordinate, and design Florals for Dozens of wedding, and thankfully ever since then we’ve continued to grow.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Considering I started my business post covid, I knew it was definitely not going to be the smoothest road to start off in. Starting a business when quarantine restrictions were barely being lifted was definitely a risk. However I had a prediction that people were going to be desperate to host events so I wanted to take the risk. There definitely was an influx of backdrop setup requests for events post covid but then it slowed down.
The biggest challenge however was proving myself to clients. Being so young in age, my work and professionalism had to really stand out in order for new clients to trust me with their events. Because of my age, getting into the wedding industry was a challenge for sure. In the event industry our resume is our portfolio, and nothing provides a bigger credibility for our talent and skill level than our previous events. Therefore I really focused heavily on my social media pages so that new clients could see my skill level and it heavily helped new clients trust me quickly.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
The goal we are working towards is to be our clients one stop shop. We primarily offer every service available. We focus on Event Planning, Event Coordinating, Wedding Florals, Custom Backdrops, Balloon Installations, Rentals, and Table Settings. What I am most proud of is our Florals, we’ve done numerous events of all sorts but our favorite is Wedding Florals. What we love about this and what makes us stand out is that we really take the time to understand our clients vision. From the beginning we sit down and walk through countless inspiration photos until the bride has a visual representation of what she is looking for. Once we understand the brides vision we do a house call with a variety of florals based on her Inspiration and we do a bridal bouquet mockup. I redesign the bouquet several times until the bride has the perfect bouquet customized to her. We focus on the design, the shape, the length, and the weight. All of this is to ensure that on the day of the wedding the bride knows exactly what she is going to have and its one less stress because the bride has already visualized and physically held the bouquet .
What was your favorite childhood memory?
My favorite childhood memory would be my birthday every year. Since I could remember every year I always wanted a new theme. Me and my mom would spent weeks preparing everything and creating a lot of DIY decorations. One thing I’ve always said is that they never had good themed decorations or props so I always ended up designing my own. We would use several different items to create some custom decor pieces and it was one of my favorite bonding experiences with my mom. It truly was the beginning of my business today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://coreventco.squarespace.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coreventco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092675225055
- Other: [email protected]
Image Credits
Mysi of Soda Fountain Photography
