January 20, 2017

Meet Jenn Hallak of The Overwhelmed Bride in LA

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenn Hallak.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jenn. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I LOVE everything weddings! From dating to the oh so adorable proposals, to the dreaded wedding planning, the hectic wedding day, and the many anniversaries to come! Being in the industry for the past eight years, I have had various roles that have brought me to where I am today!

While studying Loyola Marymount University, I interned for a wedding coordinator (an Alpha Phi sister!) and fell in love with the industry. It was really just going to be a fun side internship and ended up being what I wanted to do with my life…crazy how things happen like that, huh? After graduating with a degree in Communication Studies, I landed my first “real” job as a Catering Director at a country club where I did everything from tours to planning to event execution. And we did around 130 weddings a year…yeah, you read it right.

I then moved on to be a Wedding Venue Consultant where it was my job to “match” my brides with their perfect venue so they didn’t fall into the stress of having to tour 15-20-30 venues. Yes, 30 tours is actually the norm among brides…sounds overwhelming, doesn’t it? I knew the venues from front to back and all of the little details in between and knew the vision and budget of my couples. From there, I was able to make that perfect venue-bride match!

Fast forward to 2013 — I married my prince charming (and yes, I hired a coordinator), started The Overwhelmed Bride, and most recently had a baby – Miss Ava Sue Hallak born on March 14, 2016. You can follow that journey over at www.theoverwhelmedmommy.com 🙂

So why am I here? I know that this is an extremely stressful but blissful time in your life, and I want to help! I want to help you have the most amazing experience of your life so let me help you plan that dream wedding. And don’t forget to keep marriage at the core of planning, every step of the way…because that’s what weddings are all about!

FUN FACT: I am also an ordained minister in case I need to step in!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Turning a blog into a business takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work! Half of the people out there think they can start a blog and suddenly go viral and the other half don’t even realize that you can make a full-time living from a blog but I do! The first year was rough. Very rough. You write and write and write and post and post and post and you feel like no one is reading anything. And then suddenly, you feel that momentum building and it keeps on going like a snowball effect!

But even know I do make a full time living at year three, you never know when an advertiser will contact you and you have to be “on” 24/7.

But no matter how hard it is, I love what I do and it enables me to stay home with my baby girl!

We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are a wedding blog but we feature a whole lot more than the average wedding blog. We feature styled shoots, real weddings, tips and tricks on planning your wedding, articles on marriage, fitness, and are always on the lookout for the products that brides totally love! We also offer wedding coordination services all over the world! We are based in Southern California but do travel for weddings too!

The fact that we really offer a huge variety of information that relates to all aspects of a bride’s life is what makes us stand far apart from most wedding blogs. We don’t just show pretty pictures and we believe that a wedding is all about the marriage so we do our best to help brides in all of those areas of their lives!

What were you like growing up?
Growing up I was all over the place. I did just about every sport you can ever imagine as a child but focused on competitive gymnastics and cheerleading. But I also did swimming, lacross, and track and field in high school competitively. So yes, I am very competitive and determined to succeed in whatever I put my mind to!

I wanted to be an author (which I am now!), a teacher, a mom, and then in high school a pediatric surgeon. And then I fell in love with weddings and the rest is history!

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