Today we’d like to introduce you to Alan Katz.
Hi Alan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
If you would’ve asked me 20 years ago where would you be in 20 years I never would’ve said anything about like I am doing today. I started off by doing a wedding ceremony for my buddy. Being the actor and entertainer of all my friends he thought I would be the perfect person to do it since he was not a church person and didn’t really know anybody.
So together we wrote a ceremony and at the end of the ceremony everybody said to me “OMG that was the best Ceremony I’ve ever seen you need to quit your job and do this full-time”
So I put up a website with what I thought would be a good trend in doing Fun and Romantic Ceremonies instead of the same old boring ceremony. It caught on and caught on quickly soon I was booking wedding after wedding and it got to be so much I started bringing on other people and it got bigger and bigger and I kept bringing on more people.
From that point of doing my friends wedding till now, I’ve done over 7000 weddings personally and the company does anywhere from 1500 to 2000 weddings every year.
In addition to doing weddings on location, I have a boutique wedding chapel service indoor and outdoor option that will hold 30 guests, I have a Beach Wedding design business where we set up all the chairs and arch on the beach for Ceremonies and we work with the county clerks office to issue marriage licenses.
It has become the largest company of its type in California.
Now I have 37 officiant‘s and I am well respected throughout the industry.
The best part of it all is I met my wife at a wedding. She was a guest and we connected and we fell in love and got married.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Running a business there’s always learning curves. The biggest one is trust. Trusting the people who you bring on to work with you is a challenge. Choosing the right people to make your business amazing and choosing the wrong person can be frustrating and very detrimental to your business and your psyche.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I think one of the things that we are most proud of our ability to create the most amazing ceremonies for our couples. Myself being an amazing creative I have learned to be able to spot disability in the people who I bring onto my team. By doing this, we are sure that every couple gets a customized ceremony based on their origin story.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
Covid has taught me many different things. It has taught me to be patient and understanding to people’s points of you but it is also taught me to be really caring and compassionate for those who I work with and to make sure that their safety is number one. During the crisis, we were able to show people in the industry how to safely do weddings and we became an icon of safety throughout the industry.
Pricing:
- Elopement start at $425
- $Traditional ceremony start at 460
- Custom ceremony start at $530
Contact Info:
- Website: www.greatofficiants.com
- Instagram: @greatofficiants
- Facebook: @greatofficiants
- Twitter: @greatofficiants
- Youtube: @greatofficiants
- Yelp: @greatofficiants
Image Credits
Alan katz
