Meet Jewel Odeyemi of Touch of Jewel Events and Designs in Prosper

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jewel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Wedding and Event planning was not in my life plan at all! Growing up in an African household, the norm was for every child to grow up to become a professional in specific fields like Medicine, Engineering or Law. Going through any other professional path did not just cut it. I went into college starting out with a Biology Pre-Med major to please my parents, but after the third year in college, I quickly found out that I would be miserable going in that direction and switched my major to Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resources. Well, needless to say, I’m thankful that my path was ordained and I can confidently say that my business degree along with my over 10 years as a VP in HR & Training at a Fortune 500 company gave me a good foundation in running an Event and Wedding planning business. My parents are now my biggest cheerleaders and they pray for all of my events and clients.

Fast forward to 2010, I got engaged and could not find a wedding planner in my area that I felt comfortable enough to handle my fiancé and I’s two-day, 700+ guests, multicultural wedding. As a result, I took to planning my own wedding along with my best friend and maid of honor; we intentionally set our wedding date two years out to allow more than enough time to plan. After getting married in 2012, and enjoying the planning process, I looked into getting a wedding and event planning certification. I worked on my business branding and marketing and started booking wedding clients ever since. I quit my 10 year career as a VP in the HR & Training department of a Fortune 500 company to pursue TOJ full time in 2016. Our brand continues to grow and we have built a team of 8 staff including associate planners, event coordinators, event assistants and currently grooming a team of event interns who would hopefully be hired on someday. While our firm is established in Dallas, TX; we are expanding and have begun to do destination weddings and plan events outside of Texas and the United States.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nothing successful in life ever comes easy, that’s for sure, but I thank God for sustaining me and ordering my steps this far. I have been able to get through a lot of challenges with a great family support system, my husband being my #1 fan. One of my challenges earlier on was finding a balance between being passionate about the business and making sure the passion equates to generating income. It takes a lot of passion to be an event and wedding planner and if not careful, one can allow the passion to overtake the financial success of the business and getting burnt out. Building a team and finding good staff was another challenge I faced; as a business owner, you have to be able to discern people who want to take advantage of you from the ones who genuinely want to work with you. Finding a mentor was challenging as well, I found that people in the event industry when I started weren’t as keen to share information with newbies in the industry. As a result, I had to navigate and figure a lot on my own, initially starting out. There was also the challenge of being everything as a business owner; I was my own PR, marketing agent, accountant, book keeper, etc. I quickly learnt that in order for me to scale successfully, I had to focus on my strengths and outsource what was taking a lot of my time and wasn’t bringing in any income. There are quite a few other challenges that I faced starting out but I have used those lessons learned to my advantage now. With my years of experience in business, I now offer business consultations to those who are needing some guidance and direction in their business; in an effort to provide them the help that I did not receive back then. I am very big on Education and I want to use my platform to do just that.

Please tell us about Touch of Jewel Events and Designs.
My company is Touch of Jewel Events and Designs, popularly known as TOJ. We are an event planning, event design, and stationery design company that offers consulting, coordination, planning and designing services. We specialize in designing, planning and producing all types of events, small or large, corporate functions, wedding celebration, milestone parties, galas, and nonprofit events. In addition to producing these intimate, fancy and elaborate events, we also provide stationery designs including but not limited to invitations, programs, brochures, save the dates, booklets, etc.

We pride our company in providing an experience for our clients. From the moment they consult with us, through the planning process up until their event day, we want them to feel a TOJ experience and know that they are the most important client at any given time. While we service multiple clients at the same time, we make each and every one of them feel like they are our only client by paying very close attention to every detail and providing the best customer service and communication experience. The events we have with our client is about building a level of trust and relationship with them that translates most times into repeat business and referrals.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Oh wow! Ok, this is a memory from my middle school days, growing up in Nigeria. My dad used to work in the United States at the time and would always come home to visit us every summer and bring a lot of nice things from the States. I remember being one of the popular students in my school because, at the beginning of the new year, I would be the kid in my class who wore the newest designer clothes and shoes to school. This was when Fubu, Rocawear, baby phat, Tommy Hilfiger and Timberlands were very much in vogue lol. It was cool to be able to experience that as a child.