It has taken way, way, way longer than I ever expected, but I feel the time has come to talk about some of my forthcoming business changes.
When I started Linen and Silk Weddings I had no idea of where it would take me (seriously, no idea! Just read this post I wrote in August 2011!). I knew I wanted a successful business but I realised that if I spent any more time deliberating on whether it was worth quitting my job, I would have never done it (I come from an account management and media planning & buying background, working on brands like Philips, Pernod Ricard, Tourism Australia, Panasonic, etc., something I loved that could have given me a very comfortable lifestyle). So when the opportunity to go self-employed and freelance a few days a week as a project manager for a design studio came along, I jumped at it. I had more time to focus on starting my business and had something to fall back on if I failed miserably. I didn’t know how to break in the industry, though, so I decided to leverage one of the things I love doing the most as a way to break the ice: writing. And specifically writing about weddings by starting a blog. The choice of my blog and business name wasn’t so much on an impulse (here’s a previous post that explains where the name “Linen and Silk Weddings” comes from), but just a few months after starting the blog I realised it wouldn’t work in the long run.
Fast forward to 2015 and after 2 years deliberation I decided it was time to make the change. Sadly for my designer, I had my ‘Ah!’ moment after a dozen of logo proposals for the name Linen and Silk Weddings. If I were to go ahead with a name change, we’d have to start from scratch… I kept finding reasons of dissatisfaction with any of the Linen and Silk logos she’d put in front of me, and in the end it dawned on both of us that the problem wasn’t the logos. The problem was the name. It didn’t fit “me” anymore. For the first time ever I had a defined brand identity that felt real, that made me go “Yes, that’s what my company stands for!”, but the name “Linen and Silk Weddings” was at odd with it. We just couldn’t seem to find a way to reconcile what I felt my brand stands for with what the name conveyed.
After months of work, I’m happy and proud to finally being able to share with you a snippet of my new name, logo and brand identity. I hope you like it, but if you don’t, please just don’t say anything – I don’t think I will be able to handle negative, unconstructive criticism after all this hard work. If you do like it, however, please do leave me a comment. It would make me incredibly happy to have some support.
For now I will only elaborate on two aspects of the logo:
Where does “White” come from? It’s my married surname. Being Italian, I’m not officially allowed to change my surname upon getting married; however, as it is customary even in my country, most people in my personal life know me as Elisabetta White. I love the sound of my unofficial surname next to my Italian name, but the two together also bring out two aspects that I hope do come across as my USPs:
- I am Italian. I grew up in Italy, my mother-tongue is Italian, I have two Italian bases (in Milan and in Puglia), and comfortably understand the mindset of Italian suppliers and of our wedding industry.
- My surname represents the 14 years I’ve been living in the UK – my fluency and understanding of your language and the benefit that communicating with me without fear of misunderstandings hopefully gives you; the fact that, being based in London, you have direct access to me; and of course the advantage of working with someone that completely understands British traditions and your mindset too.
Why is there a butterfly? Well, it isn’t actually a butterfly. It’s a stylised silk moth 🙂 I’ve decided to have a silk moth as my identifier for two reasons:
- I wanted to retain a connection with the current name. It’s not nostalgia. It’s because as much as “Linen and Silk” doesn’t fit me anymore, the deeper meaning of that name still stands.
- When I think of weddings, I think of elegance and purity. When I was brainstorming around the word “wedding” back in 2011, silk was one of the materials that I immediately connected to it. It’s luxurious. It’s the traditional fabric of wedding dresses. It’s natural too. Also a silk moth starts as a small larva and grows into something amazingly beautiful and capable of the most incredible miracle. Without them, we’d have no silk. My job as a wedding planner is to help you turn your wedding dreams into something beautifully crafted and planned to perfection. Just like a silk moth grows from being a caterpillar to a delicate and beautiful butterfly, so your ideas will gradually be brought to life until together we will make them culminate into the wedding of your dreams.
So, what’s coming next? Firstly a new website. I’m currently having this designed and we should hopefully go into development I the next couple of weeks. So the BIG launch should be coming soon. In the meantime I will need your help with a little something. I need to pick my Twitter and Instagram names. You’d think Elisabetta White is rather uncommon, right? Wrong! It seems that a few Italian Elisabettas whose surname is “Bianco / Bianchi” (“White” in Italian) thought it would be cool to snap up Twitter and IG handles with “White”. So @elisabettawhite @bettawhite @ewhite are all taken. I want to avoid dashes and dots. Any suggestions? If you do, fire away. Any help is greatly appreciated 🙂
Oh wow! Did you read the whole post? You deserve a huge thank you! Here’s a little giveaway just for you. If you leave a comment below letting me know what you think of my new branding, I will pick one of you at random who will receive a small, delish Anges De Sucre gift. {T&Cs apply*}
xx Betta
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http://californiawithkids.com/advice/201605110701/what-are-the-best-road-trip-microwaveable-foods/ THE WINNER FOR THE COMPETITION IS THE LOVELY ANNA!
This competition is now closed.
*Giveaway T&Cs: UK residents only (sorry!) // One entry per person // Each comment will be assigned a serial number, winner will be picked using Random.com True Random Number Generator // Winner will be notified via email and on social media channels on Tue 18th August // If the winner doesn’t claim the prize by Fri 21st August, a new winner will be selected at random.
Credits: top background image via Etsy // bottom image via Anges De Sucre on Pinterest