5 minute read
Just Charming
Story By Hannah Lester Photos Contributed By Charmly + Co
Could wedding planning be any more different from the Navy? Morgan Huggins has experienced both.
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She owns and operates Charmly + Co Wedding Planning.
Huggins moved to Auburn eight or nine years ago to use her GI Bill alongside her then-boyfriend. Both are Navy veterans.
“When I was in the Navy, I was a mass communications specialist, so I focused on journalism, photography, public relations,” she said.
Huggins served for four and a half years, she said, on the USS Iwo Jima.
While in school at Auburn University, Huggins dipped her feet into the event planning world. She traveled full time for Ford Motor Company and Volvo talking about cars as an experiential event planner.
She worked high-end events like the Volvo Car Open and the Rolex Three-Day, as well as more casual things like farm shows with Ford and yoga festivals.
The birth of her son, however, changed her outlook on working, Huggins said.
“I’ve been a stay-outside mom for almost four years now,” she said. “I was never a stay-at-home mom, I was stay-
outside. And I got bored quick, so I was trying to figure out what to do. I started helping with some community events in the area, just because I had the skill set. For years, I’ve always been friends’ go-to when they’re required to have a professional planner for weddings because, although I did not do weddings, I was a professional planner.”
As the amount of weddings increased, Huggins said she considered that she could turn that into more of a full-time gig.
“I absolutely never intended to work in the wedding industry,” she said. “But, it provided me a space that I could work and not travel full-time.”
As the business grew, its goals and aspirations did as well. Charmly + Co caters to the LGBTQ+ community, Huggins said.
“We’ve made it a point to emphasize that we’re a little bit different,” she said. “It makes it clear in all our paperwork, too, that if that bothers anybody that we’ll hook them up with the right person, but it was perceived way better than I expected, so I now have a team of four other planners who work for me. We’ll celebrate a year in November.
“We are a transparent business that does not discriminate against any of our clients. That’s something that’s really important for us to emphasize, that all love is welcome through our doors and we truly do want to be friends with our clients, so it’s important that they’re the right fit.”
As part of Charmly + Co, Huggins has also started a wedding professionals networking group alongside Love + Legacy Studios in Auburn and Columbus.
“I’m aiming for our community to just be like the coffee community in Auburn,” she said. “They’re all so supportive.”
Often wedding planners and services are very competitive, Huggins said, when that is unnecessary.
“We’ll all do a better job at what we’re doing if we share and lift each other up,” she said.
Huggins said when she started Charmly + Co that she didn’t want to offer “one-day” wedding services.
“Because, in order to really do that job right, something that I already know because I had a planning background [is] that you have to invest time, days, leading up to it to really make that happen,” she said.
So, instead, the business offered week-out packages that evolved to two-month-out packages. That is now the shortest time frame that a client can work with Charmly + Co.
Some of her Navy habits have transferred to being a business owner.
“To most people I’m a very fun, free spirit, but also when it comes to work, things are very structured, things are very delegated,” Huggins said. “I don’t leave room for error or question, I guess. In the Navy, we sailor-proof things.”
Time management is another Navy skill that Huggins brought with her to her business.
She is able to accommodate brides and grooms with both higher budgets and smaller budgets.
If a couple can’t afford the two-month-out package, Huggins offers a wedding chat, contract-free opportunity for brides or grooms to get advice and information.
Huggins offers services in the Auburn and Birmingham areas but hopes, as the business grows, that she will be able to service other areas as well, she said.
“I take it very seriously what I’m doing for each of these
couples, whether they’re spending $10,000 on their wedding day or $100,000 on their wedding day. It means just as much to both of those couples.”
Huggins said her favorite part of the process is getting to share the wedding day with the couple.
She said her favorite moment is after the wedding party has walked down the aisle, the flower girl and ring bearer have made their way to the front and it is the bride’s last few moments with whoever is walking her down the aisle.
“Every time, it just gives me chills because I get to be that person standing right there watching that moment between her and, in most cases, her father,” Huggins said. “They tear up a little, and it’s 30 seconds at most that we’re alone because everybody else has been there the whole time, but there’s this warm feeling, and then getting to open the doors and watch everybody stand and see her — that makes it all worth it. It’s really, really special to get to be behind the scenes and witness the real love that people have.”
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