Jes’ blog background features her sassy self, her sassy dog, & her sassy parties! Stolen directly from her blog (beware: more sassy pics await you there!)

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen me tweeting about the awesomeness that is Happier Hours, which is a mothly amazeballs event hosted by my friend Aidan Donnelley Rowley to add something more to the booze when 5p rolls around – great conversation! Each month she picks a new topic & brings in a speaker to talk about it, starting with Gretchen Rubin on happiness (I know. I fell over, too). This past month, she put herself in the spotlight to talk about her new book, Life After Yes (just just finished it, & it’s gorgeous) along with her friend/wedding planner Jes Gordon, who recently wrote Party Like a Rockstar. While I didn’t know Jes before her name appeared as a Happier Hours speaker, the name of her book & her company definitely sparked my interest! And when I met her in person, I loved loved loved her unique Jes-ness, unafraid to simply tell it like it is with a smile & a laugh. When she described her path from aspiring rock star to big-time party planner, I knew I had to trick/force her into being in the next Grown-Up Gigs spotlight. Thankfully it didn’t take much cajoling!

1. What did you want to be when you grew up? Well, it kept changing. First, I wanted to be a Vet, then after interning with one and putting a perfectly healthy dog down due to inconvenience I knew that wasnt for me… I was always a musician of sorts. I majored in soundtrack for film in college and played in a lot of bands so I would have to say ideally I wanted to be a rock star.

2. You mentioned at Happier Hours that you tried college 2 or 3 times as a music major (hence the Rock Star moniker), & ended up packing it in your last semester, never to return. What kept you going back to school, & what was the breaking point where you knew you were leaving for good? I kept going back to school simply because that was what all my friends were doing. Also I was getting a lot of free marijuana and I had awesome friends! ha!  I had been working the entire time during all of these “attempts” and I was in my last semester finally taking the dreaded music theory class that I had been trying to avoid my entire college career. The professor was a pompous ass and kept coming to me with intricate questions I think she knew I couldn’t answer. Basically she was just in my grill and I walked out of the class, called my Mom from a pay phone and told her i was walking and going into business full time. She gave me her blessing.

3. How did you discover that event planning was your grown-up career, & how did you make it happen? Well I kind of made event production a way of life and what identifies me as an artist and as a business owner.  I was a florist for years (Michelle’s note: Jes revealed at Happier Hours that she was a florist at 13!!!)… over the years i explored and experienced full aesthetic and environmental design through designing movie sets and raw spaces and I finally realized that I could take the small seed of floral design and turn it into a full 5 sensorial experience that others could enjoy through celebration and lifestyle. I don’t really know how I made it happen, but I knew it was all I could do consistently and well so I figured I better put everything I knew and owned into it: I still do, so I suppose I am still growing up…

4. I loved how, at Happier Hours, you mentioned that you create one-of-a-kind events by finding the “flaws” of the hosts & turning them into positives. In this way, you’re able to create a unique stamp on things based on that quirk. I talk a lot about finding your uniquity (yes, that’s a made-up word, which is a weird quirk of mine that I’ve recently embraced), & love that the uniquity of your client is the foundation for each of your events. How are you able to discover what that uniquity is for each client? I can sometimes call out something unique about an individual within moments of meeting them, other times I need to really get to know a client before discovering what they are all about… Often we look at what folks are wearing or what their jobs are and we don’t know a thing… I often ask to see a client’s home or personal space and ask them what one of their favorite things are inside their homes so i can understand what is dear to them and use it as a tool to express something in their events. I also like to ask clients: ” If you weren’t a lawyer or whatever profession you do, what would you rather be?” This is an amazing question because often what they’d really like to be doing is a complete 360 from what they are actually doing on a daily basis. I had one client that was a doctor, but she said she’d always wanted to be a professional skater so we rocked out a party for her at a local ice skating rink. None of her guests expected it and had a blast uncovering a side of her they didn’t know about!

5. If you had to give your pre-Party Like a Rock Star self one piece of advice from Rock Star Jes, what would you say? I would say, go ahead and make mistakes, but just don’t make the same ones twice!   Also go with your gut and stop second guessing yourself!!

Thanks Jes for an amazeballs interview! I think the “What would you be doing if you weren’t doing what you’re doing?” belongs in Tough (Question) Tuesday for sure! You can learn more about Jes on her website & through her book, or connect with her on her blog, Facebook, & twitter.

Tags: Grown-Up Gigs

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 1:56 am and is filed under Career Actions Activated, Creative Career Charge, Creative Career Cheer, Encouragement for Everyone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.