How I got started in this business

I often get asked as to how I got started in my business and how I learned to do what I do.

It started over a year and a half ago when I was planning my own wedding. I saw a monogram design on another designer's website on her custom current projects page. It used the scrollwork from my DE01 monogram and I fell in love with it.

But this designer charged, at the time, $60 for a custom monogram design, which was out of my budget-minded wedding finances. What's a girl to do? Like many brides, I tried to negotiate with my potential wedding vendor.

I figured it was worth a shot, so I e-mailed the designer and asked her if, since the monogram was already existing and she had already created it for someone else, could I have the same monogram for her regular monogram price of $20? That makes sense, right?!

Well, she wrote me back and said the design was a custom design that she had created for another customer, and that I would have to pay her the $60 custom monogram design fee that she charges if I wanted the same design!

That was too much for me! I was so sad and disappointed that it was going to cost me $60 to obtain the monogram I had fallen in love with. (I also felt the fee was outrageous.)

I was determined to make a similar one on my own! So I started posting on theknot.com and guess what I found out? That scrollwork, like many other monogram graphics used today, is a graphic easily found available for free on many font websites! Also if you ask around, everybody seems to have it and many kind brides on The Knot directed me on where to obtain the scrollwork for free.

Once I learned that, I was so happy I didn't end up paying $60 for scrollwork that was available for free. I ended up making my own monogram with my favorite scrollwork and customizing the text to how I saw fit.

Once I made my own monogram, I was hooked.. and that's kind of how I got started. I have that one designer to thank, because if she hadn't tried to charge me $60 for an existing monogram, I never would have been so determined to make it on my own.

Sometimes small disappointments turn into to big positives!

As a sidenote, many of the graphics that I, and other designers, use are free designs available on websites accessible by the general public, which is why I only charge a couple of dollars for my stock monograms. The small fee is for my time in creating the designs, customizing colors and text, and sending my customers a high-resolution version of their monogram.

I love what I do now and pride myself on offering affordable monogram designs to other budget-minded brides!