Mompreneurs: Mastering Micro Weddings With Jennifer Allen
On this episode of Mompreneurs, Jennifer Allen shared the story behind the success of her micro-wedding business, Just Elope. The founder, CEO and mother-of-three has mastered the art of planning fabulous “micro weddings” and made it her business to start couples off on the right foot.
Allen sat down with Mompreneurs host Nancy Redd to recollect her journey from how it all began to achieving the “soft life” she always dreamed of — all while being the ultimate boy mom.
You may know Allen as the Season 3 officiant of the hit Netflix series Love Is Blind or the WE reality series Brat Loves Judy as the officiant at Da Brat and Jesseca Dupart’s wedding. But when she’s not on TV, Allen is running her micro wedding empire. “I love love. I get to be with people on their best day and it is a great feeling,” Allen said.
In seven years, Allen has built a successful business from the ground up. Just Elope specializes in providing all-inclusive elopement ceremonies — including the venue, photographer, officiant and on-site coordinator — sometimes “with as little as 24 hours notice,” she said. Micro weddings are a growing niche in the wedding industry, with some couples favoring small, intimate ceremonies over lavish affairs.
Allen’s idea for Just Elope was sparked by her City Hall wedding.
The CEO drew from her own experience to build her business. Young and in love, she and her husband eloped at City Hall in 2010. “My husband left for deployment the same day that we got married,” she said. “Because of the short notice, we had no choice but to go to City Hall.” Now married for 14 years, Allen understands her clientele. “I wanted to start a business that allowed other couples to have options immediately if they needed to get married.”
Just Elope launched in 2017 with the support of Allen’s family.
In the beginning it was Allen’s family that helped get the business up and running. “It was a family affair from the beginning,” she said. In its first year, Just Elope married eight couples. Seven years in and hundreds of couples later, the company continues to expand. From micro-wedding planning to premarital coaching, Allen has perfected her lane and is exceptional at it.
At first, it was a struggle to balance her new business with being a mom.
“Mom guilt is real,” she said. “When you dedicate your life to being a mom and a wife, and now you have this new ‘baby’ that you want to give your attention to, the guilt starts to set in. Am I giving too much to my business and not enough to my family? Am I spending too much time trying to grow something that may not become anything? That ate me up for so long because my identity was wrapped into being a wife and mom.”
She let go of the guilt and figured out a way to balance it all — and life changed for the better. “I realized, look, I can be your mama, your wife, and take care of business,” she said. “Once I got past that, my life increasingly became a better lifestyle for my family in general.”
Now, her three boys are beyond proud of what their mom has accomplished. They’re already cooking up their own business ideas to earn some extra cash. “They love having their own money and they’re not afraid to work for it,” Allen said. “They love that financial freedom because we teach them: you only have what you work for.”
Jennifer Allen. Source: Courtesy of Jennifer Allen
She achieved the ‘soft life’ she always dreamed of.
Even while running her wedding planning business, Allen continues to work a full-time remote job. Her reward is financial freedom and living in abundance. “My definition of a soft life is being able to make my kids breakfast in the morning, make them a hot lunch, work a job that fulfills me, and run a business that I absolutely adore,” she said.
‘I started my business with zero and we go from there.’
Allen explored plenty of business ideas before landing on micro weddings. “It’s not like this was business number one, it was just the one that stuck,” she said. “I started and stopped so many things. I knew I wanted to do something but I didn’t know what.”
For those who have an idea but don’t know where to start, the mompreneur encourages them to let go of whatever is holding them back and just go for it. “Don’t look at the complete ending of where you want to be. Do what you can right now,” she said. “That is what paralyzes so many people, is that they feel like in order to be any type of success, they have to already come out gleaming. Jump out there and do it. I started my business with zero and we go from there.”
Also in this episode of Mompreneurs, Allen talked about being on TV and her vision for Just Elope in the future. Watch the full episode above.
Every week, we celebrate beautiful Black entrepreneurs who are simultaneously amazing business moguls and awesome moms. We listen to their life stories and inspiring advice. Catch new episodes of Mompreneurs every Monday on MADAMENOIRE’s YouTube channel. Or listen to the podcast online at Urban1Podcasts.com.
