Wedding Business Solutions

Brittany Branson - Live event painting!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Can you turn a super-niche service into a thriving business? What happens when you’re no longer the “add on” vendor, but become someone’s main event? In this episode, I get real about niching down, finding your ideal clients, and pricing your work for value—not just time. How do you move from side hustle to full-time, and what hard lessons do you wish you’d learned sooner? Let’s talk about the art (and business) of being visible, valued, and truly appreciated.

Listen to this new 38-minute episode for real-world strategies to own your niche, attract clients that appreciate you, and build a wedding business around your creative passion.

About Brittany: 

Brittany Branson is a destination live wedding artist and creative coach based in the Washington, DC area. Since 2015, she has transformed couples’ most meaningful moments into timeless works of art for clients across the U.S. and beyond, with features in Brides, Martha Stewart Weddings, The LA Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. With a background in arts administration and a Master’s in Arts Management from George Mason University, Brittany blends creativity and strategy to help fellow artists grow their businesses. A devoted animal lover, she donates a portion of every project to the local rescue where she and her husband adopted their dogs, Bolt and Ginger.


Contact Brittany
Website: www.ByBrittanyBranson.com

Speaking: www.ByBrittanyBranson.com/speaking

Instagram: @ByBrittanyBranson


If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

How to take a niche that seems really, really narrow and turn it into a full time business. Listen to this episode and see how. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have my friend Brittany Branson on to talk about hurt, what she does. Hey, Brittany, how you doing? Good, how are you? I am well, thank you. And for everybody listening here, we met recently at a conference. It was the NAC conference, North American collective of MCs and DJs. And Brittany was doing a live painting, but also speaking, speaking to us. So the first thing, as I walk in the room and I see an easel, I'm like, okay, what's going on over here? And Brittany came out with us and we, we went and we were doing the, our second line and stuff and taking picture on the street. And then over days, which I will tell everybody, that was a blessing for you, that it was over days. Yes. You, you put together this page painting from what we did over there. And I thought that was wonderful because we watched it go there. So first of all, tell everybody what do you do? Sure. Hey everyone. I'm Brittnee. I'm a destination live wedding and event painter. I currently live in Ashburn, Virginia, not too far outside D.C. but primarily serve everywhere from Richmond to Long island, the whole northeast coast, primarily or completely out of state. And as a live wedding painter, I do just that. I get to show up to people's big wonderful days. And I now offer two services. But the live painting is a big heirloom canvas painting featuring a moment of their choice. So, like, first kisses, first dances are super popular. But now really coming up and almost matching in popularity are the guest fashion illustrations. So those are little five by seven quick illustrations of guests that essentially serve as a favor that they'll never toss in the garbage. They'll keep, keep forever. Absolutely not. Use it up like the jar of honey or whatever. Exactly. Not that we don't love our jars of honey, but. But when they're gone, they're gone. When they're gone, it's kind of like the bottles of whiskey that we blend and I give to people. And I just had lunch with our friend yesterday and he keeps all the empty bottles. I'm like, Harold, they're all the same. The label just has a different number. He's. I know, I know, but they were the gifts. Yeah, that's what it was. So, so let's start with this. How did you become a live event painter? Yeah, sure. So prior to Doing this for myself and doing it full time. I actually had a brief career in arts, legislation and management. So to take it a little back a little bit back further, I'm originally from New Jersey, came down to D.C. to go to George Washington University because I really wanted to be a political speechwriter. But came down here, that. That was not for me. But I still had the interest, you know, and so when I got out of college and it was time to craft a career, I basically learned that I could bridge everything that I loved. My first love, the arts, and then my interest for communication, political communication. So that's how I started my career. And right before I quit my 9 to 5 to do this, I was working for the D.C. government as a legislative and community affairs assistant. But then I met my best friend Tim, who is a professional pilot. So right now he flies for ups. And I realized I. We were not going to have much of a relationship if I kept a 9 to 5 because his schedule is wackadoodle and never a guarantee that, you know, we would get weekends off together. So it was just time to do something for myself that offered a bit more flexibility in terms of my schedule. But we actually had a live painter at our wedding in 2015, ironically also named Brittany. And I, I loved her. She was like the. She was the only one I had ever heard of. And even finding her in the service was a complete stroke of luck. And so once we got married and I decided to leave my 9 to 5 job, I was like, there's room for this. And our painting is proudly right there when you walk into our home. So I was like, I think this is just one. There's room in the industry to grow. But also, the service meant a lot to me and meant a lot to us. So the idea of being able to provide it for my own couples just really meant a lot. And so I really, I jumped right in without any, as so many people. Do in the industry. So. Yes. Did you look for, did you come up with it? Okay, we want to have a live painter, or did it. You just stumble across and go, wow, that's a great idea. Stumbled across it, I think when. So right now it's Washingtonian Weddings magazine, but it used to be Washingtonian Bride and Groom. And I think they did one of the, you know, on some of those editorial pages, they have clip outs of like, you know, 12 things on one page. And there was a little snippet of Britney at work with like a blurb this big about what she was doing. And again, coming from an arts admin. I was like, oh, I can support an artist, but it's also, you know, something my guests are going to be able to watch all night. So, yeah, it was completely lucky. But of course I'm so glad because it changed my life. But it also gave me a piece I really love. There you go. So you started doing it. You said, okay, I'm going to do that. All right, what did you do next? Like, how did you. How did you actually start? I did everything wrong. Okay. I. And, and this was a, A hard lesson to learn, but I literally, I. Well, let me back up and say what I really first started doing was offering other wedding art. So if you can, you know, 2015, 2016, Pinterest Age Alternative guest books were like, really popular. This was the time of, like, using pet illustrations on cocktail napkins or bar signage was sort of was really taking off. So that's where I really started was offering those sort of one off day of wedding art things. I actually lacked the courage to really tell people, hey, I can do the bigger live wedding painting service. Live it. It really took my friends in the industry, if we were at a networking event, to introduce me as, hey, this is Britney. She's the live painter. Where I finally felt like I had to get over that fear of, you know, pitching myself. But then it was a slow role because by the time I felt like my friends were pitching me as the one who could do this, I did not have a huge portfolio to really back it up. It took a long time. Which is a huge piece of advice I give to anyone now is like, practice in public before, you know, you really put it out there. I think my. I would have gotten traction faster if I had really devoted to like building out a nice portfolio first. Which in respect retrospect, you could have also said, I'm going to offer this service for free because I used to practice in public. Is doing it for free. Let me do your engagement part. Let me do this. Yes. And really what it is, is it's not just the end result, which you have forever. It like you said before, or if. If people didn't pick up on it, is the guest to watch you doing it. Which is for me, because I was a speaker at the same event, you know, because people are focused on whoever was speaking at that time. And if it wasn't me, I'm. I'm watching you in the corner going, oh, this thing is coming together here. This thing is building. Right. So how did you. And again, not talking numbers. So how did you decide when you do the first one, how'd you come up with the price? Oh, goodness, how did I come up with the price? I think honestly I'm thinking back to okay. By the time I was booking people on my own, I maybe knew of maybe two or three other artists at that time. And I think I just looked at their pricing and just offered lower, you know, for the sake of. Right. Which I always say to people, you know, when you're worried about competition, you were once the lower priced competitor because that's what we think is our competitive advantage. Because you're like, I don't have the portfolio. They've been doing this longer, I should charge less. Meanwhile, your work could have been just as good or could have been better, 100%. That lesson hard, lesson learned 10 years ago. And just, just in general in terms of pricing, it's a great lesson for people because we're in a service business, right. Even though you're giving a final product, right. You're in a service business and every price we come up with is made up, right. The, the low one you did at first, the higher one as you went along. Whatever your prices are now, they're all made up and you have to be okay with the value you're getting for the value you're giving. And a lot of us undervalue ourselves because like, oh, you know, that was a day's work. That's okay. And then here you are. How many years you married now? Oh, both 10 in business. 10 married. Right, right. So. So 10 years of looking at this picture which will be there and then, you know, somebody else will have this later. Right? We'll have this. So, you know, the value of it is not the value of your time. And that's a really important lesson for people. And, and it's not the cost of the canvas and it's not, not the cost of the pains and all that kind of stuff. It's the value. So, yeah. The people that are hiring you, are these all high end weddings? No, actually that's where I feel like I've further niched myself. And that was. I also think another relatively hard lesson to learn is I. One thing I'm actually very proud of is I serve a wide variety of weddings. A few years ago I was the most expensive vendor for a 20 person backyard wedding in Montana. You know, they loved me and valued me enough to fly me out there. But then I've done NDA signing things where I was one piece of, you know, 200 like, and they were like, you know, who, who, who cares? It's the six, seven, it's the six, seven figure wedding. It's like whatever. Just, just the, yeah, truly just the add on. But where I've really found success is I, I call the. Oh my God, what do I, I tend to attract a lot of service minded couples, so a lot of nurses, emt, police veterans, firefighter whatnot. And very often that, that's not a lucrative career. You're not going into that career for the paycheck. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, unfortunately. 100%. And so often the weddings are, you know, with this arbitrary, you know, spectrum in our industry. They're, they're not luxury, but they are, they value and love me enough to really make it work. And I don't take that for granted and I'm very blessed and very appreciative of it and I've actually found the higher end, more luxurious weddings are the ones who don't value me so much and very much treat me like the add on, if that makes sense. Yeah, you're the hired help then. Exactly. And that's not what I anticipated at one point in my career because I'm so far on the bottom of the totem pole. If you talk to especially like a planner or whatnot of where in priority the budget's going, I'm either so low or not there at all. And so often that's what's reflected working on that end of the spectrum. So I very much have found my place with, you know, my service minded couples and I love them. Right. And this is part of niching is understanding who your target audience is. You know, you have an inventory problem, you're painting. Yes. Live, you could, it's you, you can only be one place at a time. That's it. I'm sure it's physically and mentally taxing to. Because you, unlike the event that we're at where you had days to get this done, you have hours because they wanted it at the end of the night. It's done right. For me. Yes. Yeah. Right. And then. Absolutely. Then, then they get it framed and all. Is that how it, how it goes or. Yeah, that's it. Right, right. So priorities is always where the money goes in a budget. And I love when you said that you were the most expensive thing at this 20 person wedding. And then other weddings, you know that you're out of, out of, not out of range, but you're out of the, the norm of their budget. Like, like if they're hiring a good. This, this, this and this and Then they're spending for you, which, let's face it, everything they spend on for a wedding is discretionary anyway. Yep. Right. I've said this, and I will keep saying this until I stop speaking. There's no law in the world that says you have to throw a party when you get married. There's no law that says you have to have food or photos or video or music or flowers or dresses or invitations or anything. All you need is a license and someone who can legally perform that. Now, my son got married last year and they got married at City hall in San Francisco and they assigned them an officiant who happened to have been wonderful. But we had 15 minutes and done. They were married. Yep. We didn't have to do anything else. We did not. They were married. That was it. They were married. Now we went to lunch and we got on the cable cars and we went out on a boat cruise for dinner and then we had 30 people the next day and 60 the next day. But none of that was required. None of that. And what you do is certainly not required. But again, nothing is required. Right. You don't have to have any of this. And it's why, you know, some of the people that you've painted might have gotten their dress at a consignment store 100%. And some of them, it was a custom made, one off, you know, five figure, maybe more. Dress. Yeah, right. Or dress tux or two. Or two. Well, exactly, but. Exactly. But again, you know, it comes down to priorities. Now, those people still had it as a priority. It just wasn't on the top because otherwise you wouldn't have been there. Yes, right. And nobody would have been painting. So it's still there. But again, the idea of can I make something out of the niche? Is you focus on it, understand who you want to go after. And I know some other people in the industry who've done like you've done, have said, yeah, I'll do the higher end one. But I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for the people that appreciate me and the value that I bring. And you want to work for those people. You want to bring the most to those people. So now you're all, you're also speaking, you're speaking at events and you're, I think your website says you're helping artists and creatives thrive. Right. What does that mean? How did that come about? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is inspired by my background of. I feel like my life has been interesting in that I'VE now lived on both sides of both. Being the advocate for artists and then being the artist herself. And I've always wanted to. To me, the thriving comes when you bridge that, if that makes sense of you. Learn how to better advocate for yourself so that that frees up mental, physical, spiritual space, whatever you need in order to create better art. And I think this is what kind of sets me apart from a lot of visual artists is I'm not afraid to talk about the left brain side. I feel like a lot of artists are. No, you're not blaming them living in the right brain. But where true thriving comes is a beautiful marriage of the two. But again, it, you know, the difference between being. It being a hobby. Yes. Business is when you get into that left brain side. My wife makes jewelry all the time. We've tried selling it. She. I made her an Etsy store. I told her, get an Etsy store. And then she's like, how do I do that? So I got her an Etsy store. You know, what do we do now? I said, well, now you need to take pictures of all the jewelry. So I took pictures of all the jewelry. Jewelry. And now we need to have descriptions of all that. So she stood over my shoulder and I dictated as I typed into all these descriptions. I wasn't looking for another job, but. But that's what had to get done. And then when the, the store, when all the, the things expired, she just didn't renew them again. And yet she sits upstairs in our loft making jewelry all the time. Yeah. As a matter of fact, she made me some bracelets. Oh, lovely. So these beaded ones. This one, she had the beaded ones over here. So. Amazing. And I have some others, so. Because I was like, you make bracelets for everybody, for you and, you know, your friends. How about me? You know, and I was wondering if I just wasn't cool enough, you know, to. To do that. So. But. But this is not a business, right? This is not a business. This is art. This is art for art's sake. This is art for her pleasure. It made her. Gave her pleasure to make this art for. For me. Yeah, right. But there's the. The left brain just doesn't kick into. Well, I need to, you know, for a while there, I said, could you just sell enough to pay for the supplies? Maybe. Maybe just. Sure, right. And that worked for like a day. But then I don't even worry about it anymore. I support her art because it's her art. And I go up and I see hundreds of bracelets and earrings and, and necklaces and whatever and like beautiful. It's, it's beautiful. Yeah. And I also just wanted to mention like that brings me back to something I feel like I'm putting in air quotes did wrong when I first started of when I came into the industry in 2015. I feel like our industry, there's buzzwords every few years. Right. So right now I do think it's luxury but I feel like the pendulum swinging back towards were going to come up with something new. But when I started the big thing was go full time. Like you're, you know, you're, you're not truly a business or whatever unless you go full time with it. And I did way too early. And what I always say now is there's no, it doesn't make you any less an artist. It doesn't make you any less a creative if it's not your full time thing. And there were certainly moments throughout my 10 years now doing this where I did take a part time, you know, for like I actually briefly worked for Wedding Wire for like a year and a half or two because at that time we were trying to buy a house. Like other life goals came into play where I'm still growing this business. I'm proud of the growth but there's an immediate need that, that needed help and there's no shame in that yet. I think I felt a lot of shame for those first however many years. So I always like to say if this isn't your business, if this, if it is and it's not full time, that's really okay. Like do not absorb the stressors to make it so when the, you know, life's stressful anyway. Don't invite more stressors in if you don't need to. Right now I know some people that have very successful wedding businesses and yet they still have their Monday to Friday 9 to 5. And now some of them, it's financially they want to have that and then have their other money. Some of them it's no, they do fine in their wedding business but they love their job or maybe it's the benefits or whatever there. And I can think of quite a few people that that's the case. It's still a real business. And the key is this is where the left brain has to kick in is you have to treat it like a real business. Yes. If you treat it like a sideline, it's a sideline. If you treat it like a business, it's a business. And that means investing in advertising and marketing and Networking and all these things. And those take either time or money or both. Yeah, that's what they do. But if it's a real business, I like to say invest in your business the way you want others to invest in you. So I just had somebody on this guy Jeffrey, who wrote a book. He. He was. He's retired now, but he was a photographer to the ultra wealthy. You know, the point.01% people. And it's funny because part of the conversation he said, like, having been around them, I don't want to be like them. But he said it's not. He said, they're not who you think they are. Sure, there were some people that are, you know, feel like they're entitled and all that kind of stuff. He said, but their lives are so complicated, you know, that they need people to help run their life, you know. And he said, I don't want that kind of complication, you know, I want to be able to shop at Prada. He said, I can shop at Prada, but. And I could have my personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman, but I don't want to have their complication of their life. And that's what he's seen firsthand. So again, be careful what you ask for with that. But you know, luxury, you know, you know, that's the buzzwords of luxury. But you just said, you know, in that luxury wedding, you're a fraction of what they're spending on the whole thing. And you very often feel like you're being treated like the fraction. Yeah. And it may not intentionally be that it's just like, how complicated is that wedding now? Correct. That that's. That's spending this kind of money with all these things. And we all see it, whether it's the Bezos wedding or all these kind of things there. And you know, some. One. One camp says that's such a waste of money. And other camp says, look, look all the people that got employed because of that. Look at all those people that are working on that wedding. There's the two sides to that camp over there. But again, yeah, you know, if you're the acrobatic performer at that wedding, you're a fraction too. Oh, yes, because that's. Oh, yeah, that's gone. I just saw one. I don't know the country it was in, but it was this very ornate staircase, marble staircase, and these two ballerinas came dancing down the staircase and spun and did all this. And I'm like, where's the couple? Like, where are they? Oh, yeah. And it took A while for the couple to come in. I'm like, okay, all right. Not me. Yeah, but. And also, what I'll say with what in particular to what I do is I, at first, when I really started to strategically go after those kinds of weddings, another lesson I learned was they are very often treating their weddings as an opportunity to have things that they've never seen before. Now, if you can imagine living in that world, that's rare, but it's possible. But when it comes to art or custom art, they're very often invested in that world anyway. They're going to, you know, Basel, Miami or whatever. They probably have, like, real investments in collections. So for someone like me, it's not as much a novelty. Whereas for an amazing, you know, marine vet who's marrying a nurse, they will treasure this forever. And they, they may not ever get something that hyper custom ever again. And that's just where I made the strategic decision of, you know what, though? I think those are my people, as opposed to trying to convince those who, you know, don't may not see the noveltiness in me anymore or at all, to try and get them to invest. So do you keep your price at a certain point so that it's affordable for them where you could actually charge more to others? That's, that's a really good question. I would, my gut would say yes. And that's actually something I went through this year. But the way I always tackle this is, especially for us live painters, we're building out the spectrum right now. So, like, how I compare it is if you think of a wedding photographer, I think we all know wedding photographers charging 50,000, 5,500. And the spectrum exists. And often it's a matter of finding your place in it. Whereas for us, we're building it right now, and we're constantly testing where the end of the spectrum is meant to end. And that's been interesting and difficult to be a part of, and that's absolutely something I've, I've. Struggle is not the word, but I'm. But it is a struggle. It's a struggle again because the pricing is all, like I said, it's all made up. Yeah, and, and you're coming up with a number. I, I, I, My mind goes to a videographer friend of mine who purposely keeps her prices at a certain point because she wants to deal with certain people, and she knows that her work is right up there with people that charge double what she charges. But that in her mind, that would have her dealing with people that she doesn't want to deal with. Right. And she doesn't feel comfortable dealing with. And again, it's not a dig on those people, it's just that that's just not her people. She's from a blue collar background and she loves working with blue collar people because they're her people. And yeah, and she doesn't aspire for that. Whereas this, this Jeffrey, who the photographer, you know, he grew up, he's. He said it was not a great, you know, I was not from an affluent family, far from it, it was, you know, lower middle class family. But he aspired that that was his going to be his clientele. And, and if you listen to that episode with him which aired I think a little bit before this, you'll hear him talking about, well, to do it, he went to the stores where they shopped and observed and then when he could, he would, he would buy something. Even though he was stretching to buy it, he would buy something to know what is this expl. Experience, the way they wrap it, the way they walk around the counter and hand it to you. You know, the packaging matters, that everything matters there. The smallest purchase is treated just as well as the big purchase. Right. All these things. But he lived in their world to see what do they expect? And then in terms of pricing, again, pricing still needs to be fair because high, high end people, they know what things cost. Sure, they know what things cost. A lot of people getting married, they've not thrown big parties and things. The higher end people, they throw parties and they've hired photographers and they've done stuff like that. Oh yeah, they understand, but the value of art, physical art, that you're doing one off things. My younger son is an artist, is graphic designer by trade, but he's an artist and I remember being in a gallery with him. One time we were in Omaha, Nebraska, we were going to be doing Habitat for Humanity. So we flew out there and we're in a gallery and I'm looking and there's a, there were price tags. And I said, is that the right number? And he goes, I don't know. I said, right, I don't know either. I said, you know, it's the right number when somebody buys it because yeah, anytime we raise our prices, we're always afraid, is that the right price? And then the first person who says yes validates that, the second one validates it again. Then you keep going there and then you start wondering, did I go high enough? Should I have gone higher? Right. And I remember one, one time somebody we Saw me at a conference, came to me afterwards, said, I want you to come and trained my team. And it was really prestigious museum in New York. And I. We took out our calendars and we picked a date. And we hadn't even talked. We hadn't talked. Not money and talked any of that. And I. And we had that. We had it scheduled. Okay, I'm going to come. And I said, oh, by the way, you didn't ask me how much? And she said, yeah, okay, how much? And I told her, and she said, yeah, that's fine. Right. And you know, some people say you should have charged more. It's like, that was my price. Yeah, I charge my price. And when I get my price, I'm not unhappy that I didn't get more. I charge my price now. That might make me think if I get it too easily. Right. Then maybe I should raise it up there. Right. And don't undervalue yourself with that. But again, if you're happy with the number and they're happy, you know, then it's good. But, you know, you're talking about. We. We're setting this. You're in a. You have to be in a small community of live event painters. Yeah. I mean, it looks like we've exploded a bit, especially since COVID and TikTok, because a few live painter colleagues went viral and that, like, exposed the service. But what's also interesting is I feel like we're living through the period that so many other vendor categories have already gone through of. There's an explosion of interest in jumping into it, but it's going to weed. You know, the herd's gonna thin at some point, and you know, who's really gonna make it by treating their. Their business like a business. Right. That's been interesting. Right. And people who love painting and who are good at it, when it becomes a job, maybe it doesn't become fun. Right. 100. Oh, I've been going through that of. I've been noticing with me, it's impossible for me to not paint under pressure anymore. It's impossible for me to, like, sit quietly and do something. And I'm like, oh, yeah. That'S. That's interesting. See, for me, I played in bands when I was in high school, in college, and people who follow me on social see me put up piano. Me playing piano videos. Were you at the bar when I was playing? No, I was sitting outside. Okay. So even I was playing in New Orleans because my friends went up to the band and said, he can. Can he play with you and they said yes. So I, I did. Right. And for me, I think it would ruin it for me somewhat if it was because I had to because I'm getting paid. I love playing and I volunteer and I, I just got Voluntold. I'm performing at the cabaret night at the Professional Speakers association of the UK and Ireland when I'm going to be in, in the UK next month. I, I got Voluntold to present last year so I got Voluntold to present again this year. So I'm going to do. And that's fun for me. Right. It's still work. This, still work because I, I was trying to think how do I do this? You know, not just sitting, playing the piano. And I came up with sing along songs but everybody only knows the first verse and the chorus and then doesn't know any of the rest of the lyrics. So I did a mashup. I did five or six songs where I only did the first verse in the chorus. Went to another song. Went to another song. So now I'm going to do that again. I'm trying to come up with the five or six songs to do where I can get everybody singing along. But again it, it's, it's, it's not a job. It is work, but it's not a job. And sometimes I just sit and play the piano and it's for myself and sometimes I'm playing for others or if I'm lucky I get to play with a band sometimes and you know, but it's interesting, you know, you can only paint under pressure. Yeah. You can't just slow it down. Nope. No. How did you, how did you paint for us over four days. Then. You'D be surprised how difficult it was for me to walk away. Walk away from the canvas. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And to, you know, it was a blessing in terms of being able to slow down like it would. But also I will say because there were so many lovely speakers of just having someone and something to focus my brain on, you know, probably an ADHD thing that was really helpful. But if it was just me in a room for four days. Yeah, like, yeah, that's like me writing a report. I have people say, hey, you know, could you review my website, send me a report? No, no, no, I, I will get on Zoom and do it with you. Give you a recording and a transcript and all that. But no, because I, part of the reason I'm not in corporate America anymore is because I don't like writing reports. I just don't. I write books. Got 13 right now. Right. There you go. I'll do podcasts, but no, no, I just. That's tedious. And again, it's not a matter of are you good at it or not. It's a matter of does that give you joy? And you know, it gives me joy to play the piano. It gives me joy to, you know, to. To do this. It doesn't give me joy to sit there and. And write a report. This is like, if I had hair, I'd pull it out, but, you know, there you go. Yes. So. So what's. What's next? What. So what's next for you? What's next for you? What are you. What are you working on? What are you thinking that you can take this to. Is there. Is there a something else? Oh, man. So I just graduated with my master's in arts management in May. Thank you. Took me. It was a 8 to 12 year span. Okay. But fine. Finally did it. And I want to do something with that. I don't see myself returning to a 9 to 5. Although of course, never say never because I think we've all had friends in this industry after so many years. If the right opportunity pops up and it brings them joy, awesome. But I definitely do want to teach. So I'm always actively looking for like adjunct professorships or something just to start doing, you know, in academia, especially with arts, entrepreneurship, something I don't think is talked about enough, especially in the traditional visual arts and humanities sense. So that's something I really want. I'd say that's priority number one. And especially as like, you know, not to get to whatever. But some of the experiences I had in my non wedding industry past life were with interning for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. And now they're both essentially gone and, and not funded. And at a federal level, at a state level, the arts and humanities are just being decimated. And I. I know there's a place for me in navigating that, however that looks. So I'd say that's priority number one. Okay. I can always serve amazing couples this way, but I feel like we're heading towards like a place where we all have to kind of step into where. Where do others and what do other things need us? I can't tell you what that looks like right now, but that's sort of priority number one. That's great. We were lucky with our sons that arts and music were still important for them in their schools. And my younger son went to Temple University Tyler School of Art. You Know again, to get into and. Oh, yes, and they worked them hard and, and they. Again, it's just amazing, the education there, but also how art and music fits into other parts of our lives, how that part of our brain fits it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a shame that that's how people think to cut. And we're not going to get into. Politics here because that's a whole other podcast. Well, we don't have any alcohol right now, so, you know, we talk about that when we have alcohol. Where's the whis whiskey? Where's the bourbon? Well, see that little barrel back there? Those of you not watching can't see, but that little barrel's been aging since, let's see, that's, that's about three weeks. That one's three weeks. There's a jar over there that's been going for a little over a month now. So that one, that one I'm going to taste soon. We'll see. So when they're ready, we'll. Then they're ready. Then, then we'll talk about that. So what I thought you might, might have said is that, you know, you having the left brain, you know, could you create a business where you would send out other painters and. Oh, I've thought about, I've absolutely thought about some sort of agency, model, associate model. It's always there. I'm, I'm not sure if I'm there yet to manage people. Right. I think I, you know what, I think the need is there because the artists are. The left brains, are the right brains, and they don't think that way. And having somebody else to be able to do that would allow them to get the kind of income that they deserve for what they're doing and yet have somebody else take care of it. Because like in the speaking business, you know, the, the. My friend Bruce Trickell, sorry, David Avery, always says, you know, the, the job is getting the gig. It's not doing the work, it's getting the gig, right? Getting the speaking gig, the training gig, whatever for you. Selling the wedding, getting the wedding, finding those people, getting the wedding, that's the job. And then you get to do the fun part, right? That's. And you could just take this through any part of the wedding and event industry. You know, the fun part is actually making it happen. But everything that leads up to it is the work. You know, I'm working on my presentations for wedding MBA and you know, I'm going to put in 20 to 30 hours for each. I'm doing three of them. Yeah. That's the job, right? That's the work. Oh, yes. And what you see is 45 minutes, right? That's, that's what you're going to see there. So we're, we're, we're out of time here. Brittany, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for sharing. If people want to find out more about you, they should go to where. Short start@bybritneybrandson.com wedding stuff, speaking stuff. It's all there. And I'm quite active on Instagram. Same handle by Brittney Branson. And that's by not bye. Correct. But it's in the show notes. That's a different business. That's a different business. But it's in the show notes if you want to find out more. There you go. Brittany, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for sharing your story. Thank you.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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