Prioritizing Safety & Joy with Elisabeth Kramer

Welcome back for Season 2 of Beyond the Venue Podcast! I wanted to kick off this newest season with a woman who has been a constant resource and inspiration for me since the moment she and I were introduced.

Elisabeth “Beth: Kramer is a wedding planner in Portland, Oregon, who’s fighting the Wedding Industrial Complex. She's the co-founder of Altared, an event for wedding vendors who want to change the wedding industry, and she is also the host of her own podcast The Teardown, a podcast for wedding vendors who’ve had enough.

In this episode, we learn about how Beth combined her background in journalism with her current role as a wedding planner to consistently report on the legality of weddings in Oregon since May 2020. We even had to reschedule our original recording date, as the day before our recording she would learn that the Governor of Oregon would be announcing new mandates at the exact same time when we were scheduled to record.

She has compiled countless resources for couples planning weddings during this pandemic, including a Covid Safety Worksheet.

“It is not sexy to talk about Covid and your wedding, but it’s so important.”

As an entrepreneur, you don’t have traditional co-workers and so it’s up to you to create your own community. Beth realized that if she really wanted to affect change within the wedding industry, she would need to connect with vendors who felt the same way. Beth refers to the “nasty-isms” that are all very present within the wedding industry (Racism, ageism, homophobia). Both the Teardown and Altared bring together wedding vendors who love their jobs but recognize the deep problematic issues within the industry. It combines finding community with continuing to learn how to make others feel safe.

Additional Topics Include:

🧷 Our Mutual Love and Respect for Jordan Maney and the Work that She does
😃 The Why of Weddings
🧷 The Importance of Holding Space for Joy
😃 Prioritizing Safety and Joy, not only for her clients, but also for other wedding vendors and more importantly for herself
🧷 Vaccine Boundaries
😃 Podcasts are a LOT of work!

About Elisabeth:

Elisabeth "Beth" Kramer (she/her) is a wedding planner in Portland, Oregon, who’s fighting the Wedding Industrial Complex. She's also the co-founder of Altared, an event for wedding vendors who want to change the wedding industry. Learn more about her work at elisabethkramer.com.

Connect with Elisabeth on Instagram and Linkedin.

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A byVesta Production.

MG Hodge