Systems Theory within Wedding Planning

When you think about interviewing someone, you don’t think it’s going to land you a job somewhere. Typically the system is reversed, someone interviews you to give you a job. In my case, I was the interviewer and the interviewee gave me a job opportunity. I interviewed a friend of mine named Kaitlyn Phipps who is a leader on Radford University’s campus and an up and coming wedding photographer. Kaitlyn and I met at a wedding last year. She was taking pictures and I was running around doing odd jobs for the wedding planner. Some people will just assume that we met because we were doing similar things or “working together”, but they’re wrong. Kaitlyn recognized me from my senior pictures that she saw on Katelyn James’ blog; funny how two, or essentially 3 worlds can collide so easily!

When I interviewed Kaitlyn, my questions focused on the System’s Theory. I asked her basic questions, such as “What do you do on a typical day”, “what’s the most satisfying things about working in the wedding industry and the most challenging”, and “what types of jobs did you do before starting your own?” The questions I really focused on that incorporated Systems Theory, were “how does your business value and use communication”, “what subsystems are within your business”, and lastly I asked her if she knew of anyone that I could talk to and connect with who could give me advice and help towards my future.

Kaitlyn gave me very detailed responses to all of my questions, which allowed us to have a great conversation that also gave me more insight. Kaitlyn really values communication within her business. It is the most important aspect of her business and she uses it mostly with her husband who helps her immensely. She also uses it with other people she encounters while doing the job she loves. She said that each time is different when it comes to how many people are working with her. Each wedding is different and has a different amount of people you have to communicate with but on average, the communication is good. Kaitlyn also included that when the communication is bad, whether it’s between her and the vendors, bride, renters, ext., it makes her job a lot harder. The subsystems she uses are all of the people who make up her business. To be more specific, this could be the person she rents camera equipment from, the bride and groom, wedding party, vendors, wedding planner if there is one, and anyone else she encounters during the days leading up to or day of the wedding.

My last question for her was if she knew of anyone I could connect with. I loved her answer, “most likely!” She has so many networks and was leaving in a few days for a conference where she would meet new people. After the interview, I realized that I learned so much more than I expected to! She offered me two opportunities for the summer that would not only help her, but help me as well.