(CNN) — Jennifer Allen not having her dream wedding inspired her to help others achieve theirs.
She is the founder of “Just Elope,” a Dallas-based “elopement and popup wedding specialists” company.
If she looks familiar, it’s because she’s served as an officiant at some high profile weddings, including that of rapper/TV personality Da Brat and entrepreneur Jesseca Dupart as part of their WE reality series “Brat Loves Judy.” She was also featured on Season 3 of Netflix’s hit series “Love Is Blind.”
Allen told CNN she and her now-husband Tavarous Allen were young and in a hurry to marry in 2010 before he was deployed in the military.
“He said, ‘We should get married before I leave,’ and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” she recalled, chuckling at the memory. “I’m like, ‘The only thing that we can do is go to Vegas or go to City Hall. I do not want to get married at City Hall. We cannot afford to go to Vegas, so that’s not an option.’ And so I started looking online to see what I could find.”
What she found were no options in between, so the couple ended up getting married at City Hall which she now says was “underwhelming” before her husband shipped out hours later.
The lack of choices inspired Allen to start a business for other couples who – like she and her husband – had dreams of a special day that were bigger than their resources.
Even those who plan a bigger wedding later deserve to make memories in the moment, she said.
“One of the things that I always tell our couples when they say we’re going to do something small now with a big wedding later, I always tell them, you gotta look at it like losing your virginity,” Allen said. “If you lost your virginity in the back of a pickup truck and you had sex the next time in a hotel room, it does not change the fact that you lost it in the back of a pickup truck.”
That type of straight talk, as well as the attention to both detail and the desires of her clients, has helped Allen build a reputation that has led to her helping over 400 couples.
It also led to her being enlisted to officiate over the potential wedding ceremony of “Love Is Blind” Season 3 contestants Sikiru “SK” Alagbada and Raven Ross (contestants “date” without seeing each other and on their wedding day have the option to either wed or not on the show, and Alagbada opted not to).
Allen enjoys helping put together weddings that can range from the $500 package her company offers to more elaborate affairs for brides like Jaqui Rice Gold, chief executive officer of G.O.A.T. Fuel and daughter of Hall of Fame football player Jerry Rice.
“I tell people our business is not for necessarily the budget buy, because she’s a prime example of somebody that could have had a multimillion dollar wedding if she wanted to,” Allen said. “But she booked her package, paid her deposit, made her final payment 30 days before and used all of our references because we tell you where you should go to get your dress, hair, makeup and the rest.”
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