This announcement is over 10 years in the making! I am so excited to tell you guys about the launch of a new business, with my design partner in crime, Amanda Jacobs. Journey + Jacobs Design Studio is a full service residential, commercial, and hospitality design firm and something we’ve been working toward for A LONG FREAKIN TIME.
I took on my very first wedding in 2009, and it was along side Amanda. She was an interior designer and I was a visual merchandiser sitting around during the 2008 recession. From the very beginning, our goal was always to accentuate the beauty of the environment we were in and design spaces not only visually but for all the senses. Very soon into our little venture, Laurel & Lace, Amanda started having babies and decided to stay home with them full time while I went full steam ahead and started Jaclyn Thomas Designs which later became Jaclyn Journey Weddings. If you are a former bride, you’ve likely seen her face as she has continued to help me with weddings, particularly with florals over the last year.
This past summer, while brainstorming what we/she should do next (continue to do flowers for me or find a real full time job…?) I made a VERY impulsive and spontaneous gut decision (as I tend to do…) to tell her the next move would be opening an interior design studio- a sister brand to Jaclyn Journey Weddings. So after six very thoughtful months deliberating how to run this business, brand it and use everything I’ve learned from all my years of designing and owning a business, HERE WE ARE. Cheers to female entrepreneurship!
Jaclyn Journey Weddings is NOT going anywhere. It is still my intention to take on 3-5 weddings a year. Wedding design and interior design are very, very similar businesses. I’ve always been a stylist – between my time as a visual merchandiser styling retail to doing events/temporary installations to now designing more permanent ones. What excites me the most about branching out into interiors is the vision I have of how I can make weddings even more uniquely D E S I G N E D. My pool of resources and possibilities is about to expand tenfold and I will be able to style weddings unlike any other. It’s a big bonus for our brides.
We will be offering full service residential, commercial, and hospitality design. I am particularly excited about the thought of designing hospitality spaces as I see it as a great blend of weddings and interior design, but who knows where this will take us! For now, we are taking it a day at a time.
Our new studio fills the other half of the duplex where JJW lives. We cut an opening in the 1860’s brick, which was an interesting process, and now fill the entire front of the building. It’s a really exciting time and the energy in our space is high. I can’t wait to share what we’ve already been up to and anxious for what’s to come! Hope you’ll follow along!!