PUBLICATION: Female Network
PUBLISHING DATE: Feb 2019
How the Boracay Shutdown Led Wedding Planner Amanda Tirol to Expand-And Rebrand-Her Business
“We really thought it wasn’t going to happen. We were told we’d be given a few months, but they only officially announced it three weeks before the shutdown. I cried. Anong gagawin ko, ano sasabihin ko sa mga kliyente ko? Are they all gonna go? What’s gonna happen, right? After all that crying, of course, you have to pick up the pieces and you have to be strong and you move forward. And that’s what I did,” says wedding planner Amanda Tirol of Boracay Weddings, now known as Events By Amanda Tirol, remembering the days leading up to Boracay’s shutdown on April 26, 2018.
Amanda’s love affair with arguably the country’s most exquisite island started in 2002, when she tied the knot with Bong in a fairytale wedding. With her husband’s family having roots in Boracay and Bong working for the one of the island’s prestigious resorts, it wasn’t far fetched for Amanda to eventually settle there.
The same goes with Boracay Weddings. After Amanda’s wedding, a cousin’s friend asked her to help plan his. Before that event was over, another inquiry came in. Living in Manila then and managing her preschool, Amanda would fly back and forth to Boracay until the business grew and she finally moved there for good.
“This is what I love to do,” Amanda muses, looking back at a decade and a half, shifting her career for an opportunity that was ready for the taking. She dove right in without any prior knowledge but her own experiences and her knack for planning, her attention to detail, and her well of patience. She’s found fulfillment in other people’s happily ever afters, admitting that to this day, the genuine outpouring of love that resonates in the couples’ vows or even their video presentations still makes her tear up.
The dedication she, and her loyal team that’s been with her from the beginning, springs from and strives for simply that—her clients’ happiness. “That’s what’s exciting about what we do, because no matter how stressful, at the end of the day, 'pag masaya kliyente [ko,] ang saya saya ko na.”
So, having to deal with the loss that came with the shutdown proved to be a major hurdle for Boracay Weddings. She lost half of her clients who feared the uncertainties of the government’s decision, while she and her team hastened to move the other half’s weddings to other destinations and managed on pinning down new dates for those who still prefer to be wed in Boracay. One wedding hit right smack on the shutdown that Amanda only had a day to move the entire event to Cebu.
“We really thought it wasn’t going to happen. We were told we’d be given a few months, but they only officially announced it three weeks before the shutdown. I cried. Anong gagawin ko, ano sasabihin ko sa mga kliyente ko? Are they all gonna go? What’s gonna happen, right? After all that crying, of course, you have to pick up the pieces and you have to be strong and you move forward. And that’s what I did,” says wedding planner Amanda Tirol of Boracay Weddings, now known as Events By Amanda Tirol, remembering the days leading up to Boracay’s shutdown on April 26, 2018.
Amanda’s love affair with arguably the country’s most exquisite island started in 2002, when she tied the knot with Bong in a fairytale wedding. With her husband’s family having roots in Boracay and Bong working for the one of the island’s prestigious resorts, it wasn’t far fetched for Amanda to eventually settle there.
The same goes with Boracay Weddings. After Amanda’s wedding, a cousin’s friend asked her to help plan his. Before that event was over, another inquiry came in. Living in Manila then and managing her preschool, Amanda would fly back and forth to Boracay until the business grew and she finally moved there for good.
“This is what I love to do,” Amanda muses, looking back at a decade and a half, shifting her career for an opportunity that was ready for the taking. She dove right in without any prior knowledge but her own experiences and her knack for planning, her attention to detail, and her well of patience. She’s found fulfillment in other people’s happily ever afters, admitting that to this day, the genuine outpouring of love that resonates in the couples’ vows or even their video presentations still makes her tear up.
The dedication she, and her loyal team that’s been with her from the beginning, springs from and strives for simply that—her clients’ happiness. “That’s what’s exciting about what we do, because no matter how stressful, at the end of the day, 'pag masaya kliyente [ko,] ang saya saya ko na.”
So, having to deal with the loss that came with the shutdown proved to be a major hurdle for Boracay Weddings. She lost half of her clients who feared the uncertainties of the government’s decision, while she and her team hastened to move the other half’s weddings to other destinations and managed on pinning down new dates for those who still prefer to be wed in Boracay. One wedding hit right smack on the shutdown that Amanda only had a day to move the entire event to Cebu.
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