We recently had the pleasure of working with a renowned name in Seattle’s wedding industry: The Invisible Hostess. Six-time winner of Seattle’s Best of Bride award, The Invisible Hostess has been executing noteworthy weddings for over a decade. As they passed their ten-year milestone, The Invisible Hostess team decided to take the plunge on a new custom website. We stepped in to help! Visionary, entrepreneur, and fearless leader Sheena Kalso put a lot of intentionality and thought into cultivating a distinctive personality for The Invisible Hostess. She brought a wealth of great ideas to the table, covering everything from fun copywriting to thoughtfully planned photo shoots that perfectly complement the new site design. With every page uniquely customized to Sheena’s creative vision, this site was well worth the effort to give The Invisible Hostess the online presence they needed. Now, their custom website design represents the brand’s experience, professionalism, and fun #girlboss personality. A few of our favorite features include:

• A customized timeline to showcase business milestones over the past decade.
• The team’s core values, presented with The Invisible Hostess’s branded video.
• A “Magic We Worked” section for each gallery, accented by our team’s hand-lettered call-outs.

Overall, this site was a big undertaking… but so worth the time investment to make it happen! Kudos to Sheena and her team for putting in the effort to create a cohesive look—from branded photos and a custom video, to fun copywriting snippets and a well-researched user experience, they knocked it out of the park. The Invisible Hostess is launching with a digital presence that captures their personality, and is guaranteed to appeal to their ideal clientele.     Plus, stay tuned! The Invisible Hostess is only one of Sheena’s many entrepreneurial endeavors. We’re excited to launch another of Sheena’s carefully curated brands, The Wedding Mentor. You won’t want to miss it!    

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  And now a word from Sheena herself: Why did you start your business? The business originated out of filling the age old hostess dilemma: how do you enjoy your party when you spend the whole time working it?  I knew it was a niche need, but no one was doing it at the time. We naturally evolved into wedding coordination and after 11 years of business, it’s become our primary focus. What is unique about your business? Our roots in party staffing and bartending made us a destination for all types of parties. Even now, as we work only on weddings, we bring a unique skill set to the table, making us a very valuable knowledge base for our clients. What’s on your Playlist? Pandora stations I frequent are Bethel, Lauren Daigle, Beyonce, Kelly Clarkson, Lana Del Rey and Mumford & Sons.  I’m all over the place. Where do you find inspiration? I’m most inspired by good old fashioned books, and typically business or self development in nature. I’ll highlight and sticky note to my heart’s content. Smart business owners inspire me. Why did you decide to work with Doodle Dog? Doodle Dog works with Sage Wedding Pros, an organization run and supported by some of the smartest wedding business people I’ve come across. Nothing Michelle or Kelly does is without a lot of thought… so if they use Doodle Dog, then so must I! Why did you feel the time was right to kick-off this project? The Invisible Hostess is never stagnant, but in the last 12 months, we really shook things up as far as the organization, the people, and also celebrating a decade of work. I felt our site needed to reflect how grown up we feel and communicate our purpose better. When you make a lot of changes in a business, the message to new or past clients can get muddied. I felt it was imperative to control our narrative via a well built site. What’s your favorite part of your new site or new brand? I love how it captures our voice and spirit, but also showcases our legitimacy as a company, as well as how seriously we take our work. I agonized over every word, picture, and layout detail and I think the combined efforts of Doodle Dog and my insane brain resulted in the perfect web version of our company. What advice would you give to someone considering a rebrand or relaunch? It will take longer than you think, no matter how prepared you think you are. I thought I could complete this in two months, but it took a little over four.  Let me be clear, that had nothing to do with Doodle Dog! This leads to my second piece of advice, or should I say warning: When you start picking a part your business or brand, you start a soul-searching journey you didn’t expect. All of a sudden everything becomes incredibly deep and important. Like, “Does that font really capture my emotional spirit?” “Is that shade of pink conveying the right type of whimsy?” “What is my level of whimsy?” “Am I a comic sans girl trying to live a helvetica life?” Many existential questions were happening over kerning and serifs. Is there anything else you would like to mention? I have DIY’d and taken cheap shortcuts my entire business life. Many times out of necessity, and mostly out of stubbornness. I was in denial about the speed at which business is moving in the online and mobile sphere. I think that denial resulted in loss of business. If you’re considering a new site or a re-brand, the answer is probably yes. We’re typically the last to admit we have a problem, right? So if you’re seeing it, everyone else is too. I don’t think your business’s online presence is where you try to save money. I wish I would have had that realization earlier.   Click here to see more examples of brands or websites we’ve had the pleasure of working on.