Exquisite Wedding Planner

Elie Berchan is a graduate in Hospitality Management from both Les Roches International School of Hotel Management and the Institut Hotelier Cesar Ritz in Switzerland. He has over 10 years’ experience in top hotel chains around the world including Armani Hotel, Grand Hyatt Atlanta, and Raffles Dubai. In 2010, Elie Berchan set up Elie Berchan Wedding and Events Creation to allow his own creative flair to create the events that his clients dreamed of.

Elie Berchan is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed event creator. He is frequently quoted in newspapers and magazines in his capacity as a wedding expert. He is often invited to speak at global conferences and offers workshops at Les Roches International School of Hotel Management in Switzerland to future event planners from around the world. I catch up with him about his business.

Elie welcome to my series on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Congrats on being nominated for the BRIDE Dubai wedding awards and being one of the top wedding planners in Lebanon. Tell my audience a little about you?

My name is Elie Berchan and I am a wedding planner and event creator. I have offices in Lebanon, Dubai and Lagos, Nigeria.

You had a successful career as a hotelier with some amazing brands. Why start a business?

I always said to myself, if I can make other businesses flourish, so why not mine?

I worked in four hotel pre-openings in the UAE and they were a great success.

Then the idea came to mind to open my own business. It is also because I wanted to relocate back to Lebanon, so it made it easier.

It all started with my parent’s dining room. I was single and living with them.

One day, I was at a restaurant with a friend and he asked me if I had a website. That same night, I went home and built a website by myself on Wix.com. I also rented a booth at a wedding forum and I got no clients.

I then did my sister’s wedding and two other weddings for free.

People noticed my different, unique styles that I bring to the event.

Talk to me a little about weddings and event creations?

It is a beautiful field, full of joy, happiness and goosebumps – Yes! You are there to do your best, on their best day ever – whether it is a wedding or a corporate event. You live their ups and downs, tears of joy, long hours, unhealthy meals,…. Mainly everything.

What are the future goals, expansion plans and talk to me about your product La Table?

We are working on a franchising model and interviewing candidates. We also started a product called La Table by Elie Berchan – where we make our own table linen, napkins, and accessories. We launched in Lagos and it is on-demand so far.

Help me understand the good, bad and ugly side of being an entrepreneur?

What’s really good about, is how much you grow depends mainly and solely on how much work you put in it.

You can easily become the talk of the town and people will always critique you.

At the same time, whenever you feel comfortable it means you are slowing down and this is not healthy for the business. You tend to forget celebrating small wins, therefore you should always remind yourself, to sit for a bit and enjoy the show.

What are the skills sets required to be an entrepreneur?

Great listener, alerted, not ego-centric, open to ideas, pioneer, active, devoted, generous yet stingy.

Walk me through the steps of opening a business, like bootstrapping, business plans, market, competitive advantage, core competence, increasing footprint and finding a niche?

In terms of bootstrapping, I lived at home that way I saved on expenses. I also had a full-time job while I started and did the wedding planning at night. I put every dime and emotion into this business.

You have to have a plan as to where you are heading and how you will execute.

My competitive advantage is that I am a great listener.

My core competence is that I am the breeze at the event and flow and then I shine. I do not bring my ego in the equation. It is about them. I communicate, listen, paraphrase and rephrase.

I also have a degree in hotel management, am a certified coach, NLP practitioner, teach and speak all over the world.

It is important to find mentors, coaching and other help to keep you on track. How did you achieve this?

I found great supporters who helped me to get up and great advisers who highlighted my pitfalls and guided me through them.

Talk to me about your hiring process and what you look for and how you motivate your staff?

I hire based on potential and not only experience. I look for ethics, education, devotion, and aim. I motivate my team by offering them continuous support, training, business travel, bonus system, extra days off – yet, our business is very demanding and I only expect their best.

Give my viewers advice on balancing family, faith, finance, food?

With faith nothing is impossible – With Faith everything is possible.

Family is your backbone – listen to them and also have an eagle eye.

Finance plays a big role, yet it is not the main factor of success. Don’t let your limited cash flow bring you down – money is secondary.

The last thing you want to get sick, so eat well to achieve more.

If you apply these Fs and balance well between them, you will surely be awarded with the best F ever, which is: Forever – your business, together with you, will run forever!