Branding Fit for a Bride: Part Four- Finally Finding an Identity

Hello again =] I’m back with Part Four of my little blogging series.
If you’ve been following, you know I got off to a rough start between the Etsy deal that went bad and my failed attempt to build a blog from scratch, but thankfully, the story doesn’t end there! In fact, this is when I tell you the clouds parted and I saw an angel– I saw tw: Bluechic & Two Brunettes!

I’ll start with Two Brunettes because I swear, as soon I started to work with Carolynn (the lady behind the TB brand), the stars aligned in my favor! I found Carolynn through The Realistic Nutritionist‘s blog. I was in the habit of checking the footers on my favorite blogs (looking for a web designer for Fit for a Bride), and when I saw that Carolynn had designed Ruffled and The Sweetest Occasion (blogs after a bride’s heart!), I knew I had to email her, at least for a quote!

Carolynn was great from the beginning! (Relief!) She was straight forward and prompt. She emailed me asking for more information (before she could provide a price) and of course, I poured my heart out about what this blog was, and what I had been through thus far! That was the 5th; she wrote back on the 6th saying that she was preparing the quote, and by the 7th, I’d received it! I loved the quick turnout!

Of course, Carolynn wasn’t free (hardly!) and I had a tough decision to make. I had to decide whether I wanted to invest more money into this phantom blog! (Let’s not even add up what I had invested so far!)

I wrote her back, asking a few questions and her response thrilled me: “I already adore you, this is going to be a great process. You are so sweet, thank you for being so nice, and all your kind words. Really makes me love my job!! PS. you look amazing such an inspiration. im super into fitness, and being healthy, also love to eat! So this will be so fun to work on. “

Read: “im super into fitness, and being health, also love to eat!”

Carolynn, you had me at fitness!

Then she let me know I could break up the services: logo now, blog design later, etc. etc.

I mulled over the decision for awhile. I went back-and-forth. I was in the hole about $400 already (embarrassing to admit), but I knew I wouldn’t start blogging and I wouldn’t promote the blog unless I had a design I could stand behind. I talked it over with my hubby. (Poor thing, he went through the bad deals too, and at this point, I’d been TALKING about Fit for a Bride for almost a YEAR and still nothing.) I have to give him credit– he really believed in the idea, that the need for THIS type of blog was out there, and that it was up to me to deliver it! 

Hubby, you are the best!

With his blessing, I decided to hire Carolynn, at least to design a logo! (I’ll be honest, though, the night I clicked “send” on the email, I had, had a few glasses of wine! Hello liquid courage!)  I sent another long email: what I liked and didn’t like about the last logo, my inspiration photos, and OMG y’all! She totally nailed it! She wrote me back with a few examples, and suddenly, it all made sense:

THIS was my logo! THIS was the storyboard of the Fit for a Bride brand– feminine and beautiful, but strong, too!

Of course, I wanted a pretty blog and I wanted an illustration of my wedding photo, BUT, Carolynn so eloquently explained a logo needs to be versatile, it’s your brand; it’s more than the blog. She knew I needed an identity, and one that go BEYOND the blog one day (to a bootcamp maybe? If dreams come true, YES.) 

She was so right, guys, and suddenly all the struggles and crap I went through with the last designer made a little more sense. I felt kind of bad about the way that whole thing went down, too. The illustrator was trying to give me something, be we weren’t clear on what I wanted, what I needed, from the beginning.

Carolynn knew I WANTED a pretty blog, but that I NEEDED a logo. Thank you Carolynn!

That night, I cut out the picture you see on the top right and stuck it in my planner. The whole next day I kept peaking it at, feeling excited. This was it! I finally had an identity!!!!! Fit for a Bride was no longer just a figment of my imagination!! Cue happy dance!! 🙂

Of course I instagrammed about it!

Then more good news!

One of my bee friends mentioned that Bluchic.com sold really pretty WordPress templates. Now, I know I already bought the adorable theme and that was what I planned to use, but seriously guys, I couldn’t even get the header looking right, let alone all the widgets and buttons! I was totally over that theme, too. It wasn’t anything like my new logo… 

Of course, I didn’t have any more money to spend (if you calculate what I had spent up until to this point, it’s pretty unsettling), but I heard about the Adelle theme, a freebie (FREE!) template from Bluchic and as soon as I saw it, I thought “that’ll work!”

The theme features a simple layout and black and white accents (black and white is [and always will be!] my favorite color combination)! I downloaded it (what did I have to lose? It was FREE!) and drumroll please…

Believe it or not, with the help of their customer care team, I was even able to upload MY logo!

Do you hear the angels singing? Haha. I could! It felt like SUCH. A. RELIEF. to finally– finally — have an identity. I needed one to start this blog, and if you know anything about branding, which is a quickly growing industry, you know how important it is. FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE EVERYTHING!

Of course, the blog still isn’t exactly the way I want it. I envision way something sleeker and grander, like my favorite websites (The Everygirl, for instance), but all in due time.

Have you ever had a logo designed for you? Whether it was for your wedding or website?

What was the experience like?

If you have a blog, where did you get your design? Was it free, or did you buy it?

 Happy Friday again, friends! Thanks for reading all this! If you missed Part One , Part Two, or Part Three just go to Categories and search “Blogging Tools.”