Decisions, decisions...

via Pinterest

Something I never fail to appreciate about working for yourself, and working with people who more often than not work for themselves, is relative simplicity of making decisions.

Yes, yes, I know that sometimes we are all crippled with indecision, we slump helplessly over our laptops, not sure what to do or how to do it and sometimes we can keep ourselves awake into the wee small hours biting our nails and tearing our hair out trying to decide what to do.

But, all of those (minor) inconveniences aside, once we'd made the decision, we're able to get things going and my goodness, this is something to thank your lucky stars about every day.

This ability to make a decision and just get on with it is, in my humble opinion, one of the things that makes the wedding industry so special. It allows us to be creative, to get things moving, to strike up the band and dance to our own tune. We can set the pace and set the agenda. It's a huge privilege and it allows us to get things moving in a light-on-our-feet, speedy-minded way that is really rather special.

This was bought home to me so many times last week. Firstly, I had a lovely trip down to Bristol for the launch of Little Wedding Space. This pop-up, powered by Kirsten of Little Wedding Helper and photographer Ruth Garner is the perfect illustration of my point. Kirsten & Ruth had the idea for a wedding pop-up to showcase the work of a fabulous group of wedding suppliers and they just got on with it. From first tiny thought to opening night in the blink of an eye. No papers to present to the board, no endless e-mail trails between endless departments with everyone adding their two penceworth whether or not they understand what they're talking about and no interminable meetings full of bluster and other things beginning with b.

Maybe this is why some traditional businesses feel threatened by us agile little up-starts, maybe its something to do with the fact that we can speak our minds or that we don't have the 'rules' of big business to work around. Yes, sometimes being the accounts department, the marketing department, the receptionist, the officer manager and the cleaner can be tough but flipping heck, the benefits of being able to call the shots are huge and please please please never forget them.

We make the decisions, we get things moving, we can work with people we want to work with in ways that suit us. We get to hang out with wonderful people, we get to try new things and turn seemingly impossible plans into real things in the blink of an eye. We are professional but human at the same time. We haven't lost ourselves behind corporate facades and we can be silly, funny, kind and caring whilst still knocking out top-notch, amazing work.

The hours can be long, the annual leave allowance can be non-existent, there are no dress-down Fridays or bake-sales in reception. There's no safe salary or Christmas bonus but we have something far more valuable.

We have the ability to make our own decisions and go in our own direction. And my goodness, you can't put a price on that.