My name is Nicole Sherrill and I am going to give you a peek into my life and how I got here.
All growing up, I continued to change what I wanted to do when I grew up as I think most kids do. For the longest time I wanted to be a professional basketball player and actress. I got really excited in 6th grade when I grew 6 inches in 6 months. I was taller than everyone else and thought this was the beginning. Many years later, I have not grown another inch. I stand at 5’2 and when my noggin is set on straight I am 5’3. There goes the dream of being a basketball player right down the drain.
So then I pursued my dreams of being an actress. I acted at my church in all their skits and plays. I took classes at the local performing arts center. I also took modeling classes at Barbizon School of Modeling. I started to get myself out there and tried to find an agency to take me on. I ran into scammer, after scammer, after scammer. I was once again, broken hearted.
At this point I had started to work in the real world and quickly discovered I despised working for other people. I did not like how most of my employers treated their employees, customers or ran their businesses. I once worked somewhere that I got let go as a manager because I did not write enough people up in the short 3 months I had been there. Well, that amongst other beyond stupid reasons. I then decided I wanted to own my own business but wasn’t sure what kind yet.
I got pregnant at the age of 20 and gave birth to an amazing little boy at age 21. He was the love of my life. I was a single mom, newly unemployed because I lost my jobs when I became pregnant. Yes, I went after them legally. No, I will not tell you who they are. I of course couldn’t afford to live on my own anymore. I eventually moved in with my parents who took complete care of me. Bought me clothes and anything I needed besides food.
Once my son reached 3 months old, I went back into the work field. I got let go twice because I was a breastfeeding mom who needed one 15 minute break a shift to pump. No smoke breaks, just pump breaks. Once again, I was discouraged. I called my attorney from before and he said because they have such few employees there was nothing he could do. I told him I just wanted him to scare them enough to give me my job back while I look for another one. He said he couldn’t do that.
I took this frustration and decided to go to fashion school so I could open my own maternity store where I would make and sell the clothes and at a much more affordable price than retailers sell them for. I was also going to make them more fashionable because it seemed they thought pregnant people didn’t care to look good even though you are even more self conscious about your looks during this time. So I went for awhile to a private college but had to take the summer off which they were an all year school and didn’t take breaks, so I would have to reapply each time I came back. I did this 3 times and each time they changed the degree and told me I would have to start over because they either got rid of that program or overhauled it. So I quit.
Years later and a few jobs later, my parents and I move to Naples. My parents got their Christmas lighting business booming here and in a very short time. I was really impressed and worked on and off for them for awhile and also worked other jobs that just weren’t working out. Including a restaurant that forced me as the hostess for the night, to take tables because none of the servers would take the customers coming in. This makes perfect sense. You have 4 servers and instead of forcing them to do the job they were hired to do, let’s make the hostess that is wearing high heels have to serve them. Guess what happened? I twisted my ankle. I tried to work it out, came back the next day and was barely able to walk. Long story short, I ended up having to sue them to cover my medical bills from the sprained ankle I got at their establishment and in return I had to quit.
Soon after this, I got married and had an amazing daughter. She has brought so much joy into all of our lives. I didn’t think I could ever love another child so much because I felt my first born was so perfect. Yet it happened. I love them both to infinity and beyond!
Any who, a few years later, I quit a serving job to work for my parents full time. Within weeks of this I was in a car accident and tore a tendon in my right arm and could no longer work for my mom. In fact, I couldn’t work any job I had experience in. So now what do I do? I had tried starting a MLM and it didn’t work out. I was talking about it all with my mom and how frustrated I was and how lost I felt. That’s when my mom said, “well honey, instead of us both continuing to complain about these events you are going to that are horribly put together and not helping your MLM business, why don’t we do something to change it?” Wow! She was right! There it began, my mom paid for me to become a certified planner so I would know what I was doing. I learned so much in those classes and now here I am a few years later, running my wonderful business. All thanks to my very challenging life as an on and off single mom, unsuccessful marriage, unsuccessful jobs, unsuccessful college, unsuccessful MLM business, a wonderful mom who believed in me and God who closed so many doors so that this one would open.
Without any of those hard times and without my mom being in the industry she is in, without her being successful, without her believing in me, I would not be a wedding and event planner. This has become such a dream come true, even when I didn’t realize it was a dream of mine. I suppose I should have known at an early age that this was my destiny seeing as one of my favorite movies was The Wedding Planner with J. Lo.
Now here I am, beyond passionate about event planning, eager to learn more and to give back to my community. Eager to make your dreams come alive, as stress free as possible and to allow you to be a guest at your own event! I hope you give me the chance to prove myself to you. To prove to you why my mom believes in me, not just because she is my mom but because she saw something in me that I did not. Let me prove to you why God led me down this beautiful path. Let me bring my southern belle charm into your life and wow you and your guests. Let’s help you be a guest at your own event!
Event Planning Services for Weddings, Parties, Holidays, Birthdays, Non Profits, and Small Business Events
