Lady of The Month    

Laura Clarke

                  Owner of: Weddings In and Caffeinate IT

www.weddingsinshropshire.co.uk – plus 20 other area Weddings In sites all listed at the bottom of the website

www.caffeinate-it.co.uk – website design, marketing and IT systems

Hi to all reading this,

My name is Laura Clarke, I am 24 and I run my own businesses – two of them! I live and work in Telford, Shropshire.

"I was thrilled to get asked to be the Lady of the Month!"

I really enjoy working for myself from home as I worked a lot of unrewarding jobs (and worked with a few unrewarding people!) after Graduating from University in 2005.  However in November 2007 I set up my own website design business. In January 2008 I launched the Weddings In sites.

While growing up I moved around a fair bit due to my father’s job.  I was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire – then at the age 3 we moved to Birmingham and at age 6 we moved to Oxford. When I was 8 my family (Mum, Dad and I) moved to Indonesia – we (Mum and I) returned when I was 11 as my parents divorced.

Mum and I are best friends as well as mother and daughter – we’ve been through a lot together – moving abroad – coming back etc.  Mum and I stayed with her parents until we got a house in Shrewsbury, Shropshire sorted. Then it was secondary school for me – then A Levels then University to study Media.

Yes – I did a Media degree and got a 2:1 – I have had to stick up for this degree subject SO MUCH throughout my life as people think its just a dummy degree but it really wasn’t and a lot of people who took on the course thinking it was going to be EASY – well lets just say they didn’t turn up for the second semester!

So after GraduatingUniversity it was a bit of a shock to the system that I now had to work! I had no idea what to do really. I moved back to my Mum’s house (she was now living near Welshpool with her new husband Martin – they run a wedding photography business Spinning Your Dreams www.spinningyourdreams.co.uk) I helped with their business while I looked for jobs. I finally got a part time job at a Theatre in Shrewsbury (hour long train journey to and back to my Mum’s) but the travel was costing more than what I was making. I had met a really lovely guy called Mark around this time and I realised he was THE ONE. He was living at his parents’ in Telford – and there were many more jobs in that area than where I was living with my Mum. After a short time with Mark we both agreed it was more sensible for me to move to Telford and live with him and find work. I got an office job in Telford and then made the move to live with Mark – and here I still am – living with Mark in Telford. But one mega difference is I now work for myself!

Mark and I have established a website design business. I had never done any website design before and Mark had done a bit but nothing he’d got paid for. I am self taught as well as help from Mark and it is going pretty well. My marketing and media knowledge was a great stepping stone into this business. I have always had an arty creative streak and I find doing websites really satisfies that part of me.

My Mum helped me get a business bank account open and got me in touch with an accountant and Caffeinate IT was born. Mark works on Caffeinate IT evenings and weekends (he works a 9-5 job at an ISP as a programmer) if we have a big project on but I am full time.

Our first website project was for my Mums business

www.spinningyourdreams.co.uk. She then got us in touch with a couple she knew that needed a website for their selling houses abroad business

www.direct2homesoverseas.co.uk. This couple used to run www.weddingsinshropshire.co.uk but didn’t have the time to run it any more – so they offered it to us to take over. Which I took on – we re designed and improved the website and also registered 20 other area Weddings In urls to expand the Weddings In brand. That is how I got to run Weddings In - it’s who you know not what you know I guess. Then we had an old school friend of mine get in touch for a website for her new business selling sweets online www.tootsweetsconfectionery.com and a wedding car business who we didn’t know had a website from us too www.valeswoodweddingcars.co.uk! I’m sure I’m forgetting some of them as I write this – oh yea we also now look after my Mum’s aunt’s website for their B&B in France www.maisoncremeanglaise.com which we will be re designing for them in the winter.

So November 2007 – June 2008 was very busy and we had the business coming in. But since then the credit crunch and threat of recession has made most a little wary of spending anything they don’t really think essential - so the websites have gone on the back burner for the moment. We do have a wedding video company, a local hotel, a wedding dress shop, t-shirt online business, eco plumbers and a fashion furniture company all waiting in the wings for websites – they all say September time to get these projects under way however – so its just a waiting game – we are ready to go anytime they are!  We would love to hear from anyone who would like us to quote for a website too.  Weddings In however has made us a fair bit of money in the last weeks and it tends to keep the money trickling in to keep us ticking over while we wait for our next big website project.

I feel my businesses are only just beginning and the future I think is bright. I actively network with other women in business and currently I am focusing on getting the Caffeinate IT name out there. But I’m not into the hard sell – you can lead people to water but you can’t make them drink so to speak!

When I’m not running the businesses I like to play on the Wii (Mario Kart is a favourite – yes I am a little bit of a girly geek!), surf the net, watch films and TV, recently I’ve got into gardening, I love my pets – kitten Marley and hamster Kizzy, Mark and I like to visit local farm shops in an attempt to support local businesses and eat as much locally produced food as possible. We go see as much live music as we can. I think to sum me up I’d say I was an arty, hard working, eco aware, should have been born in the 60s hippy era kinda gal!

I look forward to working with different businesses helping them with their websites and increasing Weddings In’s reputation as THE place for wedding suppliers to advertise.