Sharon Fabian was a young wife and mother with working experience as a marketing services coordinator in a big advertising agency, a multinational publishing house, a bank and other companies when she decided to put up her own events firm.

“When I get married and our daughter was born in 1998, I decided to stay home and focus on raising my family. But I also wanted to continue doing special events as it was part of my portfolio of marketing services,” says Fabian, who owns Themes & Motifs, the organizer of the highly successful Wedding Expo Philippines series.

Fabian, with the help of her husband, an international marketing expert, started out with a small office in a small corner of her house. She had a phone and a fax machine.

“My husband helped me with the marketing strategies and between the two of us, the work was divided,” she recalls.

When the business started picking up, Fabian hired an assistant to help her with the day-to-day operations of her business.

Wedding Expo has proven to be financially rewarding for Themes & Motifs such that Fabian now maintains a regular staff of five aside from 50 experts on call for events.

“Professionally, it has been very fulfilling since our events are the most sought after and the most respected in the industry. We get fully booked a year ahead of our event date and we have raised the bar in event organization as a business in the country,” says Fabian.

Despite the success of her business, Fabian continues to be a multi-tasker and hands-on manager. She does the accounting for Themes & Motifs and designs of the collaterals on top of the day-to-day office management.

Fabian also makes sure she stays on top of the competition as imitation and copying are very common in the events industry.

“We consistently have to be innovative. What we do in our events get copied by others so we need to always come up with something new to stay ahead,” she says.

In the future, Fabian hopes to encourage more foreign participants to join Wedding Expo Philippines.

Themes & Motifs will hold the 14th edition of Wedding Expo Philippines on March 7-8 at PICC Forum, CCP Complex. The event will feature the finest, latest, and best wedding-related products and services that the local wedding industry has to offer. More than 300 of the Philippines’ well respected and most talented wedding suppliers will turn a 5,000-sqm exhibit ground into a wedding wonderland of elegant ideas for soon-to-weds. Free admission for soon-to-weds and their friends is available to those who will pre-register online at www.themesnmotifs.com. Free tickets may be claimed from Themes & Motifs-Makati Shangri-la Hotel, Makati City.

Major sponsors for the event are Smart Shot Studio, Goldenhills Jewelry and Josiah’s Catering while T&M Gifts, Paper Elegance World-class Invitations and Weddings & Lifestyle.com are event partners. Dinna Chan Vasquez