if you wanna hear more…

I grew up in Quincy, Illinois and I can easily say that I've been a host and a planner all my life.  However, I can actually pinpoint a date for my love of party planning back to February 1992.  How do I know that, you ask?  All thanks to the good folks over at Better Homes & Gardens:  

I remember my grandma getting this issue in the mail and me begging her to let me have a Valentine's Day party so I could invite all my "Barbie Club" friends over - yep, that's right...this basically makes me the originator of Galentine's Day.  I spent hours cutting out paper hearts and gluing them to doilies, coloring personalized cards and spilling gold glitter all over the house. My party was the talk of the 2nd grade water fountain line so of course came many more themed pizza parties and umpteenth sleepovers.

Fast forward past Y2K: I studied PR and Hospitality, worked in experiential marketing for a national music & lifestyle magazine and eventually became the friend that everyone called when they got engaged or needed help because they should have never signed up to plan the company outing.  In 2014, I finally decided to crank it up a notch and completed a certificate course in wedding planning.  After a few years of too many “fairytale” style weddings with mason jars and burlap, I launched Canvas WED (Wedding and Event Design) in January 2018, focusing on modern love stories, inclusivity and outside-of-the-box ideas!

2020 brought lots of challenges and I was in a unique position where I got to see things on both sides of the fence. With weddings and events postponed, I felt like I had lost my own creative outlet. But I also saw firsthand how so many people had to pivot in their careers and either had suddenly found themselves job hunting unsure of where to start or trying to build a new stream of income. This made me want to fuse both of my worlds together to help ensure that creatives and small businesses had the resources and connections to continue to make magic and thrive! And that’s how By Sharris was born - a fusion of continuing to build my own weddings + events business, that is authentically me, alongside other like-minded creatives and entrepreneurs. Let’s get it!