Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Bishop.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
The art of afternoon tea and tea parties has been a passion of mine for years! I’ve read books, collected porcelain pieces, and attended as many afternoon teas as possible! I first had the idea of a “mobile” tea room in 2017 during a brief illness that separated me from my nursing job; I thought it was just time to do something I was passionate about! But it wasn’t time, and I entered into a new career. Time became different journeys, career, weight loss journey, then building a new house journey… then I suffered a tremendous loss that led to me bewildered and depressed. I sought help, fought my way back from my depths of despair; however, during my time of healing & treatment, I went through a bought of insomnia and was wide awake, night after night; it was during one of these two am restless periods that, Tealightfully, Yours! was born! I finally decided I survived that & now it’s time to do what I love, even if just as a hobby! I told my two neighbor/close friends, Emily & Steph & they were on board to get this project up and going! They are definitely my partners & emotional support system for the love battle of entrepreneurship.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Our business has grown tremendously in a very short period of time! We’ve sold out all of our summer-themed tea parties and just added another pop-up tea party for end of July! Struggle would be marketing! We are trying to use social media to our advantage as much as possible. However, marketing tea parties can be a challenge.
The initial investment into a new business is quite a struggle; learning all the equipment needed along the way to be a successful traveling tea room has been overwhelming at times!
We’ve been impressed with Tealightfully, Yours!, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Tealightfully, Yours! We bring the elegance of afternoon tea to your celebration!
We are a mobile tea room! We can cater showers, birthday parties, bridal events! We come to your venue/home with our porcelain & set up afternoon tea & then clean up afterwards!
We can cater one to 50 ppl currently! But our porcelain sets are growing to serve more!
We also collaborated with other women-owned small businesses in our community to provide flowers, balloons, character rentals, tiered cakes & more!
We also wanted to use local tea & honey for our guests so we collaborated with The Ohio Tea Co in Canton & Akron Honey in Akron!
We also throw tea parties throughout NE Ohio! From princess children’s tea parties to Queen Tea for adults & kids to our now infamous Garden Tea Parties at Squires Castle in Cleveland! We pick a venue, theme & set the stage for an elegant party with three-tiered trays of delicious tea food, porcelain tea sets, flowers, balloons & picturesque table settings!
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
We hope to be catering more bridal events! We’d like to get our name and the idea of a bridal “day of the wedding” tea party out there, so brides can see how relaxing a beautiful tea party with her bridal party will be before the big event starts! Oh and the pictures of the bridal teas will be something to cherish for years after! Emily is our bridal coordinator, and brides and weddings are her specialty; she just has an eye for setting a gorgeous tea party!
We hope to reach a bigger audience and continue to grow and bring the art of tea to more of our community!
Pricing:
- Themed Tea Parties 35.00 to 45.00 per person
- Catering Children’s Birthday Parties 15.00 to 25.00 per person
- Bridal Tea Events 45.00 person
- Catering Events more than ten people: determined based on food/rentals
Contact Info:
- Website: www.itstealightful.com
- Instagram: tealightfully_yours
- Facebook: Tealightfully, Yours
Image Credits
Heather Pelko Photography, LLC
