Christina: What is your company’s SwagHer?
Shonta and Crystal: What makes our company Swagher??….Hmmmm I mean, have you seen us? Lol. No, seriously, we are just two dope Black chics who wanted to create something dope for the culture. For so many years Black American stories have been overshadowed by violence and despair and we wanted to…NO…we needed to step back and reflect on all the great things that the culture has done for this country throughout history. We as black people bring some amazing things to America’s history, music, fashion, pop culture, social media, businesses, politics, sport, I mean the list is truly endless and we wanted to celebrate that! This is why we created Celeplated.
Christina: What makes Celeplated, Celeplated?
Shonta and Crystal: Celeplated is a unique paper tableware company designed with a distinct focus on Black holidays and how WE celebrate them. From our knowledge, we are the only company currently catering to this market and we all know no other culture kicks it like we do. No one sings Happy Birthday like we do, no one backyard parties like we do, no one celebrates like us and we wanted to celebrate that. But it had to be chic and it needed to be cute and we just weren’t finding that on today’s shelves.
Christina: What inspired you two to create Celeplated?
Shonta and Crystal: Our background is in branding and marketing events with some of the nation’s most recognized brands through our marketing agency, Agency Brand U. When the pandemic of 2020 hit, it hit us hard as we saw all of our events cancel one after another. With the extra time on our hands and a reason to pivot we created eBash Box- a social distance party box company that catered to the actual experience of those virtual zoom parties we all found ourselves on in 2020. As we were creating content for eBash Box we realized there was no one who celebrated like Black America and we found it frustrating to be on the hunt for certain looks, colors and trends that just did not speak to what and how we celebrated. This eventually brought us back to a passing conversation we had about creating a paper plate line celebrating Juneteenth a year prior, taking it a step further we decided to do all holidays and created Celeplated, Our Plates for Our Celebrations.
Christina: Tell our readers a little bit about the services your company offers?
Shonta and Crystal: Celeplated seeks to provide paper party supply products that celebrate African American culture, heritage and values in a way that’s exciting, unique and inspiring. The catch, it HAD TO BE CUTE. Everything on the market currently was just not cute and interchangeable where you could celebrate 365 days of the year. Most of the products currently offered just did not offer a level of chic-ness that celebrated our culture in a way that we felt was unique and cute. It was a lot of the same ol, same ol and we are striving to be different.
Christina: What is the best event you all have planned?
Shonta and Crystal: New York Fashion Week. It was an honor and a pleasure to work on this event with Naturally Curly in the fall of 2018 and 2019. It was the best because it was our first event in this space and it went seamless. Working with several brands, producing seven runway shows, a full staff of back of house production, lighting and sound, VIP lounges, news media and social activations, it was truly the end all of be all events during that time. We learned and grew so much during that time and it made us better business women for sure.
Christina: What advice would you give to others who want to get into event planning?
Shonta and Crystal: Take chances within reason, believe in yourself and do your research by studying current event trends. It’s ok to be trendy but strive to be different and put your own spin on a current trend that will make your clients swoon. It’s also a good idea to study your client’s social media if available, get to know what they like, how they like to take pictures, what makes them say wow, that way you can add great attention to detail to make their event unique to them. Lastly, if you are getting into event planning for the money, don’t do it. An event planner’s passion and desire should be to create memorable moments for their clients, money will always follow. Most importantly, be humble and a pleasure to work with. Strive to be a gracious host and always be ready to roll up your sleeves to make a vision come to life. Event planning can be stressful on the planner and the client and people will always remember how you treated them during a planning process, that is what creates a repeat customer.
Christina: Tell us about eBash Box?
Shonta and Crystal: eBash Box was our baby, it was our first product based driven company and we believe it served our customers well during the pandemic. We initially created pre-curated party boxes in hopes that our customers would purchase those for their social distancing gatherings. However we quickly found that all of our customers wanted customized party boxes for their events. So in theory we planned about 60 personal parties during the pandemic. It was a ton of work, long days, longer nights, a lot of mental power but extremely rewarding and fulfilling as we helped people continue to celebrate their special moments in a way that was safe, fun and interactive. As the pandemic neared somewhat of an end, the need for eBash Box in its current state changed as well, however eBash Box will always hold a special place in our story and in our hearts.
Christina: What is the best and worse part about being entrepreneurs?
Shonta and Crystal: The best thing about being entrepreneurs is that we have unlimited growth opportunities. We are allowed to create a culture and work environment that is conducive to growth, transparency, and more opportunities for anyone who travels this journey with us. We enjoy the freedom and flexibility to manage our schedules, we get to create content that was just a concept and watch it come to life. That is so satisfying! We can be as bold and creative as we want, we can be as detailed as we want and we get a real chance to build a customer experience that is thoughtful, unique and specific to our brand.
The worst part about entrepreneurship; in the early stages, you are broke! All of your resources are poured into the business, You are constantly working. Your brain never stops. There are no off days. There’s no paid vacation. No paid sick time. You wear every hat there is to wear. You are R & D, marketing, social media strategist, CEO, CFO, content creator, customer service, shipping and receiving, tech ops support, I mean you name it, it falls on you. You sacrifice time with family and friends, sleep, and sometimes household resources, all in the name of building your dream. If we are being honest, it can be the scariest and most challenging thing you have ever done. But you did it!
Christina: Do you have any upcoming projects or events you would like to share?
Shonta and Crystal: Oh!! We have so much on our plate. Now that outside is back open, our marketing agency is back up and off to the races. We are booked for the rest of the year with events all over the country. We are also working on the next 3 lines of plates for Celeplated which will be out in winter.
Christina: Is there anything else you two would like to share?
Shonta and Crystal: Yes, we have plans to grow Celeplated in a major way, we need your readers’ help! We have to show retailers that this is a market that they should pay attention to. Likes, tags, shares, follows, purchases, and word of mouth goes a long, long way. Data drives change in all industries and for us, our data comes from readers like yours! Any support is greatly appreciated!
Connect with Celeplated below:
Website: www.celeplated.com
Instagram: ebashbox_now_celeplated
Facebook: eBashBox
