The first time I saw the vendor flyer for this market I knew I had to get in, and I knew this had to be the first market I did.
I was fortunate enough to be able to have my brother Alex, and my partner Connor for help & encouragement. It was special having my brother with me so we could experience this market together. I started talking about how I wanted to sign up and kept pulling the google form up and exiting. Over and over I would do this just juggling if I was ready to finally do it.
With my support team behind me I decided to do it, and a few days later I heard back that I was accepted. Others might have thought it was simple, or were use to doing it, but I was so happy. And then before I knew it, I started market prepping heavily. Every chance I could get I prepped and organized everything on my days off, after work, late at night. I knew that if I was going to do this market I was going to put in the work to making an impression. When I got the map I knew we were in the perfect spot for foot traffic.
#17 :)
We had a few hiccups on the way. After traveling 2 1/2 hours from Greenville to VA Beach we arrived about 20 minutes before we were suppose to be there to set up. We had to swing by Walmart to get last minute things: chairs, bungee cords, water, etc. And we still had to go to the bank to get cash (which spoiler we honestly could've skipped this because we barely had cash transactions and we missed out on a lot of early sales because shopify was on my phone and I left Connor to man the tent.)
After that we got into the groove of setting up the tent. I think the end result was pretty good for being our first event. But I will say, we may have brought a little too much stock, aka - we brought all of our back stock with us hehe.
And like that we started seeing people and got out first sale from a future fellow vendor friend, and then kept having more people throughout the day. Of course we had lumpia and fried spam musubi all day and just had a blast meeting fellow Filipinos and connecting with fellow vendors. At the end of the say we were all tired and still had a drive left so we got on the road.
From this first market experience, I was able to connect with fellow Filipino/a/x owned businesses and be engulfed in joy and culture. You could genuinely feel how inviting the atmosphere was. Since doing this market, we have now been able to sign up for two upcoming Filipino markets and we are just ecstatic to be able to do this. And we cant wait to see what these next few months and new year has in store for Emma Leigh Jewelry.
And like we always like to say, thank you for supporting us - no matter if you browse or buy. Thank you for just reading this little blog written at 10:47 at night - a couple weeks past when we did this market!
Salamat!
- Emma <3