A perfect wedding sees her to the bank

Suzan Kavuma Makumbi is passionate about weddings. A number of things could ruin her day, but not as much as the sight of a bride in an over-sized gown. As she is quick to affirm, “Every time I catch a glimpse of a bride who is far from smart, I feel like crying.”

And it is not just the bride’s gown that may evoke her yelp; she also feels her heart burning each time she attends a wedding, which is very often, and the whole event tends to go south. Unlike some people who may let a few wedding mishaps go off easy, Kavuma does not! She is so hinged on detail that she draws heavy disappoint even from the most trivial issues. A perfect wedding is something Kavuma believes every couple should have. She draws pleasure in being able to create such events.

Today, she is a wedding planner and the brain behind Visma Resource Centre, a company that deals in everything bridal. Apart from wedding planning, they provide gowns, men’s suits and other wedding wear. Their success has in a short while come to be commendable. In fact, last year alone, the company organised 53 weddings!

Long-nursed passion
Kavuma’s passion for weddings did not bubble to the surface yesterday. At 16, she was already a self-proclaimed wedding critic. Everyone knew how much of an opinion she always had on matters bridal. “I would keep a pile of bridal magazines under my pillow. These were always bought by my mother and they were like little pets of mine. I took every opportunity I got to flip through the pages, reading and mostly looking at the pictures, not to simply admire but critic the choice of dress and style. My favourite television programme was The Wedding Show aired on then UTV,” Kavuma intimates.

She in fact nursed a dream of pursuing a degree in Fashion and Design as this would give her an opportunity to remain in touch with the bridal side. Unlucky for her by then, such courses were never the right pick, at least not for the parents. So in 1997, Kavuma, now 38, joined Makerere University Business School to pursue a degree in Secretarial Studies. But her dreams were bigger than that. “I did not fancy Secretarial Studies either.

I preferred a business course.” Kavuma says. She dropped out a year later to instead pursue a diploma in Clearing and Forwarding at Kampala College of Business. This was financed by her then friend, Isaac Makumbi, now her husband.

For eight years, she worked with Kenfirght Uganda, then later quit to work with her husband in their own Clearing and Forwarding company. Meanwhile, she concentrated on upgrading her academic credentials, along the way attaining a degree in Management at Uganda Management Institute, then a Procurement and Logistics degree at Makerere University.

Back to her dream
It was more than a year after venturing into Clearing and Forwarding with her husband that Kavuma got the inspiration to turn around and make her passion her business. “My younger sister, Ritah, who was then in her final year at university, came to me with plans to go into bridal business after school. It is at this point that I made up my mind to cross over, a decision my husband fully supported,” she says.

With some technical assistance from Ritah and Rosette, both her younger sisters, Vismal Resource Center was born in 2010. The company premises were soon constructed in Bweyogerere, near Kampala. It was a huge facility that comprised a 40-feet long container. The place also had a restaurant and other rooms.

The setback
“Hardly a month to the start of operations, Ritah passed on in a car crash. She had been very instrumental in the initial stages. Bridal business was her dream too and losing her a heartbeat to the launch shattered us. We momentarily lost the guts to push forward,” Kavuma reminisces, with a grieved face. Despite the loss, the centre went ahead to launch operations in 2011.

But Bweyogerere was not a good place to run such business, something Kavuma had not realised throughout the initial stages. Apparently, people in Kampala do not fancy wedding wear and services from outside the city centre. They believe most of the good things are right in the middle of town. So, much as clients would show up and appreciate her products and services, they would not buy or hire her for the job.

Kavuma decided to relocate the company premises to City Center Complex, right in the middle of town, a move that soon paid off. It has been two years since the company made the strategic relocation and success has followed them. Last year, they organised 53 weddings, which in Kavuma’s view, is unprecedented success.

Challenges
The challenges that come with wedding planning often stem from the clients. Some couples seek Kavuma’s services when the wedding is just a heartbeat away, making planning in such a short time a laborious task. “And some couples are not that understanding. They think when they pay you their money, they own you. They treat you like a slave, ever barking at you. Anyway, I have to put up with such cases. My job requires a lot of patience.” Kavuma says.

In some cases, after the wedding, some people do not want to clear their balances to the wedding planner. She, however, tries to curb this by making sure the couple leaves some sort of security with her. But perhaps the biggest challenge comes from untrustworthy service providers. As Kavuma laments, “Some people, for instance, the car drivers meant to man transportation, are known for their late coming. This is something the clients surely hate and sadly, it is the wedding planner to walk away with a tainted image, not the driver.”

TIT BITS
Making a good wedding planner: According to Kavuma, one has to be in love with this job to pull it off. “It takes passion to put your all into somebody else’s wedding. But away from that, one has to be really organised. You have to do things in a systematic way if you are to successfully ensure that come the Wedding Day, the catering, transportation and decoration all fall in place in time and with the quality the couple desires.”

Charges: There is no fixed amount she charges to plan a wedding. It all depends on the kind of couple she is dealing with, the effort it will take to create the specific wedding they envision, and also someone’s total budget.

Booking time: Kavuma prefers that couples seek her wedding planning services three months to the wedding date. This allows her ample time to prepare. But she says she can even pull off weddings in two weeks since she is experienced and knows where to find most of the efficient service providers.

Shopping: When it comes to bridal wear, she does most of her shopping in Italy, South Africa, USA and China. This is because most of the Ugandan-made gowns are not the kind of quality people are looking for.

Clients: Kavuma gets most of her clients through advertising on television and through bridal magazines. But sometimes people come looking for her after attending a wedding she has planned. On the future: Kavuma believes the next five years will see Visma Resource Centre grow to attain the capability of working on three different weddings in a single week.