MOHAWK — A little less than a year after winning a $25,000 business grant from Intuit, Heart and Soul Events LLC owner Connie Castellano has followed through on her plans to use her winnings to open a retail location for her event-planning business.
Castellano’s Heart and Soul store opened Oct. 8 at 132 W. Main St. in Mohawk, where she is leasing just under 1,000 square feet from building owner Donald Foor.
“It’s small, but we maximized the space,” Castellano says. With her $25,000 prize from Intuit’s “Love a Local Business” competition, she was able to renovate the space and bring in inventory to stock the store with party supplies, wedding accessories and décor, silk flowers, cocktail dresses, makeup, hair accessories, purses, and even some seasonal décor items.
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The goal, Castellano says, is to carry just about anything someone would need for a party or event ranging from a birthday party to a baby shower.
“Then we do the service side, which is planning for any type of event,” she says.
Castellano believes the combination of both the retail offerings and the event-planning services and expertise are what set her business apart. Anyone can walk into a party-supply store such as Party City in New Hartford to purchase party supplies, but they aren’t going to get the advantage of her years of party-planning experience to go with those supplies, she contends.
Castellano started Heart and Soul Events in 2008 in her Frankfort home as a part-time venture. Since then, she has averaged a handful of weddings per year — a number she could comfortably fit around her full-time job as director of campus and corporate events at SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica-Rome in Marcy, where she plans about 750 meetings, conferences, and events per year.
However, Castellano and her husband, Frank, began talking in 2011 about expanding the event business. And, winning the Intuit grant was an integral part of making it a reality.
Castellano was originally looking for a location in the Utica area and had hoped to have her store open earlier this year, but she struggled to find a location that was suitable. Many of the places she looked at were simply too big, she says.
Castellano did not work with a realtor and finally stumbled across her location almost by accident. While driving through Mohawk, she and her husband stopped for ice cream and saw a “for rent” sign in the window of the building across the street. A few phone calls and a walk-through later, Castellano says they knew they found the place.
The Heart and Soul store is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Castellano’s husband, their son, and her sister-in-law currently staff the store when Castellano is not there.
Overall, the event business is going well, she says. “My name is getting out there, and I’ve gotten more calls,” Castellano says. Right now, she is busy with about one event per month, but would like to double that.
“I’m sure it’ll increase once we get the word out more,” she says.
On the retail side, Castellano declined to provide sales projections, saying she’d like to see the store sustain itself and provide enough profit to fund advertising and inventory growth.
Eventually, she would like to add employees at the store, freeing her up to focus on the event side of the business. Ultimately, Castellano says she would love to see the business grow to the point where she employs a full event staff as well as retail employees.
Castellano is marketing the new store on her Facebook page (where she has 431 “likes”) and also plans to send out news releases to local media outlets. She is also considering some advertising and plans to participate in several bridal shows in the coming months.
Castellano hopes to hold a grand-opening event for the Heart and Soul store sometime in November.
Contact DeLore at tdelore@tmvbj.com
