Trendy Wendy’s unbridled passion for design
By Rosalia David
AFTER winning the top award at the Namibian Young Entrepreneurship Competition in 2000, Windeline Kausiona, known to her friends as Wendy, invested her winning share of N$5 000 to kick start her dream and has never looked back.
Today, she is the proud owner of Wendy’s Creations and offers employment to almost 100 Namibian youth, while turning the dreams of many couples into reality.
The self-taught wedding designer and stylist was born in Outjo and raised by a single mother, who was a domestic worker until her retirement. Wendy has proven the notion of ‘dreams can come true’ by working her way up using her innovative abilities.
Wendy says she started making invitation cards after winning the Entrepreneurship competition alongside her late cousin, but only managed to launch her business in 2005 after designing and styling her own wedding.
“With the little income we got from the small business, I started saving it in a Bank Windhoek call account and it is the same account that I am using until today.
Every end of the month I would sacrifice every little bit of my salary to be deducted when I started working at the Parliament of Namibia. That is how I started purchasing décor items and started doing events,” she explained.
Her breakthrough only came in 2009 when she planned and designed her friend’s wedding Anethe Mtambanengwe and impressed a client who contacted her to do her first paid gig in 2010.
“From her wedding, that is when I started getting more clients and the company started taking off from there.
Basically my strategy has been over the years to exceed what the clients expect from me. I started styling weddings, going into minuses because I was trying to show what I am capable of to build up the credibility that I have today.”
In 2014, she started doing Wendy’s Creations wedding of the year, where she goes out of her way to put out her best work of the year, which regularly makes headlines.
Going into more detail about the wedding of the year event, Wendy said, “It is the one key event that everyone in the industry looks forward to, to be amazed, to learn from. That glamorous spot that all engaged couples compete for … that is one unique thing I do annually, that takes place either in September or October for the past six years.”
Through the annual wedding of the year, she challenges herself creatively, sets her own standards and aims to go beyond them every time.
“I am naturally addicted to think differently and do things differently. I deliberately design one outstanding concept per year. Showcasing the very best I can offer creatively with the core objective to give that absolute sensory experience to everyone all throughout the day; what my clients will see and feel at their venue reveal, what guests will hear, see, taste, touch, smell and feel.”
This has earned her the title of ‘the fairy Godmother of Namibian weddings.’
She designs every little aspect of the wedding, from the invitation to the ‘wow’ grand entrance of the couple, to how the guests are received, dined, wined, entertained and sent off at the end of the night.
She also hosted the very first I Do Workshop in conjunction with Namibian wedding magazine for engaged couples who are planning to get married in 2019 or 2020 under the theme ‘Talk, Relax. Learn and Inspire.’ The workshop was successfully conducted on 18 May and attended by over 32 couples at a Windhoek hotel.
Wendy’s Creations require a minimum budget that range between N$300 000 to N$400 000.00 for a maximum 300 guests.
“I need to be given creative freedom to create a stunning concept with as much autonomy as much as possible, as long as I remain consistent with the couple’s dream throughout the design. For me to be allowed to choose the top vendors to guarantee a high rate of successful execution of the wedding,” Wendy explained.
In April, she was invited to represent Namibia in Dubai at the Destination Wedding Planner Congress alongside over 500 top wedding professionals from different countries where her work was also showcased.
As she continues to make a mark in the event design industry, she was also invited as an international guest speaker at the Ghana Events Industry conference in Ghana in October where she shared her journey in becoming a signature wedding designer and stylist.
At the same occasion she gave her first international master class on event design and styling which was attended by over 1 000 participants from all regions in Ghana.
She further urged aspiring professionals to follow their passion and to go the extra mile to impress and earn the trust of many potential clients.
“The artist in me explodes with passion when I do weddings, or any event. Therefore, I believe that passion alone is enough for me to want to stand out from the ordinary.
I am an innovative designer and stylist who always strives to create personal “experiences” for my clients. Never to limit yourself, there are no rules in creativity, go out there and be innovative and create a stunning display of artistic details that neither you nor your client or their guests will forget,” she said.