Today we’d like to introduce you to Angela Bowles.
Hi Angela, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My journey in the wedding and events industry began more than 23 years ago, and over the years I’ve had the opportunity to experience this industry from so many different perspectives – from rentals and hospitality to sales, catering, venues, logistics, and, of course, wedding planning and coordination. Every role taught me something different and helped shape the planner and business owner I am today.
XOXO Wedding Co. was born from my love of weddings, but also from my love of people. I’ve always been the person who wants everyone to feel taken care of, and wedding coordination became a natural extension of that. There is something incredibly rewarding about taking all of the plans a couple has spent months – sometimes years – putting together and making sure they can actually enjoy the day they worked so hard to create.
The name XOXO also has a very special meaning to me. My great-grandmother, whom we lovingly called “Big Nannie,” was one of the most influential women in my life. Growing up, I spent countless hours at her house cooking, learning to crochet and embroider, making mud pies in her aprons, and simply being loved by her. She ended every card she gave me with, “I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around your neck. XOXO.” Naming my company XOXO felt like the perfect way to carry a little piece of her love into something that means so much to me.
Like many small businesses, XOXO’s journey hasn’t been completely linear. I spent years building my career while working for other companies in the wedding and hospitality industry, and eventually found myself being pulled back toward what I loved most – working directly with couples and helping create wedding days that feel organized, joyful, and genuinely personal.
In 2026, I made the decision to fully relaunch XOXO Wedding Co. and really pour my heart into rebuilding the company I had originally started in 2016. One of the most exciting parts of that next chapter has been bringing my daughter, Ayla, alongside me as a partner in the business. She grew up around this industry and has more than five years of professional experience in event rentals and sales herself. Getting to combine my years of experience with her creativity, attention to detail, and fresh perspective has made XOXO feel even more special.
Today, we have an incredible team of women who help us bring wedding days to life, and XOXO continues to grow through referrals
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not, but I think the bumps in the road are part of what brought me exactly where I’m supposed to be.
COVID was probably the biggest turning point for XOXO the first time around. The wedding and event industry came to an almost complete standstill, and like so many other small businesses in our industry, we had to navigate cancellations, postponements, uncertainty, and a world where gathering together suddenly wasn’t possible. Ultimately, XOXO shut down, and I continued building my career in other areas of the wedding, event, and hospitality industries.
And if I’m being completely transparent, there was also a point when I thought maybe I was simply getting too old for weddings! Wedding days are long. They’re physical. They can mean 12-plus hours on your feet, carrying things, solving problems, running from one end of a venue to another, and somehow still smiling at the end of the night. My body was saying, “Maybe we should retire from this,” but apparently my heart had other plans.
I tried stepping away. I took different positions within hospitality, sales, catering, and events, thinking perhaps it was time for the next chapter of my career. But I kept finding myself drawn back to weddings. I missed the relationships. I missed my couples. I missed creating timelines and diagrams, working alongside vendors, troubleshooting the unexpected, and that feeling at the end of a wedding night when you know you helped make one of the biggest days of someone’s life a little easier.
Life itself has also taught me a lot about resilience. I’ve experienced career changes, personal loss, family responsibilities, and seasons when I’ve had to reevaluate what really matters to me. Those experiences have changed the way I run my business. I’m much more intentional now about the weddings I take on, the boundaries I set, and the kind of company I want XOXO to be.
Relaunching XOXO this year wasn’t about trying to recreate what I had before. It was about building something better for this season of my life – taking more than two decades of experience, learning from what worked and what didn’t, and creating a business that feels sustainable, personal, and true to who I am today.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that sometimes stepping away from something is exactly what you need to realize how much you love it.
So no, it definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. There have been detours, plenty of exhaustion, and more than a few moments when I wondered if I was finished with this industry.
Turns out, I wasn’t.
My body may occasionally disagree, but my heart still says weddings — and for now, my heart wins.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
At XOXO Wedding Co., our focus is wedding coordination and wedding day management. We love working with couples who have planned their wedding themselves but want an experienced professional to step in, organize all of those moving pieces, communicate with their vendor team, and make sure they can actually be present and enjoy their wedding day.
I always say that our job is to worry about all the things so our couples don’t have to.
After more than 23 years in the wedding and event industry, logistics are definitely my sweet spot. I love a detailed timeline, a good diagram, and making sure everyone knows where they need to be and when they need to be there. I’m constantly thinking three steps ahead: What happens if it rains? Who is lighting the candles? Where is Grandma supposed to be before the processional? Did someone remember the marriage license? Who is moving the ceremony florals? All of those little details that couples shouldn’t have to think about on their wedding day is on repeat in my head.
But I think what XOXO is really known for goes beyond organization. We care deeply about our couples and the people we work alongside. I never want someone to feel like they are simply another wedding on our calendar. By the time the wedding day arrives, I want our couples to feel like they have a trusted friend in their corner who also happens to have a clipboard, a timeline, and a backup plan for the backup plan.
Our relationships with other wedding professionals are incredibly important to us as well. I’ve spent more than two decades building relationships within the Virginia wedding community, and I’m especially proud when photographers, caterers, DJs, musicians, venues, and other vendors tell us that working with XOXO made their jobs easier. A wedding day is truly a team effort, and when the vendor team is informed, respected, and working together, the couple benefits.
I’m also incredibly proud of the team we’re building. Having my daughter, Ayla, alongside me makes this chapter of XOXO particularly special. We have different strengths and perspectives, and together with our amazing team of women, we’re creating a company culture that is supportive, collaborative, professional, and still a whole lot of fun.
What sets us apart is probably the combination of experience and heart. There are things you simply learn after 23-plus years in this industry that can’t be taught in a course or found on a checklist. You learn how to read a room, anticipate a problem before it becomes one, adjust a timeline without anyone realizing it changed, calm a nervous bride, work with different personalities, and keep moving when something doesn’t go according to plan.
At the same time, I never want all of that experience to make us feel overly corporate or impersonal. XOXO is intentionally personal. We laugh with our couples, celebrate with them, occasionally cry with them, and genuinely become invested in their day.
At the end of a wedding, the greatest compliment isn’t that everything looked perfect. It’s hearing a couple say, “We didn’t have to worry about anything.”
That’s what we want XOXO to be known for: experience, organization, relationships, and a whole lot of heart.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I’m not sure I believe in luck as much as I believe in timing, relationships, and maybe a little divine intervention.
There have certainly been moments of both good and bad “luck” throughout my career. COVID was obviously one of the bad ones. None of us could have predicted what it would do to the wedding and event industry, and it ultimately played a part in me closing XOXO the first time around. At the time, that felt like an ending. Looking back now, I can see that it was really just a very long detour.
Some of my greatest opportunities have come from simply being in the right place at the right time. But more often, they’ve come from relationships I built along the way. After all my years in this industry, I’ve learned that you never really know when someone you worked with five, ten, or even twenty years ago will come back into your life, send a referral your way, recommend you to a venue, or open a door you never expected.
That has especially been true since relaunching XOXO. So much of our growth has come through word of mouth and relationships with other wedding professionals. To me, that feels less like luck and more like the result of treating people well, doing what you say you’re going to do, and leaving people with a positive experience.
Even some of the opportunities that didn’t work out the way I thought they would ended up teaching me something I needed for the next chapter. I’ve taken jobs that weren’t ultimately the right fit, experienced unexpected career changes, and had seasons when I truly didn’t know what was coming next. Each one added another layer of experience and, in its own way, helped lead me back to XOXO.
I’ve also learned that sometimes an opportunity can look like bad luck when you’re living through it and make perfect sense a few years later.
So maybe I’ve been lucky. I certainly feel incredibly fortunate. But more than anything, I believe my life and business have been shaped by relationships, resilience, timing, a whole lot of hard work, and trusting that sometimes the road you didn’t plan to take is exactly the one that leads you where you’re supposed to be.
Pricing:
- Starting at $2800
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.xoxoweddingco.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xoxo_weddingco
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xoxoweddingco
