CNN
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Jennifer Allen’s inability to have the wedding of her dreams inspired her to help others achieve theirs.
She is the founder of Just Elope, a Dallas-based elopement and pop-up wedding company.
If she looks familiar, it’s because she has served as maid of honor at several high-profile weddings, including those of rapper and TV personality Da Brat and entrepreneur Jesseca Dupart as part of their WE reality series “Brat Loves Judy.” She also appeared in season 3 of the hit Netflix series “Love Is Blind.”
Allen told CNN that she and her now husband, Tavarous Allen, were young and in a hurry to get married in 2010 before he was sent to the military.
“He said, ‘We should get married before I leave,’ and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?'” she recalled, chuckling at the memory. “I said, ‘The only thing we can do is go to Vegas or go to City Hall. I don’t want to get married at City Hall. We can’t afford Vegas, so that’s not an option.’ So I started looking online to see what I could find.”
Courtesy of Jennifer Allen
Jennifer Allen and her husband are seen on their wedding day.
She found no other options and so the couple finally got married in the town hall. The wedding was, as she now says, “disappointing” before her husband flew out hours later.
The lack of choices inspired Allen to start a business for other couples who, like her and her husband, dreamed of a special day that was beyond their means.
Even those planning a larger wedding later deserve to make memories in the moment, she said.
“One of the things I always tell our couples when they say we’re going to do something small now and then we want a big wedding later, I always tell them you have to think of it like you’re losing your virginity,” Allen said. “If you lost your virginity in the back of a pickup truck and the next time you have sex in a hotel room, it doesn’t change the fact that you lost it in the back of a pickup truck.”
This type of open communication, along with attention to detail and her clients’ needs, has helped Allen build a reputation that has resulted in her helping over 400 couples.
This also led to her being hired to officiate the eventual wedding ceremony of Love Is Blind season 3 contestants Sikiru “SK” Alagbada and Raven Ross (the contestants “date” without seeing each other and have the option of getting married on the show or not on their wedding day, and Alagbada chose not to).
Allen enjoys helping organize weddings, which can range from the $500 package her company offers to more lavish occasions for brides like Jaqui Rice Gold, CEO of GOAT Fuel and daughter of Hall of Fame football player Jerry Rice.
“I tell people that our business is not necessarily geared towards the small budget, because she is a prime example of someone who could have had a multi-million dollar wedding if she wanted to,” Allen said. “But she booked her package, paid her deposit, made her final payment 30 days in advance and used all of our references, because we tell you where to go to get your dress, your hair, your makeup and the rest.”
