Wedding bells may have been ringing in the clear Arizona sky, but at Phoenix's recent "Bridal Fair + Boho Picnic," the sound of commerce was conspicuously silent. Around a dozen wedding vendors – from florists to photographers – assembled at Changing Rivers Ranch hoping to seduce potential customers with their matrimonial offerings, but the crowd they sought was nowhere to be seen. Vendors like Taylor Nesiah Jenkins, a 24-year-old proprietor of Haus of Vestige, laid her secondhand bridal treasures under Arizona's sun, but as the day waned, so did her hopes of finding buyers in the barren fairgrounds.
In the desert air, an ironic drought of business swept across the venue; vendors buzzed among themselves, exchanged knowing glances, and concocted networkings, as not a single customer graced the fair according to an Arizona Public Media report.
Jenkins, in a statement given to Arizona Public Media, decked in a white satin dress with high hopes of peddling her boutique's collection, lamented, "It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be." A California transplant who came to Arizona for its affordable housing, Jenkins is not new to vocational striving, her past dotted with various roles from the service industry to childcare. Her latest venture, however, thrusts her into the rigors of entrepreneurship, a path trodden by a record-breaking 5.5 million applications for new businesses filed last year, per U.S. Census Bureau data.
Patterned after the national trend, Jenkins has rolled the dice on her future hoping her investments of $1,500 plus countless hours will grow into a thriving enterprise; this dream underlined by the harsh reality of startup failures, with one in five new businesses not making it past year one, this gathered from government statistics. "If my partner wasn't making as much as he does at his job, I wouldn't be able to," she stressed, acknowledging the financial support from her boyfriend, a project manager, that props up her aspirations.
While Jenkins savors the small victories, like her purchase of champagne glasses from a fellow vendor for future photoshoots, the reality remains stark: two months after the fair, her journey is fraught with challenges, a planned fashion show scaling back to a mere photoshoot amid scant attendance. Yet, she forges ahead, her day job as a nanny providing some refuge and stability in the unpredictable odyssey of a Black woman entrepreneur grasping at the American dream.
