How Giuliana doubled her Instagram leads and closes 75% of quoted projects
I’m so excited to share another Design Your Dream Wedding Business case study:
Meet Giuliana. A newlywed graphic designer from Toronto, Ontario.
We first connected at Wed Well Showcase 2025, where she took a brave step and introduced herself to me at the event.
She had expanded her graphic design business to include wedding stationery and signage and Wed Well was on her radar to expand her brand, Studio Oros.
Kudos to her for making the introduction in person, because soon enough we were working together! Giuliana designed the branding behind my podcast. She joined us in a group cohort for Design Your Dream Wedding Business. And sure enough, Studio Oros was our stationery and signage design partner for Wed Well Showcase 2026!
Giuliana’s goal in DYDWB was to expand her network and build on her marketing strategy to increase her bookings with dream clients and collaborators.
If you're a stationery designer, you already know the quote is where the real work happens.
Not the design. Not the printing. The quote—the moment you send a number into the void and wait to find out if it was too high, too low, or somehow both, depending on who's reading it.
Giuliana knew that feeling well. She's a stationery designer who came into Design Your Dream Wedding Business already strong on design and signature style. The problem was everything sitting underneath it. Getting more leads, and the right ones. She was already putting herself out there to expand her network, so we continued to build on her marketing strategy and systems with DYDWB.
Prior to group coaching, Giuliana had about a 25% success rate when sending out quotes.
A quote or proposal doesn’t fail in isolation.
It fails because of what happened before it ever got sent—who inquired in the first place, whether they were already primed to say yes, and whether the price on the page matched the value they'd already been shown.
That's the part DYDWB is actually built around. Not "here's how to write a better proposal" in isolation, but the full sequence before it: knowing exactly who you're for, building marketing that attracts those people specifically, and having an inquiry process that does half the convincing before you ever hit send on a quote.
For Giuliana, working through that sequence changed three things at once. Plus, she streamlined her workflow and found a more intentional focus for her time and energy.
Previously worried about where exactly she fit in the industry, since DYDWB Giuliana feels more confident about her place, and sees the results in dream projects!
Here’s some quick stats ON GIULANA’s RESULTS:
Doubled her Instagram referrals
Closing ratio increased from 25% to 75% for quoted projects
Project size and budgets have increased!
Photo by Purple Tree Photography
Photo by Purple Tree Photography
Result #1: Projects got bigger
When your marketing and positioning are clear, the people who show up in your inbox change. Not just in volume—in scale.
Giuliana's project sizes and budgets increased. Not because she raised her prices in a vacuum and hoped for the best, but because the clients inquiring were already a better match for the kind of work—and the kind of budget—she actually wanted to be doing.
This is the part people underestimate about positioning work. It doesn't just change how you talk about your business. It changes who walks through the door.
Result #2: Her closing ratio nearly tripled
This is the number that actually stops you in your tracks.
Giuliana went from closing around a quarter of the projects she quoted to closing more than 75% of them.
Read that again: Three out of every four quotes now turn into booked work!
That's not a "write punchier emails" fix. That's what happens when the sales and inquiry workflow—one of the five core sessions in DYDWB—actually does its job: qualifying the right people early, setting expectations before the quote ever lands, and pricing in a way that matches the value she'd already demonstrated. By the time a number showed up in someone's inbox, most of the deciding had already happened.
Result #3: Instagram referrals doubled
The third shift was on the marketing side. Giuliana's Instagram referrals doubled.
Not because she posted more. Because the content and positioning got specific enough (AKA Ideal Client Community) that the right people started sending her to their friends and colleagues—which is the actual goal of marketing that works, even though most advice tells you to chase reach instead.
Why all three of these happened together
None of these results are a coincidence, and they didn't happen in isolation from each other.
That's the whole point of how Design Your Dream Wedding Business is built—it's not five disconnected topics. It's a sequence. Positioning shapes who inquires. Who inquires shapes your closing ratio. Your closing ratio and your marketing feed each other, because referrals only double when the people you're already working with are the right fit to be telling other people about you, and the imagery your curate attracts the best eyeballs, not just more.
Giuliana didn't need more tactics. She needed the pieces to actually connect.
What Giuliana has to say about GROUP COACHING:
“I worried that the wedding industry was too big and established for me to find my place. Frankly I was intimidated and unsure of how to present myself. Having Krista’s insight into the industry gave me the boost I was looking for.
Design Your Dream Wedding Business made me feel like building my ideal business was actually possible. Beyond strategy, Krista gave me the confidence to own my work, trust my process, and know that I deserve a seat at the table.
With this new courage and strategy I’m hearing from dream clients and planners, and booking projects that truly excite me. I’m approaching my business with far more clarity and focus.
Krista is an incredible person to have on your side. Her insight into the wedding industry is invaluable, especially if you’re just starting out or feeling unsure of your direction. She helped me define my niche, identify my ideal client, and create a strategy to grow my leads and connections. I’d recommend her to anyone who wants to build a sustainable and fulfilling wedding business that works with the life you want to live.”
If you're a wedding pro—stationery designer or otherwise sitting with a quote-to-close ratio that feels more like a coin flip than a system, it's worth asking whether the real issue is your proposal, or everything that happened before it.
Sometimes the fix isn't a better follow-up email. It's a better foundation underneath the whole thing.
