It has only been about six months, but Amanda Medford has begun to come into her own as a local business owner with Amanda’s Char-cutie Boards.
She had been showing her creative side by making charcuterie boards for family and friends for two years prior to taking the leap into starting her business.
“It was a fun artform for me to explore at first, but then I did a huge event for a friend, and it seemed like everyone there was coming up to me asking if I had my own business and if they could give me a call for their event,” Medford chuckled.
Being challenged is something that she really enjoys, and she has been up for just about any type of party or ideas that someone throws out there.
“I pride myself in being able to do pretty much any event or theme and I’ve done my share in just the last six months,” Medford said. “I just recently did a Grinch-Christmas theme.”
The strange thing is that Medford has never really considered herself to be an extremely artistic type growing up, but one day she found that interior design was what she wanted to pursue as a career.
Although at first glance charcuterie boards seem far from the world of interior design, she has found many similarities, especially when it comes to the design aspects of a project.
“Instead of a room, you are creating on a board, but you’re still able to capture the magic of turning something from nothing and a blank canvas into something memorable,” Medford said. “You’re filling that space.”
Medford has high hopes for her business, and she continues to want to expand, but she also knows that she does not want to reach the point where she grows too big.
For her, the personal touch that she establishes with her clients by meeting with them beforehand to get an idea of what they are looking for from their charcuterie boards to match their event means everything.
According to Medford, she wants to have a hands-on presence with each project, because she wants the clients to know that she cares as much about the result as they do.
“Every time I do an event I still get anxious like I did before my first one,” Medford said. “It’s not that I’m nervous, but I just want to make sure I do the best job possible to carry out their vision. I carry a lot of pride with it.”
The scale of the project has a lot to do with how much time Medford needs to accomplish it, as larger projects require a lot more time to gather the food items ahead of time and come up with an arrangement that works.
“I’ve had people call me before with as short notice as a few days before their event, but that was also a small amount of people attending,” Medford said.
Medford primarily has done events in Jacksonville and St. Augustine, but she is always looking to venture out into other areas of the First Coast as well in the future.
