Sybris Harvey believes that she has her feet set on a path that is taking her in the direction of a life’s ambition: to own her own business. Not just any business, but an enterprise that brings out the best in what she believes is a host of creative talents. She wants, she says, to lend those talents to breathing real meaning into special events in people’s lives: engagements, weddings, birthdays, christenings, event parties and other milestones. Her real vocation, she believes, is in creating lasting memories.
Her creative talents are invested mostly in weddings. Her enterprise, Harvey Décor & Wedding Services, provides an expansive wedding service that ranges from what she says is often the complicated task of planning the event to providing “the full range of services associated with the wedding day.” From the acquisition of wedding gowns, suits and the various other accoutrements associated with the event to venue decoration and catering services, Harvey challenges herself to provide a professional service that will turn out to be a lasting memory. The mundane services apart, she has extended the range of the facilities to embrace an exclusive comfort zone, in which both brides and grooms “can be pampered in carefully prepared wedding rooms” that offer various forms of therapy including the benefit of her skills as a masseuse which she says she learnt from a Chinese physiotherapist who once served in Guyana.
The room comes fitted with the occupant’s personal masseuse, makeup artist, hair stylist and other services and ‘creature comforts’ associated with a girl’s wedding day. “The intention of the bridal dressing room is to do everything we can to prepare the bride for the altar.”
As part of the bridal service Harvey has secured access to Wedding Dress For You, a popular site (www.weddingdressesforyou. com) owned by Caribbean-born Glenys Paul. The site affords users the opportunity to view a range of bride, bridesmaids and flower girl wedding gowns which can be acquired by simply making contact with Harvey. As part of a Christmas promotion (the details of which are set out in this newspaper) Sybris Décor & Wedding Services is offering to customers any two gowns from the website, among other attractive giveaways.
It is as much the sense of accomplishment which she feels in creating things of beauty as the entrepreneurial gain which it brings that animates Harvey. As part of her penchant for creating things of beauty she is fascinated with the latitude which weddings affords her creative spirit. While she never tires of showing off the mark she leaves at reception halls for conventional weddings she is equally fascinated with what the marriage ceremonies of the other cultures have to offer; so that she talks animatedly about the challenge she undertook to provide the elaborately decorative and colourful designs of the Indian Rangoli art form.
Also known as Kolam, Rangoli are decorative designs made on floors and walls of private rooms and places of reception during Hindu ceremonies, including weddings.
So enthused she has become over her ability to offer this particular art form that Harvey says that she is in the process of studying other art forms associated with other cultures in order to bring these to bear as part of what she offers to weddings and other ceremonies.
With Christmas fast approaching, Harvey is preparing to press her various other skills into service: planning and executing Christmas parties, offering special seasonal dishes including black cake which she makes to order. This year she has added a new service to her retinue. The company, she says, is geared up to offer its services to private homes and public places that may wish to capture that special yuletide feeling in décor. “We’ll have a look at people’s homes and offices and offer the best possible professional advice and the best possible service so that those homes and other premises can look their best for the holidays.”
Beyond her business pursuits Harvey says she hopes to eventually be able to afford to provide a service that facilitates free meals for people who cannot afford to feed themselves. “I suppose that in a way that charitable part of my disposition has to do with a childhood that had its difficult periods,” she says.
If she never says it, the sense of accomplishment which she feels in being able to support her mother who has lost much of both her sight and hearing is evident in her dedication to the welfare of a woman whom she says “has made considerable sacrifices to support me.” However much she may grow in business she wants her mother and her charitable disposition to remain fixtures in her life.
Harvey is upbeat and optimistic about a business climate in Guyana which she believes is good for her business. “People are very much into weddings, and entertaining themselves and that is what we are about. I believe that if we can make a mark this Christmas, if we can get an opportunity to show the market much more of what we can do, then they will want to work with us. We want to be a successful business; by that I mean that we want to grow but we want to ensure that the services that we offer are affordable and accessible. Otherwise it really makes no sense in saying that you are in the business of enriching people’s lives, which is the business that we are in.”
