Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep # 123 Behind the Balloons: How Kristen Donofrio Transforms Ordinary Events Into Extraordinary Experiences
What happens when creative passion meets entrepreneurial spirit? Kristen Donofrio's journey from corporate marketing professional to celebrated balloon artist reveals the unexpected paths our careers can take when we follow our curiosity.
The founder of Mamafrio Celebrations transformed a frustrating experience assembling an Amazon balloon arch for her daughter's birthday during COVID into a thriving business creating spectacular balloon installations for events throughout Bergen County and beyond. Her work transcends traditional balloon arrangements – crafting everything from wedding dresses made entirely of balloons to massive 30-by-30-foot ceiling installations requiring forklifts and days of meticulous work.
"I just create it, I figure it out," Kristen explains of her approach to challenging projects, describing the adrenaline of problem-solving under pressure when things go wrong minutes before clients arrive. This resourcefulness, combined with her background in advertising and marketing, has allowed her to build a business primarily through word-of-mouth and social media. Her Instagram portfolio showcases her range – from intimate birthday bouquets to the 96-foot balloon walls she created for Saint Joseph's Hospital's fashion fundraiser.
The conversation reveals the behind-the-scenes reality of entrepreneurship: boundary-setting challenges, late nights working after the children go to bed, and the crucial importance of a strong support system. "Find your people who uplift you," Kristen advises those considering starting a business, crediting her success to her supportive family network.
Want to transform your next celebration with Kristen's balloon magic? Visit her Instagram @mamafriocelebrations or fill out her inquiry form to start bringing your celebration vision to life. Each creation is custom-designed to match your event theme, venue specifications, and personal style – transforming ordinary milestones into extraordinary memories.
Mamafrio Celebrations
Kristen Donofrio
(201) 962-5585
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. Today we're joined by Kristen D'Onofrio. Kristen is the owner of Mama Frio Celebrations. Kristen, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Hey Doug, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well, thank you. So Mama Frio is your maiden name, mama Frio.
Speaker 3:No, no, it's actually funny. So my maiden name is Kopsio, kristen Kopsio, and when I first got together with Mike Donna Frio, all of my friends would kind of joke to me and they like came up with this nickname, like, ah, mama Afrio, I mean we have two kids. So I was always like Mama Afrio. And it's just something that stuck and it was different and it has absolutely nothing to do with the party planning or balloons, but I don't know, it was different, so I went with it, and plus, I couldn't think of anything that really had to do with balloons that wasn't already taken.
Speaker 2:Right right, All right. So let's talk about Mama Frio Celebrations. What kind of company is it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I consider myself a balloons and event stylist. Essentially, you can come to me with your baby showers, your birthdays, any sort of milestone, and I can help bring your vision to life. Right now, we are in the thick of college bed parties and communions and going into graduation season, so what you would do is you would give me a call and we would talk about your you know vision, your Instagram vision of what you want your party to look like, and I you know I bring it to life.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. So what are some of the you know types of celebrations? I mean, you mentioned a couple of things, but I mean traditionally I think of balloons for birthday parties, for kids. That's what I would normally think of balloons. But you know, if you go on Instagram at Mama Frio celebrations one word you'll see this really cool American flag. That's really cool. And then you see like a wedding dress made of balloons. Somebody actually wear that you could.
Speaker 3:You could actually put it on um. I don't know how comfortable it was, like how far you could walk right but uh, it's. Yeah, that was. That was definitely a labor of love. That took me quite some time to figure out how to do. I've've seen it online and, you know, after about six months of kind of thinking about it, trying it, going back, uh, figuring out the recipe, I was able to do it and it's just, it's really cool. It's something cool to display. It's different. It's your non-traditional decoration.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Bridal shower.
Speaker 2:So where? Where did you grow up? You're from New Jersey or you're from New York? I'm from Mawa. Oh, you're from Mawa. Okay, I'm right here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, grew up in Mawa, graduated Mawa high school, moved around, went to college in Denver and came back lived all over Lincoln Park, morristown and then, essentially after we got pregnant, we decided, you know, we wanted to be closer to home and Ramsey was just it, and we are very happy here.
Speaker 2:Right, right and I you know you were lucky enough to be chosen to be on the cover of Ramsey.
Speaker 1:Neighbors magazine.
Speaker 2:I, you know full disclosure for anybody who doesn't know I publish a magazine in Wyckoff called Wyckoff Living which is affiliated with Ramsey Neighbors. Swin and Lauren and I will work together on different things. Love for it, yes. Yeah, but your cover is actually I guess they did that in a studio, because that's very cool. A lot of our shots are done outdoors or at somebody's home. They are.
Speaker 3:Yes, I wanted to display some of the work that I do, and it was a winter season.
Speaker 2:It was the winter season, we were like, let's do it indoors, yeah. Yeah, so I, you know, I didn't know that Mawa was like the birthplace of of balloon. You know design. I guess everybody in Mahwah knows how to do balloon. No, I'm kidding. So how did you get into like this business? Like what was it that like? When you were younger, did you work for a party planner?
Speaker 3:No, no, actually. So I have a degree in advertising and marketing and I've always been a creative person. I come my my mother's a photographer. I come from a family of creative, creative people and I essentially had worked in different industries. I worked for an ad agency right out of college. It was okay, it was super busy and fast-paced, and that's fine. I'm fine with busy and fast-paced, but it just didn't mesh with me very well. So, after going on a couple different journeys, I had lost my job over. Covid had my babies, covid had my babies and while I was doing my daughter's third birthday party, I was like, ah, let me get this balloon arch off Amazon, I'm going to put it together. That took me about like six hours to do because I was like what is this whole world?
Speaker 3:Eventually, after that, I started. Eventually, after that I started. I said I'm just so into understanding how this works because I've seen beautiful setups before. After that I, you know, I've taken classes. I've put, you know, a lot of study into it. I do take monthly courses. I follow a lot of inspirational artists who, yeah, give me some tips and tricks and since then I just kind of like sky's the limit for me. I just want to keep creating the most intricate designs and the the largest setups that I can so who's your um?
Speaker 2:like a typical client for you, I guess it's not a typical, because you can do you know 90, 85th parties. You can do graduations, christenings, weddings, you can do everything.
Speaker 3:So everyone who's my client, um, but I would say my target market specifically, I mean, listen, it's everybody, but I would say kind of the 40 to maybe 50, 30 to maybe 50, 60 range. I guess you could say Women who have children, who have kids that are celebrating milestones, who have kids who are getting married and who are celebrating their own milestones.
Speaker 2:Right, which you know, any stage of life. There's a lot of us.
Speaker 3:Of course, my mother's turning 90.
Speaker 2:My mother turns 90 at the end of the month.
Speaker 3:Great, let's talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well she was in Florida. I'm going to go there. I was supposed to surprise her, okay. And my sister, sister Eileen. I'm staying with her and then one day she's like her son has two. My sister's a grandmother, okay, that was mine oh nice, yeah.
Speaker 2:So her, um, she's talking to my mother and she says, oh, tj is coming with, you know, his family, I don't know where I'm going to fit Doug and my mom's like Doug, doug's coming, so, but you know, now I don't have to rent a car, now my parents can pick me up at the airport. So it's a hard job, but, yeah. So, 90, first birthday. What is the biggest balloon project you've ever done? Because when I think of balloons, I think of maybe an archway, maybe one little setup. But what are some of the? If you can think of one off the top of your head, yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:I actually I can think of a couple. Last year around this time I did the Ridgewood High School project graduation Okay and I did a 30 by 30 foot ceiling and where I was actually on a forklift going up to the top of the gymnasium and I was hanging wires and creating um kind of my own ceiling out of nothing, right.
Speaker 3:So, that took a lot of time. It was about a two day over the course of two days, like some pretty long days. I had some help, which was wonderful. That was a huge one. I just most recently did um the israeli flag, which was a 9 by 12 foot flag for the jewish community center in rockland. Uh, they said they just had a recent uh, israel day celebration nice what else have I done? Oh, I did the rockley um for saint joseph's hospital. They just had their uh annual fundraiser fashion that's over by me.
Speaker 3:I wasn't, yeah, okay yeah, so um we, they created two balloon walls on either side of the runway, which were um about 96 feet of balloons.
Speaker 2:So where do you like, uh, do you have a warehouse that you work out of, like where do you?
Speaker 3:I would love a warehouse.
Speaker 2:No, um, actually we are we are lucky enough to be able to do this out of my home. So, wow, yeah, so you go, you go there and blow the balloons up there, though, and then I already know I inflate at home.
Speaker 3:I inflate at home and I do have some help. You know, every so often I'll get a high school girl that comes over and she helps me inflate, which is thank God for her, because it would be a lot with two kids, but I inflate at home.
Speaker 2:It must be tough on your lungs, though, to blow into that many balloons though.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. No, we use machines. Get serious.
Speaker 2:So what? But I mean, you're doing these big, you know big events. How do you transport the balloons if they're already inflated?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I rent trucks, I rent you a house Okay. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:That's kind of that's kind of.
Speaker 3:That's the way to go right now. It just makes the most sense for me instead of at this point.
Speaker 2:So you have an advertising and marketing background. What have you used from your background to help your business be successful? What is helping you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, honestly, organic marketing, organic and and advertising, where I just kind of word of mouth, um, I don't sell. I mean I know this to the um, to the magazine world, I don't sell ad, I don't really buy ads yeah, yeah I don't do that, I I just create, I show my work, and my work sells itself right.
Speaker 2:Yes, you left the marketing and advertising world so you're not, you're not beholden to it. No, I get it, but I mean there's. You know there's one thing like you you go to college, you're working for somebody else. There's that experience. But then there's like, okay, I'm going to start my own business. Now I've got to get clients, I've got to obviously deliver, I have to collect, I have to charge. Am I trying to grow my business? Obviously, your marketing is mostly social media and word of mouth. But I talk to a lot of business owners and I always ask them what has the experience been like? Or the journey been like like? One word a lot of people use is roller coaster. You know they. You've got your ups and downs. You've got your period where you feel like you've got it all figured out and then all of a sudden, you couldn't hit the side of a barn door with a baseball. You know it's hard what?
Speaker 3:what is it?
Speaker 2:what has it been like for you? And yeah, and you're juggling two kids and your husband's got his own. Uh, you know fitness business, yeah, plug yeah yeah, fitness and mawa fitness.
Speaker 3:That's right best.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, it has been very difficult. And listen you, you don't necessarily always know it all, and that's the first thing that you have to admit to yourself and you need to ask for help and look for help as soon as you know that you need it. And, for example, you know I have this advertising and marketing background, but I don't have a degree in finance, right. So when it comes to managing my money and how the money flows and stuff like that, you know I go right to my account and I go to somebody who is experienced in it, right? So if I need to know how to do a specific balloon install that I've never done, I'm going to go to the person who's experienced in that. I'm going to learn from them, and that's kind of just how I have worked and how I got to where I am now. I don't pretend that I know it all and I will never admit that, but I I just I get help where I need it. I look at people who are better than me and and I follow them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great advice. I think I forget the name of the book Somebody mentioned it because I listened to a lot of podcasts that are that helped me as an entrepreneur to figure it out or at least know that I'm not alone, that you know the struggles I go through, that a lot of people, whether they're selling advertising or making balloons or creating a a passenger airline company, is similar struggles and similar things we all go through, maybe a different scale, but it's it's good to know that you're not alone and that there's people out there that can, you can kind of learn from it's always good to model after success, absolutely and who you surround yourself with.
Speaker 3:You always surround, exactly, you surround yourself with the people that you essentially want to be.
Speaker 2:Have you surprised yourself? Did you think that you had an entrepreneurial spirit in you?
Speaker 3:No, I listen, I've always been kind of this. I always knew that I could do whatever I put my mind to. I just always I've proved that to myself in many different ways Did I think that this was the path that I'm like oh my God, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this, and then like something's breaking, or I'm on a set and like my um, my batteries die or whatever that I needed, and I don't have something that I need and I'm like in a full blown sweat because the client's about to walk in in 30 minutes. And then, some way or another, I just create it, I figure it out, I take a minute. I don't hyperventilate, I just say, okay, take a minute. How do you work under pressure? And you just create it and you make it happen.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I've said that to myself many times, many times, and I'm like how did I do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if you talk to a lot of people or if you watch shows like Shark Tank, you know there's a certain grind. You have to just grind it out and plow through it. But the thing that the quality I find from a lot of people like you that are successful is that you're resourceful but you've got grit, you know, and grit's hard to define, but I think if you looked it up it's like perseverance and dedication or something like that, and it's not always easy, but if you love what you're doing, you know, then that hopefully will help you drive through those and plow through those days where it's a little bit more challenging.
Speaker 3:You don't give up. I mean, there's been, you know, weeks that you know I don't even sleep because I'm working, I've got deadlines, but you get through it.
Speaker 2:So and how many projects can you take on a week?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a loaded question, because I have a hard time saying no. The past two weeks have actually been pretty difficult for me. I just came out of probably the busiest season that I've had to date since opening my business and we're just getting into graduation season and first communion and stuff.
Speaker 2:I know I'm saying that now.
Speaker 3:Last week I did probably 250 feet of balloons, not last week. Last two weeks Between the Rockley, the JCC I had, you know throw in communions and sprinkles and I do these birthday bouquets which are pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, wow. I have a hard time saying no, and that's one of the things that I've been working on now is I need to have boundaries and I need to burn myself out.
Speaker 3:It's like you have a sign on your that says open 24, seven and that is one of the most challenging things about being a business owner First off working for someone else and then opening your own business is that there is no checkout time. When you own a business, right, yeah, you work for someone. You're like, hey, clock hits 530, oh, I'll work. An hour later, 630, you're still home, you're watching your shows. You're checked out. Right, business is like okay, I got to pick up my kids. Try to be a mom for two or three hours, put them to go right back to work, and every minute that you have if you're not working on your baby, you feel guilty and that is one of my struggles for certain.
Speaker 2:No, I get it. I was on the phone with somebody this morning. She's like I'm really busy during the week. Do you meet on weekends? I'm like, yeah, I could do weekends, you know, cause you know I have to go where my I always say go where your customers go and people are working, you know, 10 hours a day. It's tough for me during the week. So I'm like I'll you know, if my son doesn't have a baseball game, I'll, I'll be there.
Speaker 3:Well, we've rescheduled about four times, so yeah that's true.
Speaker 2:That's true. It's good to see you here. So what I mean? I know you already talked about a little bit of advice, but before we talk about how people reach you, I guess you know if you your job or you, you know, you're just stuck inside these four walls. You have this idea, but I don't know if it's going to work. I'm a little afraid of taking that step. And you know, will I have the support from my spouse? I don't know, I'm afraid. What advice would you give them?
Speaker 3:Support is everything. Yeah, find your people. Find your people who, who believe in you. Okay, so I have. I am so blessed. My husband, my in-laws, my parents, my family, like my group, my crew, has been nothing but supportive. They have been there for me when I needed an extra hand. We just we show up for each other and we believe in each other, and I got to be honest with you. I would not be here today if it wasn't for them. So, find your people who uplift you. Find the positivity right. Don't be a phone line it's like, oh, you can't do it, turn around and walk away. Find somebody else. Find you, find the positivity right. Don't be a phone line that's like, oh, you can't do it, turn around and walk away. Find somebody else. Find somebody who says, yeah, you can do it and just truly believe that in yourself and it will happen. I definitely believe in that. You have to surround yourself with the positive, for sure, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:So what's the best way for people to reach you? And if they're going to call you and say, hey, what does it cost? I know it's a loaded question. I know.
Speaker 3:The best thing that I would say and the first thing that I say is you need to fill out my inquiry form. My inquiry form is going to put you right on my calendar. It's going to. You don't need to commit to anything. It just gives me your name, your information, the date of your party kind of just like your vision and then we're going to get on a call for about 15 minutes. I'm going to get a better idea where it is. You know, what kind of delivery do I need? How big of a job is this, so that I know what I can or cannot take on? And then, from there, I put together a mood board for you. I show you kind of the colors that I'm going to use, I'll show you the backdrops that I think would look good, and then there's a proposal, a contract you can sign, and then we go from there. I mean, I take Apple Pay, I take credit cards, cash, everything. I'm, you know, a legitimate business and um bitcoin I get pretty seamless.
Speaker 3:Uh, it's, it's great it's easy. I mean calling up and being like hey, here's a picture of this, how much is it? Well, there's a lot of things that come into it. Well, where?
Speaker 2:are you.
Speaker 3:What time is this? You know all these things, can I? You know what kind of truck am I going to need to rent you? You know, so it's. It's hard for me to give a static number on a specific job, but I do have a pricing sheet and I will give you I'll gladly give you a range.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how do? How do people reach you? What's the best way to find you?
Speaker 3:Instagram is definitely the best. I you know. You can also call me. I put my cell phone out there for everyone to see, but I would say Instagram is definitely kind of my number one, or inquiries.
Speaker 2:It says book your event here. So it's pretty self-explanatory and you get a great idea from the Instagram photos of the types of things I always say it's important to visualize the possibilities or the inspiration. I do something called home inspiration in my magazines, which you'll never be a part of, so you never, never, say never, but I always want to inspire people through images and I think that's what your Instagram and your social media does, and that's great. So, kristen, thank you so much for for being a guest. It's great to see you.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's have. Chuck is just going to say goodbye and you and I will be right back, alright?
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergencom. That's gnpbergencom, or call 201-298-8325.