Meet the Team

After a discouraging start to her writing career at the local paper, Val starts her own company in 2008 – a wedding planning business, Southern Fete! After a few years of planning 50+ weddings, she decides to design wedding invitations using the design skills she learned laying out newspapers and magazines. In 2012, she decides to stop planning weddings and focus on designing invitations.

In February 2013, Val officially sells Southern Fete and focuses in wedding invitations under a new brand, Val Marie Paper. She’s so nauseous she can barely function and does the bare minimum to keep her company running.

Hoping to experience joy and peace instead of anxiety and dread during pregnancy, Val dreams up a journal format she thinks will help her focus her prayers. She searches for two months to see if it exists because she’s just trying to keep her lunch down and doesn’t have energy to design anything new. When she can’t find what she needs, she decides to create it!

A few weeks before Vivi is born, Val shares her new journals and takes pre-orders. Two weeks after having her first baby, Val starts shipping out the journals!

Val expands her journal collection and creates journal options for men and kids!

Val’s first book, The Finishing School, releases. After gobbling up all the non-fiction and self-help books her donut-filled belly could handle, she decided it was time to put her knowledge to use and start actually living it out. The result is a refining process that draws her closer to God and leads to her first book release.

The first yearly spiral journal is available for pre-order.

VMP debuts journals at Magnolia’s Spring at the Silos! The team enjoys meeting journal users and praying with customers throughout the weekend.

Developing a Fluency Prayer launches to help people remove the barriers holding them back from an abundant prayer life.

Val releases her book, Grumpy Mom Takes a Holiday, and her devotional, Fresh Start for Moms.

The yearly journal is so popular that Val creates a 6-month spiral option, also known as the Signature Journal. It’s undated to people can start using it anytime and it has extra space for journaling to help cultivate deeper prayer time with the Lord.

Val takes everything she wants to share about prayer and puts it together in her latest book to help people throw off the weights holding them back from a thriving prayer life. She also creates a leader guide so that people can gather to study the book and pray together!

2023 marks the 10-year anniversary of VMP! Val and her team reflect on God’s faithfulness over the last 10 years and look ahead to what God has in store for the next decade!