Event Gourmet
& Florals
Full rebuild of a slow WordPress site into a photography-forward catering platform with a live shop, CRM, and email migration, for an Adelaide events business.
A beautiful business with a site that couldn't keep up
Event Gourmet & Florals had styled more than 200 events across Adelaide. The food and florals were there. The site wasn't. It ran on WordPress and Divi, hosted on SiteGround, with pages loading 2-3 MB of assets, 60 script files, and 17 stylesheets. The 735 KB hero image alone slowed every first impression. The developer managing the site was unresponsive. Updates sat in a queue with no timeline.
The corporate catering line, the service Rose most wanted to grow, was invisible on Google. There was no LocalBusiness schema, no Review schema, and no Google Business Profile at all. The homepage had 10 H1 tags. The site code still referenced the old business name, Everyday Gourmet. Enquiries came in through texts and phone calls with no tracking and no follow-up system.
The email situation made it worse. Rose's business email was bundled with the SiteGround hosting account, which meant any migration that touched the server risked wiping years of client correspondence. Google's own migration tool managed to import only 39% of her inbox before silently stopping. The rest of the archive was at risk of being lost entirely.
Sixty script files and 17 stylesheets on a Divi build. Pages too heavy to load fast on mobile.
No schema, no GBP, no suburb-level SEO. The highest-value service line had no digital presence.
Enquiries via text and phone only. No CRM, no follow-up system, no record of who asked about what.
Business email bundled with hosting. Google's migration tool recovered only 39% of 8,836 emails before dropping the rest.
A full rebuild, a safe email migration, and systems Rose can actually use
I rebuilt the site from scratch on Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript, and Tailwind v4. Nineteen routes replacing the old WordPress install. The design is editorial and photography-forward, built around Cormorant Garamond headings and a sage, clay, gold, and cream palette that matches the aesthetic of the events themselves. Every page has its own JSON-LD schema (CateringService, WebSite, CollectionPage), a structured meta title and description, and clean HTML with a single H1.
For the email migration, I built a custom MBOX-to-Gmail pipeline outside Google's tool and recovered all 8,836 emails, including Sent, Inbox, and Receipts folders, across 7 MBOX files totalling 5.4 GB. Rose now has Google Workspace running on rose@eventgourmet.com.au and hello@eventgourmet.com.au, fully independent of the old hosting account. A Supabase CRM handles enquiries, quotes, and bookings. A live Stripe shop went live on launch day with a real $135 transaction completed end-to-end.
Six systems, built together
Photography-Forward Marketing Site (19 Routes)
Built from scratch on Next.js 16. Service pages for weddings, corporate catering, grazing tables, brunch, private events, and dessert bars. Each page has unique copy, its own schema markup, and a direct enquiry path. The site no longer shares a server with the email account, the two are fully separated.
314-Photo Gallery with Hand-Written Alt Text
Six categories of event photography, individually captioned. Before writing a single alt tag, I viewed every photo. No batch-generated descriptions, no guesswork. The result is a gallery that works for screen readers and gives Google real, specific image context across 314 assets.
Stripe Live Shop with Delivery Zones
Five products priced $50 to $200, with a 48-hour lead time and four delivery zones. Stripe Checkout handles card and Link payments with server-side price verification. A real $135 transaction was processed end-to-end on launch day. Resend handles branded order confirmation emails, with admin replyTo set to the customer so Rose can respond from her phone.
Supabase CRM (Enquiries, Quotes, Bookings, Calendar)
Every form submission lands in a back-office dashboard. Enquiries move through to quotes and bookings. A calendar shows upcoming events and available dates. A daily 8am ACST summary email goes to Rose automatically, so she starts the day knowing what needs attention without logging in.
Email Migration and Google Workspace Setup
Google's own migration tool imported 39% of the archive and stopped. I built a custom MBOX-to-Gmail pipeline and recovered all 8,836 emails across 7 files, 5.4 GB in total. Rose's Mailchimp list (453 subscribers, 54.9% open rate) was preserved through the migration without disruption. The new hello@ and rose@ addresses are now live on Google Workspace.
Grazing Box Builder Companion App (In Staging)
A separate companion app, built and ready to launch on its own subdomain. Forty-six items across 8 categories, three box sizes, dietary filters (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, nut-free), a running price total, and shareable box URLs that render as branded brochure pages. Four pre-built corporate packages (Boardroom Box, Conference, Holiday Hamper, Celebration) that Rose can send as a single link. Stripe Checkout with server-side price verification and a $100 minimum.
What exists now that didn't exist a week ago
Event Gourmet & Florals launched with a fast, indexed site, a live shop, a working CRM, and an email account that no longer depends on a third-party hosting arrangement. The Google Business Profile went live with 5.0 stars across 47 reviews. Every page has schema markup. The corporate catering service has its own route, its own metadata, and shows up in search the way it needs to.
The old setup cost $255 a month ($55 for SiteGround hosting and $200 for an external GBP manager). The new setup runs at $161 a month. That's a saving of $94 a month, or $1,128 a year, for a significantly more capable platform. The grazing box builder is built and waiting to go live once the main site has a stable week behind it.
“I'm really happy with the website that Alex created for my business. The whole process was smooth from start to finish, and the final result exceeded my expectations. Not only does the site look fantastic, but it also includes extra helpful features I hadn't even thought of.”
“Communication was excellent throughout, always prompt, clear, and helpful.”
“I would highly recommend his services to anyone looking for a professional, high-quality website and a genuinely great experience along the way.”
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I build websites and business systems for Australian small businesses. Fast, well-structured, and built to last.