When faced with a fork in the road, which direction will you take? Will you stay with the path you are on, or take a chance 
and explore the unknown road? Brandy drove herself down the road to adventure for a few years and she has landed right smack dab into happiness! No, Brandy wasn’t ready to settle with subpar.
Brandy had ambitions for performing, while still maintaining and finding her dream career. She started off dancing for the 
Atlanta Hawks, for four years, while working as a paralegal. She had passed her boards and was ready to pursue her career as an attorney, but chose to defer her acceptance. She decided it wasn’t what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Brandy decided to go back to school to get her MBA, which meant she would also have to switch her performing career from the NBA to NFL. “You see in the NBA, I never knew what my schedule was going to be, and with taking night classes, I could make all the classes for three weeks and then due to the Basketball schedule I wouldn’t be able to make the rest of my scheduled classes, so I knew something had to give. I still had a passion for performing, so I decided to switch to NFL, with the Atlanta Falcons, where the schedule was more routine and predictable” said Brandy.
After graduating with her MBA, Brandy took a job with Morgan Stanley and while this was a very successful career path, it just wasn’t what she was searching for. Although Brandy liked her job with Morgan Stanley, she decided it still wasn’t the job to get her out of bed every day. She submitted her two week notice, not knowing what her next venture would be. That weekend a friend called her knowing her background was in dance, pageantry and performing. Brandy was asked to help run an audition for pageant kids, where she ended up being a hit. They loved her so much that they put her through a crash course and immediately sent her around the United States to start running the casting call for ‘Little Miss Perfect” the Women’s Entertainment (WE) TV reality show. Brandy loved the world of casting; she was working with new faces and personalities with every assignment she took on. She exceeded all the expectations that were put on her plate and with the completion of “Little Miss Perfect”, NorthSouth Productions (the same production company as Little Miss Perfect) sent her straight into “Say Yes to the Dress” as the casting director for the new reality show. Never in a million years did Brandy think she would be working as the casting director.
Brandy followed her motto of “Always putting your heart and soul into everything you do and no matter what challenges you are faced with, if you have the drive you can accomplish anything”. Everything that she tried before never felt like a good fit and now Brandy looks forward to the new challenges she will face each day with her job. She says, “It is crazy how it all happened”, each endeavor I faced brought a new dream and a new challenge. Brandy talks about how the TV business is not easy, and if you aren’t good at what you do you get cut quickly.
Brandy says, “Casting is an interesting animal; you are dealing with the general public. When casting for reality shows you
are depending on people who you really don’t know. The two potential hurdles I face everyday are not accurately knowing these individuals true talent level, and if they are going to flake. A lot of people just want to be on TV and will say anything and mislead you in any way to get there. I have had girls cancel hours before the set and I have to rush around to find another Bride before the show films”. Brandy is also faced with the challenges that her production company puts in front of her. They will come up with an idea, a pilot, and only have so many chances to see if they get a ‘bite’. Brandy says, “Television is very finicky, so if you don’t have the right cast, your company spends a lot of money on that pilot project and it could be a really big loss if not successful. There is also the chance that when you do get the bite it conflicts with Monday Night Football or a Holiday episode, and you end up missing the boat because of bad timing. Nothing is a guarantee, especially shows that are 100% dependent on casting.”
Brandy enjoys the constantly changing environment of the casting world. As Brandy says, “it makes life challenging and exciting.” ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ is about as 9-5 as you can get which is nice for her personal life.
Brandy and her team pretty much know what they are looking for, and what works for the show. One of the challenges that she relishes is searching for that dynamic story. For example, they wanted a Bride who was fighting Breast cancer, at a certain age, and renewing her vows. To find this specific individual is a task, but once complete, Brandy found it was a rewarding experience to be a part of such an amazing story. When the show was aired, she was sitting there balling her eyes out because it was so touching. Brandy was handed a challenge and was able to go out and accomplish it.
After being selected as Pro Bowl Cheerleader for the Atlanta Falcons in 2012, she decided to step away from performing and focus on her career in casting. Brandy continues to have that same drive she has always had and is now working on a new show called Double Divas – that will be aired on Lifetime. We could all learn something from Brandi as she has continued to educate herself while never giving up pursuit on a career that made her happy. She has shown us all “that work doesn’t have to be work”. Brandy says, “set yourself in motion and you never know what lies ahead.”
