It’s not really a love story, but… maybe it is? For quite some time, Bethany Halford (living in Arkansas) and Amanda Jerkins (in Tennessee) had been hearing about one other through mutual friends. People would go on and on about how one needed to meet the other and how they would surely be BFFs. Finally, the two met at a friend-in-common’s wedding, Amanda in a yellow, floral skirt suit and Bethany
in a strapless aqua floral-print dress, and it was friendship at first sight (ha!)! Not long after that first meeting, Bethany just so happened to move to Nashville and the two were engaged just months later (j/k, j/k… but their friendship did quickly grow and they now consider themselves ‘style soulmates’). While in Nashville, Bethany started a blog (may it rest in peace) about some of her favorite things. One regular blog feature was titled ‘Whoa, wait. Walmart?’, a spotlight on the amazingly/surprisingly cute products she discovered on the aisles of Walmart (as in ‘whoa, hang on, you found that at Walmart?’). In the summer of 2013, the two friends were on a playdate with their kids. Bethany showed Amanda a really cute pair of leather (yes, real leather!) sandals she had recently found at Walmart for under $15. Amanda suggested that they start an Instagram account sharing cool Walmart finds. Bethany shared about the Whoa, wait. feature on her blog, and that she was considering letting it stand on its own. When Amanda encouraged her to do it, Bethany invited her ‘style soulmate’ to join her in the endeavor. Nearly eight years later, Bethany and Amanda are still finding high-end looks on a low-end budget for over 334,000 of their very best (virtual) friends and they’re helping make Walmart (!) cool. To be clear, Bethany and Amanda do not work for Walmart, but they love sharing their finds with their Instagram fans, the majority of whom are young moms with great tastes (think Anthropologie fans with, well… Walmart budgets). They like to think of themselves as personal shoppers for these ladies and are having a growing influence on the ways women are spending money at Walmart. Oddly enough, Bethany and her family are now back in Arkansas, while Amanda and her family remain in Nashville. That has not hindered their collaborations… it is, after all, the 21st century. Hundreds—possibly thousands—of text conversations and FaceTime chats strong, the girls are working as hard as ever, and Whoa Wait. marches onward with yet more exciting projects on the horizon.
