We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Stacy Horn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Stacy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
Becoming a business owner was never really on my bucket list. I may be a big dreamer at times. Sure, I’m inspired by people who chase their passions and build a successful life around such pursuits. And yes, I’m in awe of the entrepreneurial stories of risk-takers and adventurers. Those are all great tales to read over a cup of coffee in a cozy armchair or to mull over on a hike in the mountains. But living in Colorado in 2014, I was entirely content to live out my creative soul as a wedding planner for someone else’s company. She was savvy. She gave me opportunity to work in over forty different venues with lovely adventurous couples. I was bringing people’s wedding dreams to life in a range of mountain towns and urban venues around the state. I skied a bit, hiked a bit, loved the vendors I worked with, made it back to Michigan to visit family once or twice a year. This entire situation satisfied my definition of living an inspired life.
When my husband suggested that we leave it all behind, I shut him down like a well-studied attorney. I made the case for staying. This was my dream job. It brought me the greatest sense of fulfillment and joy. I could think of nothing I wanted to do more. Colorado was the place to do that dream job. The couples who got married there were my kind of people – adventurous, outdoor enthusiasts, stylish but down-to-earth. The designs we were pulling off were creative and refined. The vendors I worked with were a reflection of years of networking and collaboration. Denver was “the city” that people were moving to. It was an exciting thriving place to build a life. Surely a move back to Michigan would be an abandonment of life as I knew it, of my dream job, of my identity.
My husband is patient and he had the noble motivation of moving closer to our families. My well-studied approach did not deter his vision and the topic was revisited over the course of two years. Finally, one cool October day over brunch and in tears, I agreed to the move. I was convinced I was sacrificing my dream for his. He encouraged me to still find a way to plan weddings in Michigan. He agreed to move to whatever part of the state that we thought might have at least a whisper of the destination style of weddings I loved so much. My well-studied responses silently protested from the sidelines.
With a spring move on the agenda, I spent the fall researching Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Mackinac Island and Traverse City. I read websites of planners doing beautiful work. I checked their pricing on The Knot. I gained some glimmer of hope. I wondered if any of these successful planners would hire me. I got a new headshot photo with my resume in mind. Maybe the dream would not be abandoned after all. We discussed with excitement the pros and cons of those cities and their proximity to family and the ways we could build a life in each of them. We landed on Traverse City, a popular summer vacation destination in northern Michigan, nicely situated within two hours of each of our families.
Wedding planners in seasonal towns don’t tend to post full time positions very often. My new headshot didn’t go out with a resume. Instead, it went on a new website. I spent the winter learning how to create an LLC, building my own profile on The Knot, developing my website with wedding galleries from kind Colorado clients, and starting conversations with Michigan vendors. I woke up with my heart racing in anxiety on so many mornings. It was one of those dreams that literally felt like a jump into nothingness. No local connections I could lean into, no solid sense of the market, no experience in any of the venues, no idea what kinds of couples decided to get married in northern Michigan. I was literally operating on a website, a Knot profile and a prayer. Our Coloradoan friends wished us well as we left in April and joked that we’d surely be moving back soon. I took comfort in that prediction.
We rolled up to our new apartment at 11pm and unloaded our mattress and a few things from the Uhaul. The next morning was cold and rainy. We grabbed coffee at a cute little shop I had read about in a magazine back in Colorado. It was meant to be exciting but the rain made me question why we had ever left sunny Colorado. I asked if we could move back. The Uhaul wasn’t fully unpacked yet. Kevin reassured me that I would meet people and it would be ok. We unpacked the Uhaul.
I spent the summer working for a catering company on any weekend they would have me. I learned how Michigan companies did it differently from Colorado companies. I saw venues and vendors in action. I learned the landscape of this new place. I saw other wedding planners at work. I even booked two weddings that first summer. I nannied in the winter to help pay the bills.
By the second summer, I was working the business full time and started bringing on event day assistants. By the third summer I had another lead planner on our team. I met people as Kevin said I would – people whose creative talents helped us produce weddings as lovely as the ones I had planned in Colorado and sometimes more complex. The couples were every bit as inspiring. Nine years later, we have a team with three lead planners and thirteen event day assistants and we produce 20-25 weddings a year. We’ve celebrated on both coasts in a total of seven states.
The dreamer in me is thriving. I had started a business because it let me continue to do what I loved to do. The business was a means to the end goal of being a wedding planner. Turns out, business is a creative pursuit in itself and far more exciting in the throes of the action than from a cozy armchair. I’m lucky to have taken the risk.
Stacy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
A career as a wedding planner is something I used to think of with disdain. Sure, JLo made it look glamorous and romantic in her movie, but I was striving for something with more depth, something meaningful, some way of serving people that had substance, that was life-changing. I wanted to make my mark on the world.
Thru a series of hotel and resort jobs in vacation towns, I started to see weddings as an expression of hospitality. Maybe they were worth dabbling in, I decided. I spent a few years welcoming couples to mountain venues as a wedding sales manager. I shared their excitement thru the planning and watched their people travel in from around the country to celebrate. There was something next level about hosting a vacation style wedding. It engaged guests differently. It relaxed them. The celebrations felt incredibly meaningful.
In a move to work even more closely with couples thru their planning, I relocated to Denver and worked for a wedding planner. My network of creative professionals expanded wildly as we celebrated weddings in over forty venues around the state during the three and a half years I spent there. Not only was this wedding gig fulfilling on a relational level with clients and guests but it became captivating on a creative and collaborative level with talented colleagues. It was a career that fulfilled on so many levels that when my husband and I decided to move back to our home state of Michigan to be closer to family, I truly could think of no other career I wanted to pursue.
From this unexpected journey, Juniper & Lace Events was launched in 2016. We moved to Traverse City in northern Michigan specifically because it was a vacation destination in the state and seemed like it might have the vacation style of weddings I loved planning. I had no personal connections there. My only knowledge of the market was searching vendor websites and profiles on The Knot. I spent the first summer working Saturdays for a catering company to get a sense of the venues, vendors and the way Michigan weddings might be different from Colorado weddings. I met people for coffee. I arranged site visits. I had just two weddings that summer. By the next summer, business picked up and I brought on event day assistants. By the third summer, I brought on an associate lead planner. We now plan 20-25 weddings a year, have celebrated in seven states and our summer weekend team is sixteen strong.
I was fairly certain that the pandemic of 2020 would “wake me up” from this pursuit. As weddings were postponed and the future of gathering became uncertain, I thought for sure I’d revisit the philosophy of my youth, seeing weddings as productions that lacked substance and meaning. Surely 2020 would redirect my career.
In fact, it did the opposite. In the smaller weddings we were able to host outside and in the following year, we watched people gather with a deeper sense of appreciation for being together. They partied in 2021 like they were making up for lost time. It was so good on such a deep level. Weddings were connecting people on the most human joyful level. They were transported in a way, out of the heaviness of pandemic life to an experience that was hopeful and fun. I truly believe that the experience of a wedding day makes some of the most treasured core memories of a couple’s life and in the early twenties, I’m convinced those weddings made some of the most treasured memories of the guests’ year as well.
Gathering is a gift and doing it with style and a sense of hospitality as an extension of our couples is as glamourous and romantic as JLo made it look in her movie. Turns out, being a wedding planner lets me in on some of the most meaningful impactful experiences as well. I’m grateful to be in such a career, radio headset and all.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
One of the most useful skills of a wedding planner is the ability to calmly pivot when plan A doesn’t work out. I think most of us are keeping a keen eye out for opportunities to improvise on any event day. It’s part of the thrill.
One of my personal favorite stories of improvisation happened in a wedding in South Carolina. I had the bridal party lined up and ready to walk out onto a rooftop patio, down the aisle and up to a gorgeous ceremony arch adorned in baby’s breath and roses. The weather favored us and spirits were high. I turned to double-check that the front row seats were open for parents and I walked straight into a cement pole. It was awkward but hand to forehead, I continued towards the front row on my mission. By the time I came back to my orderly lineup of bridal party, the goose egg on my forehead was notable and exclamations of concern erupted.
Not to be distracted, I reassured them I was fine. I agreed to ice it just as soon as we got them all down the aisle. The string trio played. Gulls flew over the ocean below. I fluffed the bride’s dress, watched her make it to the baby’s breath and strolled off to find a cup of ice.
Holding this cup over my growing goose egg, I rode the elevator downstairs and walked thru the bustling lobby bar to the ballroom. By now, I realized this ice cup wasn’t a sustainable accessory for the evening so I sent an assistant upstairs to take my place at the ceremony scene, grabbed some scissors from the toolkit and gave myself bangs in the bathroom. Also took tylenol. Distraction removed and compliments were received on my haircutting skills (instead of my goose egg) the rest of the evening.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
My business social media presence, especially on instagram, has experienced growth in mostly organic ways – new clients and their parents or friends following us or conversations with new vendors leading to followers and engagement.
There are two strategies that stand out for helping to grow our presence. The first is a tip I learned from a speaker at a local networking event who is herself widely followed and adored on social media (Sweetwater Floral). She told us to “be consistent and be authentic”. That started me on a discipline (at the time) of posting at least 3 times a week and of posting meaningful relatable commentary that people, whether getting married or not, could somehow relate to. It was a fun challenge and has, over the years, helped our presence stand out to potential clients and colleagues as well as our current couples. In fact, I love hearing from a new inquiry that she or they have been following us on instagram for years. The photo content (mostly professional with all the vendor tags) is valuable but the word content expressing the spirit in which we celebrate has also been really effective at connecting us with clients who share the same priorities in hosting their weddings.
The other strategy that was notably effective in gaining followers was a vendor collaboration some years back. It started with a conversation between a photographer and I. We wanted to do more winter weddings (in a largely summer destination). We talked about needing photos to promote the idea. Threw around the idea of doing a styled shoot. Decided to make it a giveaway for someone who actually did want to get married up north in winter. Did the styled shoot to get content for the giveaway marketing and then gathered 20 vendors with contributions worth $40k. The marketing expanded into some local television segments which were not only fun but created more buzz than we initially dreamed of. Part of the giveaway rules involved couples having their friends and family vote on social media. We assembled a whole team to count votes as they rolled in and our social media accounts went wild. It not only gained followers and engagement but the collaboration was exciting for us as vendors and the community as a whole.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://juniperandlaceevents.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juniperandlaceevents/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juniperandlaceevents/
Image Credits
First image: Carrie House
Set of 8 images in order of download:
Lindsey Billings
Megan Hannon
Carrie House
Jenna Borst
Carrie House
Kay Marie Photos
Samantha Leigh
Elizabeth Wells