We were lucky to catch up with Marissa Gignac of Moxxie Street Events recently and have shared our conversation below.
Marissa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I got married in October 2022 and became one of the many people who have planned their own wedding and believed they were qualified to be a wedding planner.
For me, wedding planning scratched a creative itch I had neglected since college. I now realize that weddings are one of the few opportunities adults have to be creative. I joked that our own wedding felt like an arts-and-crafts project with all my DIY decor, but I was also tackling budget challenges and managing all the moving parts. I found incredible vendors that became our collaborators. It reminded me of working on short films in college.
That being said, wedding planning can be lonely. No one cares about your wedding as much as you and your partner. But the wedding industry can also feel unwelcoming. When I started, every vendor’s website felt so sanitized and too pretty. I had to dig to find vendors who brought a human element to weddings, not a performative, whitewashed aesthetic. I found myself thinking, “Where are the real people and the real weddings?”
But anyway, our wedding came and went. It was uniquely us from start to finish. I wore a gold skirt and walked down the aisle to “The Throne Room” from “Star Wars.” For chargers, I spray-painted vinyl records my husband weeded from his collection. I designed and made all of our stationery. Our save-the-dates were bookmarks, our invitations looked like books, and our place cards were based on a library card catalog. I’m really proud of our wedding. I was ready to do it again.
I have a history of diving into projects and losing interest, so I was afraid that would happen yet again. I started a new job at a nonprofit that had horrible hours, low pay, and put me in a few dangerous situations. As a reward for sticking it out, I started 2023 by buying an online course that would guide me through becoming a wedding planner. I got a quarter of the way through before I got restless and wanted to get out and actually do things. Except I don’t have a hospitality background or any experience in events. I felt so cringey emailing established wedding planners to ask if they needed an assistant–I was past my intern era. So I didn’t do anything. Well, I took advantage of not having a job and had a baby instead. But I had already doodled “Moxxie Street Events” as a business name in a notebook, and it kept gnawing at me throughout pregnancy and even postpartum. Friends were getting engaged and starting to plan their weddings, and I was full of unsolicited advice. After a lifetime of struggling to find something I was good at, I really felt like I had found something: I was going to help people create weddings that reflected them in every aspect, from start-to-finish.
Marissa, 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?
I’m a wedding planner in New York City. I work with couples that the industry would label “nontraditional.” I think they’re awesome people who just don’t conform to the image of weddings they saw while growing up. They have the courage to do things their way. They’re intentional and true to themselves about every part of their wedding day. And yeah, sometimes it’s weird. I recently did a wedding where I worked with the couple’s friend who was officiating to surprise them with a Dungeons & Dragons homage. Another couple wanted to DIY their florals and incorporate their love of Legos; they realized they underestimated how difficult it would be, so I had to find a florist who was willing to work with Legos–oh, and the wedding was the day after Valentine’s Day. And I can’t forget my couple whose reception was basically an immersive theater piece based around time travel.
While I’m extremely happy and grateful for the place I’m in now, this all grew out of one of the lowest points of my life. Let me take you back two years.
I had just turned 30 and was dealing with the existential crisis that comes with the milestone birthday. I had also given birth to my daughter four months prior, and my lifelong depression and self-esteem issues were mixing with postpartum hormones. I kept replaying a conversation I had with someone very close to me while I was pregnant; basically, they told me I was a failure. And they were right. I had pivoted a long stretch of unemployment into being a stay-at-home mom, after bouncing between the film industry, library services on Rikers Island, and a master’s degree that I’ll probably never finish. After becoming the first college graduate in my family (from New York University, with honors, I might add), I didn’t have anything to show for my once-great potential.
Meanwhile, my best friend was newly engaged and throwing herself into wedding planning. She designated me as her wedding planner and started introducing me to her vendors as such. To play along with the facade, I impulsively bought the Moxxie Street Events domain and declared myself a wedding planner, despite having no experience as one or even running a business. It’s so hypocritical for me to say this, but I started at the perfect time. I had the privilege and luck that most people don’t have. Things could’ve gone terribly. But they didn’t.
In June 2024, someone posted on Reddit that they were looking for a day-of-coordinator for their heavily DIY, nontraditional wedding. I sent her a DM introducing myself. I told her I had no experience besides an abandoned online course. I blame my delusional confidence on sleep deprivation brought on by caring for an infant.
She actually responded! I did a call with her and her fiancee. Ten minutes after we got off the call, they emailed me and said they wanted to book me. A month later, they got married. They posted a recap on Reddit and gave me a shoutout. With only one wedding under my belt and no website, I was suddenly getting DMs on Instagram from other people looking for a day-of-coordinator. With the exception of helping one childhood friend with a non-NYC wedding, my clients were all getting close to their dates and realized they needed help running their day, but had already maxed out their already-tight budgets. I ended up doing 6 more weddings in 2024, charging the absurdly low rate of $1000.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I’m a millennial who made a Myspace page behind her parents’ backs, so social media has been integral to my life for nearly twenty years in various forms.
Reddit is where I got my first client. I have an account under my business name, so I respond to other posts about wedding planning and give advice. It’s amazing free marketing. The majority of my clients find me on Reddit. For me, this wasn’t difficult because I’ve been on Reddit for over a decade, spending too much time in very niche subreddits for entertainment. I actually started using Reddit in college so I could talk about the Red Sox with other fans.
When it comes to other social media platforms, I’m still figuring them out. Instagram seems like the best route to focus on. However, clients don’t always feel comfortable with vendors sharing images from their day. And photographers aren’t required to share galleries. How can I attract other clients if I can’t show my work? Well, I’ve started showing myself. I actually post very little about weddings day-to-day. I share my interest in astrology, my political leanings, and even dumb memes. One time I got on an inquiry call and they mentioned a Star Trek meme I had posted earlier that week.
I’m trying to post more of my work. Last year, I had my first full-service planning clients. I was so proud of that wedding as I was involved in every part of it. With my clients’ permission, I hired a content creator to capture behind-the-scenes footage of me. She did an incredible job. She captured me working, but the shots people loved the most were me hitting my inhaler.
I think people view wedding planners as glamorous, but I’m kind of just a dork with a clipboard. My marketing strategy is just to be myself and let people get to know me. I think people find me relatable. I’ll get on calls with potential clients, and they open up to me about their crazy ideas for their wedding, but we’ll also go on tangents about middle school trauma or dissect their birth chart.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
Two years ago, I was a stay-at-home mom with a side hustle, and now it’s slowly evolving into a full-time career, which is my goal although it doesn’t always match what’s realistic.
I compare myself to other planners, especially new ones, and I get jealous. I beat myself up for not being as far along as they are. However, the reality is that my husband and I don’t live near our families and we can’t afford childcare. My husband works full-time and is the primary earner, so I’m the primary caregiver for our daughter. It’s difficult to juggle a growing business with a growing child. She’s a toddler, so she just wants to move. Even in winter, she’d be happy spending hours at the playground. Well, I can’t work if we’re at the playground. I can barely work when we’re at home. She’s always getting into things or asking me to play with her.
My husband and I have put a lot of work into adjusting to a two-career household while raising a child. I realize now that my business is growing at a pace that allows me to prioritize my family. Sure, I’d love to do as many weddings as my peers, but I also love taking my daughter to the library on Wednesdays. I love frolicking at the playground when it’s empty during the week. She’s my little buddy. This special time won’t last forever. I want to enjoy as much of it as I can.
She’s starting 3K, a free program in NYC, in the fall. It’s a blessing to have that option. I know it’ll be good for her development, but it will also help me better balance my growing business and household responsibilities. In addition to working, my husband manages a lot of chronic illnesses, so building our weekly schedule feels like a puzzle. Knowing our daughter has a place to be five days a week is going to be a huge relief.
Both of my babies are growing. It’s scary, but I love it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.moxxiestreetevents.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moxxiestreetevents/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/moxxiestreetevents?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=96c93d3e-8079-4eb9-9e7b-41f5634fa7bb
Image Credits
Emily Louick Photography
Nicole Rochelle Photography
Kimberly Nguyen Photography
Photos by Aya
Rylan Lott Photography
Amy Xie Photography
Caroline King Photography
Major Crush Photography
Mariana Soto Photography