We were lucky to catch up with Laura Greenleaf recently and have shared our conversation below.

Laura, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business?

I had the idea 10 years prior to open a wedding venue. We’ve (my husband and I) always been entrepreneurs and business owners so the idea wasn’t far reaching. Years after having the idea, my husband and I attended a “barn” venue wedding for a friend of ours and suddenly we were on the same page. We got right to work making my vision a reality. We scoured for land to purchase and began designing the venue ourselves. I have an interior design degree and my husband has a mechanical engineering background. We had already spent a lot of time remodeling our rental properties and we had designed and built our current home at the time. Shortly after beginning the process, we booked our first wedding for the fall of 2017. We now had a hard deadline and no choice but to make it happen. We enlisted contractors, family and friends and worked countless hours to build the venue of my dreams. It was down to the wire to say the least. Days before the first wedding, we were putting up patio lights and painting doors. Our first bride so badly wanted the beautiful fairy lights hung indoors for her day that her husband to be hung them for us. That September day came and went and we were on cloud 9. It was a beautiful ceremony and a perfect reception and it had all come together. A week later early on a Saturday morning, my social media was blowing up. I kept getting tagged from so many different people. Some friends. Some I didn’t know at all. Different Facebook groups and via direct messenger. Some poor couple in town had their venue double booked on them and they were without a space to hold their wedding THAT day. They were getting a lot of responses so I thought nothing of it; Someone had it covered. But after hours of this going on, I finally offered to host our space. After all, it was brand new sitting their empty on this weekend. The mother of the bride called me immediately and things went into motion. They wanted to use our space. Ah! So much to do in so little time. All of the participating vendors had to be moved. Those that couldn’t, had to be replaced. Our town started to pull together to make this bride’s nightmare go away. We rushed to the venue to begin cleaning. We once again called in family to help. We scrambled as the couple shared with their guests the change of venue and time and everything else that had to be changed. The news stations had caught wind of the story unfolding and came out and interviewed us about “saving the day”. It was a whirlwind of an experience but we were so happy we could bail this couple out of what would have been a tragic day. To this day almost 5 years later, that bride still shares our venue and tags us any time a bride is looking. It set the tone for our business. From that day forward, I knew we needed to be there for our community to fill any need it might have. We’ve since hosted unexpected funerals. Weddings when a venue closed unexpectedly. A party for a young girl that suddenly lost her vision. Numerous non-profit events. It also led me to create our Give Back Program. We donate a portion of every booking back to the 3 local non-profits we are currently sponsoring. We rotate them out annually to spread the love around. It’s an exciting business to be in and you never know what’s going to happen next but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I am a Broken Arrow native and the owner of Greenleaf Barn Weddings and Events, a local wedding and event venue. I graduated from Oklahoma
State University with a degree in an Interior Design. When I’m not managing my business, I enjoy traveling all over the world with my husband and 7 year old daughter.

Founded in 2017, Greenleaf Barn is conveniently located just outside the city limits in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It is the perfect event venue for your wedding or special event. The barn sits back off a quiet country road along a beautiful tree line. It’s ideal for indoor or outdoor weddings and the white interior is the perfect blank canvas for any event. Have your ceremony outside at one of two outdoor locations then step inside to the over sized barn. Inside is climate controlled making every event comfortable no matter what the Oklahoma weather brings.

With 4,000 sq. ft., the barn can accommodate up to 200 guests inside. The barn includes a prep kitchen to make your catering needs a breeze. It also has over-sized men’s and women’s restrooms with handicap accessibility. Don’t be stuck with another venue’s set caterers and vendor list. At Greenleaf Barn, you’re welcome to select your own vendors and bring your own alcohol for a huge cost savings. Our spacious bride and groom rooms make getting ready for the big day a relaxed experience.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When COVID started to happen, it was an incredibly stressful time for our business. One of the reasons we got into the business was because it was low risk. People are always having weddings and events! Except when they’re not because everything was shut down. Our primary concern at the time was what to do with all of these events we could no longer host. I remember the first client that called asking what our COVID policy was. I told her I would call her back and then Googled ‘business pandemic policy’ as our contract had nothing to cover such a thing. I pieced together what I found online with what worked best for us and our clients. We then cancelled by request and postponed 20+ events for the time period we were shut down. I loved my business until that time. For a few months, I absolutely hated my job. It felt like I was personally crushing my bride’s dream weddings.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Giving back has been the best way to build our online presence. Every year we partner with a number of other businesses to do a ‘Dream Wedding Giveaway’. It’s a photo contest that lasts about a week and has a prize value worth $12K-18K. It creates a lot of buzz for us each year and brings in additional business from those that entered the contest but didn’t win. We offer incentives to the runners-up as well. We also benefit additional marketing pieces from the winning couple once they have their wedding. Plus, each participating vendor also shares the contest on their platforms.

Contact Info:

• Website: greenleafbarn.com
• Instagram: @greenleafbarnok
• Facebook: facebook.com/brokenarrowbarn
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/greenleaf-barn-weddings-and-events
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/greenleafbarn
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/greenleaf-barn-weddings-and-events-broken-arrow

Image Credits
Candice Vann Photography, Brianna Record Photo and The Tony Li Project