We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marilu Aleman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Marilu, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
Being an event planner for 19 years was not enough when I started Event Creators in 2018, even though I knew many people in the corporate world, when I decided to open my business in event and wedding planning, it seemed like nobody knew me. I decided to start offering wedding planning services even though I had only planned just one wedding; mine, but I was confident that my event planning experience was enough to do it, it was the same process and logistics, it just had more emotions involved.
I created my website, my social media accounts and started posting and advertising my services while I still had a full time job. A few months later, I booked my first wedding planning service, and little by little other clients booked me to plan and coordinate their weddings.
I also decided to call many local vendors and invite them to a bridal expo I was planning, I did this because I noticed people didn’t know me in the wedding industry and calling them, getting to know them was going to put my face in front of them and they would be able to see that I was good in planning and logistics. I created a new opportunity for myself after getting rejection from wedding vendors as they didn’t know me, and were not sure about trusting me.
The bridal expo was a success, we had good advertising I met many people. I also joined a networking group and started to grow my visibility attending events and getting to know other business owners, that helped me to grow my followers on social media. Eventually, I realized that I needed more time to focus on my business and needed more time for it, so I quit my job in January of 2020, then a month and a half later the pandemic hit, the uncertainty was real and scary, but I continued to create social media content and I talked to other wedding vendors and invited them to collaborate in styled wedding photo shoots. I did two of these and I helped them to create connections with other vendors, as well to have photos and videos to create content for social media. This was a great idea, we all got a benefit out of this.
I adapted my services to offer micro weddings in open spaces, weddings in houses and drive-by birthday parties. With this, I continued to stay busy and make profit. Then wedding bookings scaled to the top of my capacity having 18 weddings during four months in the high season of 2021 and this repeated in 2022. In 2021, I rented an office to meet with my clients, continued to network and planned more public events reaching to other event crowds. I was finally able to increase my service prices after the wedding experience that I got during the first years with my business. I also started to travel a lot and making connections with wedding vendors in other cities, I continued to post about this and started to advertise myself as a destination wedding planner, which eventually got me my first destination wedding booking in Mexico.
Now in 2025, I’m one of the most well-known and respected event and wedding planners in El Paso, Texas, people reach out to me wanting to work with me. I continue to work on my strategies and visibility as this is very important, if people don’t see you, they don’t know you are there to help them or know what you can do for them. Developing this career hasn’t been easy, but working hard and smart on what you want, will bring the success that you want.
Marilu, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
ABOUT EVENT CREATORS & PRODUCTIONS
Event Creators is a complete Wedding and Event Planning Company in El Paso, Texas, but we also do destination weddings.
We specialize in creating unique and personalized wedding and event experiences that reflect the style and vision of each client. Our dedicated team ensures that every aspect of your special day is flawlessly executed and stress free.
OUR SERVICES INCLUDE:
MARRIAGE PROPOSALS
We make your marriage proposal easy and beautiful.
We work with your ideas, or we also have a set package for you to choose from.
FULL WEDDING PLANNING
This service package offers aesthetic direction coupled with logistical management and planning for every aspect of your event, from cake and flowers to colors and decor. It also includes complete selection and management of your entire vendor team, budget tracking and all the details in between until the big day.
MONTH OF THE WEDDING COORDINATION
This is for the couple that already has everything from the venue to the flowers, and they just want to make sure their day runs smoothly.
Here, our team ensures every detail is taken care of with the utmost care and attention the day of the wedding.
DESTINATION WEDDINGS
Our destination wedding planning service is designed for the couple that wants to get married in their dream city. We love doing destination weddings in Mexico and all over the United States.
We help you with the full planning, logistics, vendor management, event styling and the day of the wedding coordination.
CORPORATE EVENTS
From conferences, to employee appreciation day events. We create a special experience for your employees or business partners. You have an idea, we develop it!
PUBLIC EVENTS
We have some signature open to the public events on our own where we sell tickets and everybody is welcome to come, but we can also create a public event for your company, The sky is the limit!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Create relevant content, from tips that can help your clients even if they don’t hire you to help them, to behind the scenes videos because people love to see what really happens especially in events, what things need to be done in order to have an amazing event.
Funny videos especially if these are with things that happen to you, also make great content. Laughing about yourself is a great way to connect with people.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The day I decided to stop giving all of me to an employer after I got sick -which led me to have a surgery- and I had to stop working for a month, that’s when I decided that I needed to do things for myself and open my own business. It was scary, it was risky but totally worth it. I went from planning events for an employer where I often felt unappreciated and not validated, to pivot my energy to focus on my personal needs, wants and dreams.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.eventcreatorsandproductions.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eventcreatorsandproductions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eventcreatorsandproductions
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ7JpQVFSWpsKrkCaxGicRQ
- Other: https://tiktok.com/eventcreatorsandproductions
Image Credits
Photos by Kolumba Castillo.