We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ruby Straaten a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ruby, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

In this industry, there are so many people who plan one wedding, love it and decide to call themselves a wedding planner. Its an extremely competitive industry so you have to make yourself stand out in a good way. Price point is one factor of it but I believe to be successful as a wedding planner, you have to connect with other vendors and build a community. Vendor and client referrals are where I get the majority of my leads, and I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today if I didn’t receive the support from the wedding community that I do.

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 back background and context?

Hi! I’m Ruby! I absolutely LOVE love so the wedding industry is perfect for me! While I am not planning or at weddings, I am baking, reading or traveling!

I had my first event experience 6 years ago in my junior year of college when I helped a friend with their annual karate tournament. I was responsible for organizing and hosting the entire tournament.

From there, my love of the event industry blossomed and I got an internship shortly after that. During this internship, I was the event planner for a small local business in Utah. I organized and planned events such as game nights, parties, and formal dinners.

My mentor and boss at the time coached me on how to plan the perfect event and I learned what details were important in planning a variety of events.

When I graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management, I left my internship and got a job working at an Event Venue. I organized and managed events as large as music festivals to small events such as micro weddings.

However, I felt that something was missing, as I wasn’t directly planning the events like I had in my internship. In October of 2021, I left that job to build my own business and focus on what I love the most, which is the planning of weddings and events.

I offer 3 packages: Month of Coordination, Partial Planning or Full Planning. I help brides and grooms plan all the logistics of their day and help them stick to their vision and budget despite outside voices that may make it hard!

I am very proud that my brand is inclusive of everyone. An event isn’t too out of the box, you just need to have the right vendors to put it together, and I help with that! I am also proud of the community that I have created since I have opened my business!

I pride myself on the fact that I am able to take on events that are out of the norm. I want your readers to know that I am easy to work with and help people get the event they’ve envisioned.

What sets me apart from others, is not only my experience but also my personality. I have a very energetic and friendly personality that my clients love and so do the vendors! Despite my energy I am able to calmly come up with solutions to problems and solve them before my client can stress!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Okay so this is a funny and embarrassing story to tell. Prior to opening my business, I worked in a very fast paced environment, where running or walking fast from one point to another was a normal occurrence. Even though I had done weddings before, when I opened my business there was so much I still had to learn etiquette wise. So the second wedding I did under my own company, I ran from one end of the venue to the other as I was trying to communicate a last minute change with the DJ. It was something that I had done at hundreds of other events, but at the end of the night, a guest at the wedding, who was also a well known vendor, said to me “You did an excellent job, but a word of advice, at weddings never ever run. At other events it’s more normal but at weddings it creates a sense of urgency in the guests that can be avoided.” From that wedding on I haven’t run once and I have also come up with other communication methods to help me not have to run between vendors. I will be forever grateful to the vendor for taking the time to talk to me and help me better myself and my business.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Reviews and vendor recommendations! One of the first things I did when opening my own business was connect with other vendors. I kind of fell into learning about styled shoots. Right when I was starting out a super kind wedding coordinator posted on a wedding Facebook page that she was looking for someone to help set up a styled shoot. I reached out to ask what a styled shoot was, what it entailed and what kind of help she needed. She allowed me to come along that night and it helped bring me from corporate events to weddings. A couple months later, I reached out to a photographer that was holding a styled shoot and we ended up doing a couple shoots. This gave me content for my website and also allowed me to connect with a dozen or so vendors. The more weddings I did the more vendors I connected with! They help me out so much!

Reviews are such an important thing you need in business! I follow up with every client to get a review. Reviews drive my business! When I have a new client they’ll ask for reviews from past events or vendors I’ve worked with. If I don’t have that then my clients won’t book!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.redcanyonevents.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/redcanyonevents/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/redcanyonevents
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/red-canyon-events/

Image Credits
Haley Thomas Photography