We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Selah & Annie a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Selah & Annie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Some of the most interesting parts of our journey emerge from areas where we believe something that most people in our industry do not – do you have something like that?

Our hot take: the volume of bookings and customers is not what makes our business successful. While quantity may be a factor in achieving our goals, our heart for this business is to give our guests the highest quality experience possible. What we’ve learned is when we don’t understand our limits, we burn ourselves out and the quality of our service suffers. We are less patient and detail-oriented, and more stressed. We check in regularly with ourselves and each other by asking: are we having fun? If the answer is no, we need to reevaluate our approach to the business.

Success to us is the look of shock and delight on our guests’ faces when they see their picnic for the first time, and the “BEST DAY EVER” exclamations when we return for clean up. Success is surprising a bride-to-be with the most intimate and romantic proposal she could imagine. Success is collaborating with and supporting local businesses by including their products on our boards or as add-ons. Success is watching our daughters get so excited for our picnics that they want to help load the car and set the table. The list goes on, but they all have one thing in common: connectedness.

The biggest win for us is that our picnics bring people together. Chasing money or popularity won’t get us there, so bringing a high-quality, personal experience to our guests is what we choose to pursue.

Selah & Annie, 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?

We started Sonoran Picnics to create beautiful experiences for people to enjoy with the people they love. Primarily, we set up our luxury picnics in an outdoor space to soak in the breathtaking views available all around the Phoenix valley! One of the things that sets us apart is our desire to incorporate other small businesses and their passions into our picnics. We love working with local photographers, artists, Airbnbs, food vendors, florists, etc. to ensure each picnic is unique and specially-curated for each of our picnickers! We are constantly looking for new ways to enhance our guest experience, which is why we regularly introduce new themes, partnerships, and package options. It is important to us to adapt to our ever-changing work environment and customer preferences.

We really want people to know that we care so much about our guests and the special occasions they are celebrating. We have so much fun setting up each picnic, and every single booking is an opportunity to make memories with our guests. We want all of our guests to feel special and unique, which is why we take the time to talk to our guests extensively to make sure their picnic is perfect!

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

We love this story! Selah and I (Annie) grew up in the same city, but we did not meet until our early 20s working at our favorite pizza joint, Oregano’s. In fact, we had a few mutual childhood friends and are convinced we crossed paths at some point before we actually met! We clicked instantly with having so much in common: we were both attending the same Christian seminary and shared countless interests like shopping locally, drinking vanilla lattes, traveling, and hosting events. After hanging out a handful of times, we introduced our husbands and the four of us became close friends shortly after! Our nerdy addiction that characterizes our friendship is Settlers of Catan—we spent several years playing 4-5 nights a week. We have since grown our families and have less time for board games, though we still get together at least weekly! Our friendship is the backbone of this business; we always enjoy what we call “picnic happy hour” in between set up and tear down. It has become one of our favorite parts of Sonoran Picnics!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Social media! Our Instagram is our biggest avenue to showcase our picnic experiences, and we have a lot of fun doing it. On @sonoranpicnics, we share all about upcoming launches, seasonal changes, promotions, and giveaways. Neither of us are social media gurus, so we have had to learn reels/TikTok, photo editing, and new ways of engaging our picnic community online. While this is a big undertaking, we try not to take ourselves or our page too seriously and focus on creating quality picnics as our top priority. We have also found that personal referrals and word of mouth is a huge resource for us, and it means the world that our guests had a wonderful time at their picnic and want to share it with their family and friends!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sonoranpicnics.com
• Instagram: @sonoranpicnics
• Other: Email: hello@sonoranpicnics.com TikTok: @sonoranpicnics

Image Credits
Jared C Rygg Photography Isabella Lusk Photography Sarah Conrad Photography Madeline Brice Photography