I Accidentally Built a Career Living in the Space Between
The Experiences, People, and Philosophy Behind The Shannon Experience
People often ask me what exactly it is that I do.
The answer has evolved a lot over the years.
Sometimes I’m a speaker.
Sometimes I’m a coach.
Sometimes I’m helping businesses fix sales systems.
Sometimes I’m translating what engaged couples actually want into something wedding pros can take action on.
And sometimes I’m just the person giving someone the quick kick in the pants they needed to stop spiraling and start moving again.
But underneath all of it, I think what I’ve really built a career around is living in the space between.
Between couples and wedding pros.
Between overwhelm and clarity.
Between ideas and execution.
Between what businesses think the problem is and what the real problem actually is.
That’s where I do my best work. And I sort of stumbled into it by accident.
My Career Started in Restaurants, Not Weddings
I did not grow up dreaming about becoming a wedding industry educator.
My event career happened because I was a restaurant server and someone opened a door into catering and events.
I started at the bottom.
And honestly, I’m grateful for that. Because hospitality taught me things traditional business education never could.
When I worked in restaurants, especially at places like Bahama Breeze under the Darden Restaurants umbrella, I learned that taking care of people is not just about service. It’s about anticipation, observation, and guidance.
I learned:
how to read people
how to ask the right questions
how to suggest instead of push
how to create experiences instead of transactions
If someone asked: “What’s your favorite thing on the menu?” …the answer was never really about me.
It was: “Well, what are you in the mood for?”
That changed everything.
Sales stopped feeling like convincing people to buy something and started feeling like helping people navigate decisions.
That philosophy still shapes how I coach today.
Weddings Taught Me About Human Behavior
After restaurants came catering. Then venue management. Then high-volume weddings.
For years, I lived inside weddings.
The beautiful parts.
The emotional parts.
The chaotic parts.
The expensive parts.
The deeply overwhelming parts.
And what weddings taught me more than anything is this:
Most customers are making huge emotional and financial decisions while feeling completely uncertain about what they’re doing.
As wedding professionals, we forget that sometimes because we do this every day. But couples do not.
Planning a wedding is often the first large-scale event, financial investment, or vendor coordination process they’ve ever managed.
The first time I bought a house, I finally understood exactly how couples feel. I had amazing professionals helping me. I had guidance. I had resources. And I was STILL overwhelmed.
Every little thing felt expensive. Every decision felt important. Every unfamiliar term made me pause.
I remember going to buy a garbage can for my new house and being personally offended that a garbage can cost $100.
That experience changed the way I viewed wedding sales forever because it made me realize how much uncertainty customers are carrying around while businesses are busy speaking industry language they don’t understand.
That empathy became foundational to everything I teach now.
Somewhere Along the Way, I Became the Person People Called
When I was working at a venue doing over 150 weddings a year, something interesting started happening.
Every time someone new entered the industry or a business owner got stuck, people would say: “You should go talk to Shannon.”
At first, it was just coffee conversations. Quick advice. Looking at someone’s website. Helping them think through a problem differently.
Soon those conversations started energizing me more than signing another wedding contract.
I loved helping people identify the real issue underneath the visible problem. Because most of the time, the visible problem is not actually the problem.
Businesses would say: “We need more leads.”
But sometimes they needed:
better follow-up
more trust
clearer messaging
stronger systems
less confusion
better alignment
improved customer experience
I became obsessed with helping people see the real problem because I realized how hard it is to see inside your own business clearly when you are buried in the day-to-day overwhelm.
Sometimes you need someone outside the house to point out what needs cleaning.
I would rather someone tell me the truth than waste my time sugarcoating something that is not working.
I think clarity is kinder than confusion. That directness has become a huge part of who I am professionally.
I’m Probably Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea
If you spend five minutes with me, you will probably notice a few things immediately:
I talk too fast
I use sarcasm as a love language
I enjoy a well-placed cuss word
I communicate very directly
and I use an alarming number of GIFs and memes
I know my communication style is not for everyone.
Honestly, when I speak at conferences, I joke all the time: If there are 100 people in the room, 80 will leave energized and ready to take action, 10 will think I’m a little too much too fast, and 10 will absolutely not like me at all.
And that’s okay.
Because I’m not interested in delivering watered-down fluff that sounds nice but changes nothing. I care deeply about helping people move forward.
Sometimes that means asking hard questions. Sometimes it means calling out the thing everyone else is avoiding. Sometimes it means saying: “Hey… this might actually be the problem.”
Not because I want people to feel bad. Because I want them to grow.
Burnout Changed Me
There was a season of my career where I was completely burned out.
The kind of burnout where:
you wake up exhausted
your to-do list never ends
every day feels heavy
and you cannot figure out where to even begin anymore
At the time, I was essentially doing the job of multiple people while trying to help grow and expand a business. I cared deeply about the work, so I treated the business like it was my own.
Which sounds admirable until you realize I was running myself directly into the ground.
I was working nonstop. Skipping breaks. Working weeks without days off. Living inside stress and overwhelm constantly.
And eventually, that burnout impacted everything: my energy, my happiness, my leadership, my mindset, and honestly… who I was becoming.
That season changed me permanently.
It’s one of the reasons I care so much now about:
systems
repeatability
time management
sustainable growth
operational clarity
and helping businesses simplify instead of constantly spinning
Because I know what it feels like to be drowning inside your own business. And I never want people to stay stuck there longer than they have to.
Wedding Venue Map Changed Everything
When I co-founded Wedding Venue Map, something really unexpected happened.
I accidentally positioned myself in the middle of the conversation between couples and wedding businesses. That perspective changed everything.
Because now I get to constantly listen to:
what couples are asking for
where they feel overwhelmed
how buying behavior is changing
what businesses think is happening
and where the disconnect actually exists
That’s why I often say I became a translator.
I live in the space between what customers are experiencing and how businesses are responding to it.
That perspective has become the foundation of my speaking, coaching, and educational work.
I’m Addicted to Opportunity
One of the phrases I say all the time is: “I’m addicted to opportunity.”
My brain constantly sees:
possibilities
ideas
gaps
improvements
connections
opportunities to help people
It’s exciting. It’s energizing. And if I’m being honest, it’s also exhausting sometimes.
There are only so many hours in the day, and over the last few years, I’ve had to learn that building a meaningful life matters just as much as building a meaningful business.
That lesson hit me especially hard after attending the funeral of someone I knew professionally.
Listening to people talk about the way that person showed up for others personally, not just professionally, really shifted something for me.
It made me realize how easy it is to become exceptional at showing up in business while neglecting parts of your personal life that deserve the same level of intention and care.
That perspective changed me.
There’s More to Me Than Work
I think because I use social media very strategically for business, people sometimes assume all I do is work. I love what I do so much that I understand why it looks that way.
I genuinely love helping people. I love solving problems. I love strategy. I love ideas. I love watching businesses finally “get it.”
But there’s also a whole other side of me.
I also love:
food adventures planned entirely around restaurant reservations
gardening and playing in the dirt
movies and ridiculous amounts of popcorn
snuggling on the couch with John and the shmoopies (our cats)
traveling to new cities
comedy and sarcasm
friendors who became like family
and finding little moments that make life feel full outside of work
Because as much as I love business, I’m learning more and more that success means very little if you forget to actually live your life while building it.
The Shannon Experience
People sometimes ask me what “The Shannon Experience” actually means.
Honestly? I hope it feels like having someone in your corner who:
genuinely wants you to succeed
tells you the truth
helps you simplify the chaos
gives you actionable next steps
makes you laugh along the way
and reminds you that growth does not have to feel impossible
I’m not perfect.
I still make mistakes. I still overcommit sometimes. I still get overwhelmed. I still hire coaches and ask for help and try to figure things out as I go.
But I care deeply about helping people build businesses and lives that actually feel sustainable, aligned, and meaningful.
And if you’ve made it this far into the article, you probably understand me a whole lot better now.
Welcome to The Shannon Experience.
