Alumni Spotlight: Sarah Lurie – Delilah Events

Meet Sarah Lurie, CU Boulder alumni, Founder, and CEO of Delilah Events! Delilah Events is an event planning service that specializes in weddings.

Sarah was born and raised in Boulder and attended the Leeds School of Business. During her time at Leeds, Sarah took several entrepreneurship courses that introduced her to the idea of running her own business. Sarah also interned at various event planning companies where she found her passion for planning weddings.

Sarah graduated in 2020 with a degree in Talent Management and a certificate in Leadership. In addition to running Delilah Events, Sarah currently works part-time at the CU Boulder Alumni Center where she assists with planning specialized events including memorial services, graduations, and holiday parties. 

About Delilah Events

Sarah worked for various event planning companies throughout high school and college. Once she reached a point where she could no longer achieve upward mobility with her previous company, she then created her own company, Delilah Events.

The idea to create her own event planning company arose when Sarah enrolled in an entrepreneurship course during her undergraduate tenure at Leeds. She was assigned a project to create her own company and jumped on the opportunity to begin Delilah Events. Sarah elaborated on the impact that her entrepreneurship courses had on her startup inspirations, “That class really inspired me! It made me feel like I had all the tools to finally start my own event planning company.”

Once her idea had been conceptualized, Sarah soon began to create a website, print business cards, and gather a small team. Sarah’s role within Delilah Events is the Owner, Founder, and Senior Coordinator. Sarah makes sure that Delilah Events offers a specialized, detail-oriented process when planning and executing events. Her booking process begins with a consultation meeting where she discusses the client’s vision for the event and determines personality fit. The initial meeting is then followed by a series of meetings arranged to establish a timeline, meet vendors, create a floorplan, and review vendor contracts. The entire process is extremely organized and organized to make things easy for both sides and to ensure a wonderful and seamless wedding!

Challenges Faced

Understanding how long it takes to start a new business was a difficult lesson for Sarah. When Sarah first began Delilah Events, she was working a part-time job with a startup in Denver. Juggling the responsibilities of her new company and another part-time job became extremely overwhelming and she made the decision to focus on Delilah Events full-time. Sarah adds, “When operating as a one-man-show, you have to fully commit to your company and give it the time it deserves. It can be overwhelming when you don’t have time for other things, especially during the summer, but it’s entirely worth it!” 

Sarah also faced another challenge when Covid-19 hit the country and the event industry took a hit. After graduation, Sarah had fully launched Delilah Events, but was unable to book any weddings due to the pandemic. Sarah took this as an opportunity to prepare her marketing materials and build her website so that she could re-launch once Covid restrictions lightened and weddings could resume. 

Upcoming Projects/Events

Sarah has several weddings planned for the coming months. She is excited to see the outcome of each wedding due to the time and energy she has invested in them. Sarah will also attend a wedding showcase at the Denver Coliseum to promote her company to potential brides and customers. Moving forward, Sarah intends to expand the business and book destination weddings all over the world. She is optimistic about the future of Delilah Events and feels grateful to have been successful thus far. 

Advice for Current Students

Sarah provides the following advice for students, 

“It’s important to be willing to go with the flow. With a startup, you really don't know when you're going to need to pivot. Stay vigilant and understand that this is a process that you need to be patient with and take each day for what it’s worth. Also, know that it’s okay to throw in the towel if you’re feeling exhausted with it all!”