What does wedding planning have to do with strategic corporate communication?  Well, let me enlighten you. My name is Maddy Kunis, and I am a sophomore strategic and corporate communication major with a leadership minor. During the spring 2024 semester, I had the privilege of interning for The One Occasion, an event-planning company based in Phoenix, Arizona. The One Occasion focuses primarily on wedding event planning, but they also do other events such as themed clientele parties and baby showers.

The One Occasion Social Media Page

Although I was hired as a social media intern, I learned so much more than just managing social media; I learned how The One Occasion works and flows as its own brand and how it works and partners with other local businesses and vendors. I loved seeing the online relationship between the vendors we collaborated with when planning events. For example, there are quite a few companies that we repeatedly work with, such as our florists, venues, bakery, and photographers. My tasks included working on Asana, Planoly, Instagram, and Dropbox platforms. I would go on Dropbox to find photos from photographers with the weddings we have worked with to create posts on Planoly. Planoly was a fun and helpful platform because it allows you to plan out social media posts in advance and then directly post them to Instagram from the Planoly app. This app ensures your feed is cohesive and the photos from the same events are not all in a row.

My application process for this position was different from the traditional route. I had been looking around on social media for wedding planning and event planning companies in the Phoenix area (where I call home) for a summer position. I then started emailing companies directly, asking if they took summer interns! Only three had reached out after applying to about ten companies, and The One Occasion was one of them. Allison, the owner of the company, told me that they do not take wedding event interns in the summer because of the slowdown of weddings in the Phoenix summer heat. Still, she offered me a social media intern position during my spring semester. This opportunity truly felt like a perfect fit for me as I want to work for a PR firm one day. The best part about this offer was that the position was completely remote – I would be able to complete it here in California while completing my Spring semester at Chapman!

Working with and for Allison has truly been such a dream. She is a fantastic boss who wants what is best for me, helps me whenever I have questions, and has been kind throughout this process. I got to meet her in person when I went home to Phoenix for spring break. This meeting provided an opportunity to ask her questions in person and learn more about how she got into the event planning business, which was extremely helpful for me as I also want to break into the industry. I was also able to work with her full-time employees in collaboration for posting, which was also helpful by using Asana, our scheduling platform.

Example Wedding Post

Two classes that helped prepare me for this internship were my influencer and social media marketing (SCC 315) class with professor Matt Prince and message design (SCC 200) with Dr. Hannah Ball. Both of these classes helped prepare me for my internship because they focus a lot on how to engage your audience with social media or messages and teach us how to use different platforms to engage with various audiences. Chapman especially has prepared me for the future with my career due to exceptional teachers and knowledge in classes like these. I will forever be grateful for my experience with The One Occasion and look forward to what the future holds for me!