March 08, 2024
Hospitality on a Plate – Episode 6 – Ciara Crossan
Ciara Crossan is the CEO and Founder at WeddingDates, a leading online platform for wedding venues and couples in the UK and Ireland. With over 16 years of experience in the wedding industry, Ciara and her team have helped thousands of wedding venues and vendors on how to improve their business.
Ciara Crossan grew up in Cork, Ireland and comes from an entrepreneurial family. From a young age, Ciara knew that the corporate world wasn’t for her and pursued her aspirations of becoming her own boss. Identifying a gap in the market for a more streamlined wedding planning process, she founded WeddingDates in 2008 with a focus on date availability for couples. Today, the WedPro platform solves capacity and conversion challenges for venues and vendors, and drives revenues with strategic insights and reporting.
An avid networker who loves to learn, Ciara completed a Post Graduate Diploma in International Sales with Technological University Dublin in 2020. Her expertise has been recognised with multiple awards, including accreditation as a Thought Leader in International Hospitality Marketing by the All Ireland Business Foundation in 2019 and Ciara was named Business Woman of the Year at the Network Cork Ireland Awards in the same year. The new software product, WedPro was named as Best Hotel Technology Product at the Boutique Hotelier Awards in October 2023.
An advocate for young entrepreneurship and in particular Women in Business, in 2018 Ciara was honoured to be chosen as one of 11 female entrepreneurs for the Vital Voices Global Ambassadors Programme, the goal of which is to accelerate women’s leadership and economic empowerment throughout the world.
Outside of work, Ciara enjoys sea swimming, hiking and travelling with her 10 year old twin boys. Her passion for wedding hospitality is infectious, and she’s dedicated to making the lives of events teams easier while boosting bottom lines.
Ciara is passionate about supporting local businesses and women in entrepreneurship, and actively promotes these causes through her work at WeddingDates. Ciara’s dedication to the wedding industry and her entrepreneurial spirit have made her a leading figure in the field, and a role model for aspiring entrepreneurs.
