ABOUT SIMPLIFY TELLURIDE
Telluride and Beyond!
Established in 2014, Simplify Telluride is a premier event production, design, and wedding planning company serving the local areas of Telluride, Mountain Village and the greater Western Slope region. From the mountains to the desert and everything in between we are here to provide you with an unparalleled experience.
We know you’ve found your ultimate destination, let us do the hard part and prepare the perfect wedding! Building a shared vision with you, we will work together with our local and regional venues and vendors to create what you thought you could only imagine. No detail is too small and no event is too large, the sky is the limit!
MEET OUR TEAM!
Angela and Dan Chehayl – Owners
Inseparable from the start, ours was truly love at first sight, and we were inextricably bound by the power and majesty of our surrounding landscape when our paths first crossed on a dirt road deep in the wilderness of Indian Creek Utah. It didn’t take long before Angela moved from Jackson Hole, WY to live with Dan here in the San Juan Mountains and we began our exciting, adventurous, and truly transformative journey together. We love working together and since the start have always been there to help the other succeed in each endeavor we have embarked on.
One thing we cherish most are the unique memories and experiences we have been able to build together and how each milestone has become a part of the foundation for our relationship, we couldn’t imagine our life without them! From start to end we want to help you build just as amazing memories, and with a combined twenty years of experience in event production and hospitality, we have the expertise to make your dream wedding come true!
ANGELA - LEAD PLANNER
Graduating college with a degree in communication, I chose, as one does, to take a bit of a different path! I soon found myself working for a luxury active travel company, guiding multi-day road cycling outings and week-long eco excursions all over the US, and other destinations internationally. Hailing from Yellowstone, Zion, Yosemite, Alaska, Greece, Croatia, Costa Rica, Thailand and beyond those office views were hard to beat! I spent 10 years planning and guiding active luxury travel vacations in the world’s most stunning and gorgeous locations. I cherished the logistical side of things, designing bike routes, making hotel & dinner reservations and booking cultural experiences. My job was to fully immerse my clients in the culture around them and facilitate a good time while doing so. I was the designer, the guide, the translator, the problem solver, the food and wine expert, the giver of local knowledge and more. Those 10 years gave me a blend of unique on the job training mixed with cultural experiences that left me feeling cultured and enlightened and laid the path for the next phase of my life’s journey.
Returning home from Europe in 2018 for what I thought would be a brief stint back in the US to visit family, I met my now husband, fell deeply in love, and within months moved to Colorado to be with him. Drawing from my vast skill set and inspirations from my previous work I felt an instant connection to the local wedding industry. In the years that followed, I built a successful catering business and mobile bartending service with my husband, and began wedding planning and production part-time for a local Telluride planner. The whole process felt so organic and as my passion and pride in my work grew, so did our businesses and opportunities. In 2022 and 2023 I began working as a full-time wedding planner and in September 2023, my husband and I bought Simplify Telluride with the goal of using our collective experience and knowledge to guide couples through the process of building and facilitating the wedding of their dreams.
DAN - LEAD PLANNER
For Dan it all started with sharing what he loved most with others. In his youth, always more at home on the trail, in the water, or on the snow or ice, his tools of the trade were, depending on the season, skis and ice axes or paddles and trekking poles. With over 10 years of experience guiding expeditionary trips and extensive travel in Alaska, Canada, the Himalaya, and throughout the US and Mexico, it was the Southwest US and the Western Slope region of Colorado that inspired Dan to settle down, and plant some seeds in the area. He found it hard to beat the towering desert spires or endless mountain ridges, the miles of mountain biking trails and seemingly untamed wild western rivers, the splendid beauty of it all coalescing into the perfect place to live and play. The local adventures were bountiful and endless and sure to last a lifetime!
After graduating college, Dan arrived in Ouray, Colorado and spent 10 years on the staff of the Ouray Ice Park, the world’s largest outdoor ice climbing facility. Starting off in the unique position of “Ice Farmer”, Dan climbed the ranks of positions and responsibilities at the Ice Park eventually becoming the Executive Director and running the organization for many years, transforming it along the way. His final year on staff as the Executive Director was a big one culminating in the 25th Anniversary Ouray Ice Festival, a huge, exciting, and impressive event showcasing the sport of ice climbing and its crown jewel, the Ouray Ice Park, to the world. His experience running the Ouray Ice Park and Producing the Ouray Ice Festival gave him invaluable experience and the confidence to know that with drive and experience, anything is possible.
A New Chapter for Simplify!
When the opportunity arose to buy Simplify Telluride in 2023 from the previous owner, we saw an opportunity we simply couldn’t pass up! Having entered the local and regional wedding industry several years prior with our catering business, mobile bartending business, and with Angela as an assistant wedding planner and day of coordinator, we already had a good understanding of what the business entailed, and we’re excited to make it our own, but also honored to have such a well-established and respected business to build on.
OFFERINGS
Full Planning:
From budget management, timeline creation, vendor matchings, design boards, website assistance and everything in between – we will simplify this for you! We will work from the day you set the date to help with every step of the process. If you are planning from afar, we highly encourage full planning as we have our feet on the ground in Telluride and can ensure nothing goes untouched.
Month of coordination:
For our local brides we offer coordination to execute your months of hard work and planning. We step in after vendors have been contracted and timelines prepared to manage your day. We will ensure to cross all the t’s so you don’t have to.