WHITE RAVEN

First, thank you for checking out our website!

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Second, I could write a bunch of stuff here but I’m going to try to stick to the things I think you might be interested in. So here’s our story… Often we get asked - how did you get into this business? The long story short is that we had a dream, came across an opportunity, and made a BIG decision. Before White Raven, my husband, Ryan, and I started off in Colorado working as a counselor and an engineer, but these jobs alone didn’t excite us. So, we decided to use our creativity and Ryan’s engineering and construction skills and began building our first custom home on the side. We worked every night and every weekend together. We absolutely fell in love with design and building; we were hooked. Soon we decided to quit our jobs and focus all of our energy on creating beautiful homes.

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Ok, now get to the part about starting a wedding venue, you say. Well, we always had it in the back of our minds. While attending many weddings of our friends and family and going to different events around Denver, we would always look around and think “We could do this” and “Wouldn’t it be fun to own a venue?”  Yes, we probably should have just been enjoying ourselves at these weddings, company parties, concerts, and runway shows, but we couldn’t help but focus on this idea as a potential business. Ryan is, and always has been, the dreamer in our relationship and I am the realist (I am so thankful for him- without his tenacity and creative thinking, we would not be where we are today). So, when Ryan brought up this idea a few years ago of actually opening a venue, I remember thinking “yes, I could totally see us doing that, but in the far future, like maybe in the next twenty years.” But after a while our life in Colorado had become very hectic and after going through the process of building, selling and moving so many times, we were exhausted. As much as we enjoyed being creative and working with our hands, we decided home building was no longer for us. We thought to ourselves, we need a change, not only in scenery, but also in how we can best utilize our passion and skills for design and building. What was always in the back of our mind, surfaced again and we couldn’t quite shake the intrigue of opening a venue. It would give us the ability to create amazingly beautiful and fun spaces that not only we could enjoy for a very long time, but many, many other people could as well. We decided to go for it, take the chance, and move!

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We were drawn to Missoula for the beauty, the people, the adventure, and the overall good vibes that we felt. We began our search in our favorite spot, the Alberton gorge area, with the beautiful Clark Fork River and mountains all around, it felt like home. When we found the property where White Raven stands today we thought we had stumbled onto a gold mine; it was everything we could have asked for.  We started getting calls for tours and people began to fall in love with the property and the vision of our venue, just as much as we did. They really connected with our style and design and were excited by the really cool things that we thought were so awesome! This was the moment when we began to realize that not only were we doing something that felt right for us, we were also bringing something to Missoula that people really needed and wanted.

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Our mission is to wow you and your guests. What we have built, and will continually expand on, is a venue that looks and feels like something you can’t find anywhere else. White Raven is not only our business, it is our journey, and it is our passion! It is not some side job that we have just because we have the property to do it. We are all in. Every day we think about how can we do better, make things better. What are the things our couples and guests want to incorporate into their event, and how can we give this to them, to you. My hope is that the venue we have created brings about a beautiful, unique, and memorable part of your journey! Schedule a tour with us and we would love to show you what we have to offer!

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With love,

-Ashlie & Ryan

                                                                      

est. 2015