Erin Ruttkay

I've been planning events since before it was a job — as a child I kept a binder of parties I'd designed myself, complete with themes, invitations, and shopping lists for occasions that didn't yet exist. I'd flip through catalogues and design pretend goodie bags for guests who didn't exist yet either. It was something I always did, and something I still do.

At the core, I think of myself as a fixer and a matchmaker. My job is to listen closely to what a client actually wants — not just the version they can easily articulate — and then make it happen with whatever means are available, connecting them to the right people to get it done. That's a holistic way of working: the goal isn't to sell a package, it's to solve the actual problem in front of me.

My approach to event management is creative and often non-traditional. If the right person for a decor concept is a working artist or a theatre director rather than an established events company, that's who I hire. That instinct comes from my background in theatre, where you learn to work with genuinely creative people and to elevate them rather than gatekeep the work. I don't believe in hoarding access to good vendors — I believe in transparency, honest work, and giving credit where it's due.

My belief is that every great event — regardless of scale, type, or industry — has the same essential components at its core. The things that make a corporate conference feel electric are the same things that make a child's birthday feel magical: genuine attention, thoughtful details, and people who feel considered. That's why I work across every kind of event rather than specializing in one.

That thinking is rooted in my studies in sociocultural anthropology at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague — a discipline built on understanding how people create meaning, mark occasions, and build community through shared experience. Every event, at its core, is a human happening. I'm also a firm believer in Priya Parker's The Art of Gathering, which makes a similar case: that gatherings deserve real intention, not just logistics.

Here's the honest pitch: anyone can plan an event. Anyone can search a venue or get a quote from a caterer. You're not hiring me because you don't know how to use Google — you're hiring me because you don't want to, or can't, spend your time doing it yourself. This job exists because managing people, and managing the dozens of moving, interlocking parts of an event — vendors, venues, context, constraints, timing, personalities — is genuinely a skill. A career spanning theater, film, education, real estate, and business has given me the ability to walk into very different worlds and speak their language. I started Kultura Solutions — a boutique event management agency based in Prague, Czech Republic — to bring that range, and that care, to events that matter to other people.

Every client works directly with me.