Influential Woman · Wedding and Event Planning
Melanie Kammerer
Founder & Owner, Set The Table Key West
Summerland Key, FL 33042
Her Story
About Melanie
Melanie Kammerer is a destination wedding planner and the founder of a tabletop rentals company based in the Florida Keys, where she brings a design-driven approach to weddings, events, and home celebrations. Her venture, Set the Table, offers event planning, wedding design, and tabletop styling, and has grown a rental collection of more than 3,200 pieces to fill a gap in local wedding rental options. She also serves as lead planner for Vicky Furman Events, guiding couples through the full arc of destination wedding planning in Key West.
Before entering the wedding industry, Kammerer built a career far removed from event design. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Economics from Spring Hill College in 2012 and went on to work in public finance and investment banking before spending nearly a decade in telecommunications, eventually rising to general manager of a communications company in Alabama. That experience sharpened her abilities in logistics, vendor coordination, timeline management, and problem-solving under pressure — skills she later carried into the fast-paced, detail-heavy world of wedding and event production after making the move to the Florida Keys.
Kammerer credits her success to hard work and to the relationships she has built along the way, along with what she describes as the distinct energy of the Key West community. She approaches her work with a belief that any obstacle can be solved with patience and persistence, and she leads with honesty, authenticity, and reliability in both her business and personal life. For those entering the wedding industry, she encourages embracing the balance of joy and responsibility the work demands, and she sees the flexibility to build one's own schedule and the chance to form genuine connections with clients as some of the field's greatest rewards.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Melanie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to hard work and to building relationships with the right people. There's also something special about Key West itself — it has a kind of magic that has played a real role in my journey.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I've received is that there's always a way. When you run into a challenge, if you think it through long enough, you can always find a solution. It's about staying hopeful while also staying driven enough to say, "we can figure this out."
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I'd say welcome — this is an amazing field to be part of. It's both fun and demanding at the same time, because you're planning a fantastic event, but it's also someone's important day, so you have to stay on the ball. It's your job to make sure everything goes seamlessly.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the beautiful things about wedding planning is that you essentially get to create your own schedule. Not every couple and planner are the right fit for one another, so those first calls aren't really about selling your services — they're about getting to know each other and seeing if you're a good match. That process itself creates real opportunity.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Honesty is most important to me. I think people sometimes forget that we're all just people speaking to one another, so I value honest, genuine conversation — not beating around the bush. Authenticity matters just as much, and fortunately there's a lot of that in the Florida Keys. Down here especially, if we say we're going to be there, we're going to do it.
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