This week was full of new and fun experiences. Mrs. Emily purchased a calligraphy class for all of Floriography on Thursday. Calligraphy is growing in popularity in the event and wedding planning world for escort card displays and invitations. A lot of orders Floriography gets for weddings is cactus paddles with guest names and table assignments written in calligraphy for the escort card display. Mrs. Emily figures that the more the Floriography team can be trained in, the more services we can offer and not have to hire outside vendors. It was a super fun class, and I was reminded that it is important to always encourage one's employees to never stop learning and growing in the industry one is in. Calligraphy is definitely something you have to practice time and time again after the class. One does not come out of one calligraphy class being able to do it perfectly. I have a new goal to practice calligraphy a few times in my notes for classes or crafts for my personal events!
This weekend, Mrs. Emily had me work with the wedding planner Floriography co-leases the warehouse with. What is so unique about this wedding planner is that she is also a designer and has a large inventory of rentals. Her large inventory sets her apart from other wedding planners, because like calligraphy, clients do not have to go through a separate vendor to get their rentals and can just use the wedding planner. Mrs. Amy, the wedding planner, also gets extra gigs where people just rent her rentals and gets extra money off that. This wedding was larger than most, because this particular venue does not accommodate anything. Any rentals, decorations, and services must be outside vendors. It is extremely stressful as a bride to keep up with multiple vendors, which is why having Mrs. Amy minimized a lot of that craziness with her variety of services. Sitting down with Mrs. Amy, I learned about all the different job titles of people in the event and wedding planning industry. I thought a wedding planner encompassed it all; however, with the industry growing, the position has expanded and different roles have taken over tasks. For example, there are event designers, event planners, event support, and day of coordination. Event designers set up and create any and all lounges, set ups and general event style and vibes with serious consideration of the purpose and goal of the event, and personalities of the people that represent the event. Event designers usually do not come into the picture until about a month before an event because minds are changed so often. Event planners plan the overall event from start to finish and are there for the whole process focussing on little details, and making sure the event has a structure. Event support are people who come into play a couple weeks before the event, and more often on the day of. Event support employees have multiple certifications, such as their servers license, and bartending license to step in when needed during an event. This past weekend, event support acted as the event's bartenders when they were short, set up all the table with silver-wear and worked the parking to name a few examples. Basically, event support fills any gaps at events. Day of coordinator was the only job title I was familiar with. Day of coordinators come into play about a month out to introduce themselves to the vendors, planner, and people putting on the event to make themselves familiar and learn the event logistics. On the day of, they are similar of to event support stepping in wherever needed, but also ensure everything the day of goes according to plan such as ensuring vendors arrive on time, and general timeline of the event. Mrs. Amy technically runs two businesses, one is the 4theloveevents (event planning) and Rust Vintage (her rentals and design company).
Going into this weekend I had personal questions and concerns. I am aware that event planners mostly work weekends, and I wanted to see if that bothered me as I worry about how it will affect my future with family and children. I was also nervous to see if wedding planning was actually the career I want to pursue after going through it for the first time. The short version is, yes! The whole weekend was a dream come true and I loved every single second, but I am getting ahead of myself. The weekend started on Friday morning at 10 AM filling up a Ryder truck with all the rentals for the wedding. This wedding was especially exciting and nerve racking for Mrs. Amy, because it was her first time using her Tentipi. Brides with outdoor weddings are encouraged to invest in renting a tent in case of rain, and general protection from sunlight and wind. Mrs. Amy's brand is boho and urban, so she bought a tent that matched more of her style than a basic tent, the tents she got are giant tipis. With her being the only wedding planner with giant tipi tents, I can imagine her schedule is about to be booked after people see this event. Mrs. Amy's husband and two other guys went and set up the three tentipis on Thursday and it took them a total of 8 hours... (wow). After packing everything in the Ryder and our cars, we were off.
We arrived at the venue, La Mesita Ranch Estate, around 1 PM and began setting up the large things that we needed the guys help with such as all the tables, bars, and large furniture for the lounge sets. My favorite part was shadowing Mrs. Amy during the ceremony rehearsal. It was so fun to see the bride and groom together happy as could be with their families and closest friends. Mrs. Amy and I directed the ceremony rehearsal by running through it multiple times and making sure everyone was where they needed to be. I fell in love with the love story and event planning itself. Mrs. Amy told me that is so important, because the reality is that event planners do not get paid nearly as much as they would like with the hours put in, and the only reason event planners do what they do is because they have fallen in love with some part of event planning. We finished around 9:30 PM and went to dinner. A little more detail, when I see we, it was Mrs. Amy, her husband, two event coordinators around my age, and three guys who helped with the construction side of things. It was so fun to go and have dinner with everyone. I realized that in the event planning industry, your co-workers become your family because of how much time you spend together, and the mutual understanding and respect of what we all go through in the event planning industry. I admired how Mrs. Amy involved her husband in her business as much as she could. That was really cool to see, because Mrs. Amy and her husband made it work. Her children were at home with a babysitter, so her husband did not stay for Saturday while Mrs. Amy worked the wedding. Mrs. Amy told me that she just adjusts her weekends and makes Monday and Tuesday her weekends to take time off, and spend time with her husband and her kids. We arrived at the AirBnb around midnight and all crashed with an early call time in the morning.
The next morning we all woke up around 6 AM to get ready and drive to the venue. After arriving at the venue, it was full on work mode polishing silver-wear, setting tables, and setting up all the decorations. It was so important to have someone on staff with construction and technology experience, as the DJ lost power three times during set up, and we were able to fix it without waisting time and trying to call people for help. I immediately saw the event fall out of the exact schedule and plan as it was written even before we arrived. The bride and groom rented a fancy old fashioned car to drive them down to the reception after the ceremony, and was very specific about it. On Friday morning, the man who ordered the vehicle called Mrs. Amy to let her know he was sick and he and the car would not be able to attend the wedding. In a panic, Mrs. Amy started calling all car places she knew. Conveniently, a car shop is next door to the warehouse, and made some calls for us as well. Mrs. Amy was able to find a new one Saturday morning that matched the brides wishes. When the car arrived Saturday, the driver called Mrs. Amy and told her the car was completely dead and would not be able to drive the bride and groom (lovely). Mrs. Amy looked at me and told me she did the best she could, and there was nothing else she could do. She communicated what was going on to the bride and instead of driving it, the bride and groom just sat in it for pictures. The rest of the evening consisted of the staff running in circles handling each conflict one step at a time as if it never happened and attending to guests needs. I had so much fun and used my customer service experience learned from Smoothie King to make sure the guests always felt respected and most of all, right. It was crazy to see how much the wedding party relied on the planners and trusted us to handle all situations. After going through it, I have no idea how people don't have wedding planners. As a bride, I would want my family free from work duty and to have them spending time with me. Weddings are supposed to be a positive, fun experience with no stress of having to work the event. One of the main things I learned was being respectful to other vendors. The event support girls were telling me how a lot of vendors will refuse to work with some wedding planners because of how they are treated. The girls continued to stress that I should work as a waitress or bartender to truly have empathy for what other vendors go through. At the end of the night, catering let us take home to-go boxes of food. We left around 12:45 AM after gathering some of our stuff and making sure all guests left the premises.
We woke up again around 8 AM to go back to the venue to strike (clean) the wedding. It was important to pay attention to take down, because we needed to save some items for the bride, and make sure we didn't create more work for ourselves when we had to put it away in the warehouse that night. It was an incredible experience and I was overwhelmed with joy to be a part of someone's biggest day of their life. I am so ecstatic to work in this industry in the future, and cannot believe I only have one week left in New Mexico with Floriography.
Below are photos from the wedding. Floriography also worked this wedding and provided all the florals: