It’s wedding season, folks! And last weekend my team and I juggled two big jobs. The bigger a job, the more complicated it will be, and the more complicated it is, the more likely something will go wrong. So this week, I’d like to address a few of the things that can go wrong and how to avoid them.
First and foremost, large events almost always involve lots of vendors such as a florist, a stationer for invitations, a lighting designer, a caterer, a band or DJ (or sometimes both!), a photographer, an ice sculptor, a rental company, and the list goes on… Lots of people means lots of potential mixed messages and confusion.
Let’s start with the florist. What might go wrong?
1. The biggest problem that I used to have as a florist was getting done on time. Guests would sometimes begin to arrive before I was finished. Solution: Most of the flower arrangements should be prearranged in your shop or studio. This way, all you have to do is set them down and fix any minor damage that may have occurred in transit. Also, bring enough assistants to make the work go quickly and smoothly.
2. Another big problem is when your flowers don’t look fresh. You absolutely don’t want dying flowers before the event even begins! Solution: When you order and price flowers, always order extras. Aim for 15% to 20% more flowers than you think you’ll need. This ensures you’ll have enough flowers in case you need to replace any wilting ones. Naturally, you should also be an expert at nurturing your flowers so that they’ll bloom on the day of the event and look their best right when you need them to.
3. Sometimes, you’ll come up with a fantastic design, but the arrangements end up unstable. Yes, folks, I’ve been guilty of this one. Solution: You need to test your arrangements and make sure they aren’t top heavy. The last thing you want is for an arrangement to fall over and possibly injure a guest. Try pushing the table with force; if nothing falls, you’re good to go.
Tell me, have you ever had to deal with a crisis situation? What happened? Did you A) improvise and make it work, B) have a melt down, or C) do a little of both?
This afternoon I’ll address problems with the stationer, rental company, and lighting designer. Be sure to check back!
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George Bernard Shaw once said: “You see things and say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’” That quote embodies how Preston Bailey approaches every event.
Sylvain
June 6, 2011
Preston, it’s so great to know you’ve been through the same things I’m going through as an event designer just starting out (this will be my second full wedding season).
To share a story of an almost disaster: In April I had my first “Celebrity” client. A Canadian TV actress who is from the small city in New Brunswick where I live.
We worked together to plan an amazing springtime reception with cherry blossoms, tulips, hyacinths, peonies and orchids. Everything arrived from my supplier on the Thursday for the Sunday wedding, time for the cherry blossoms and peonies to open up nicely. However by Saturday morning the cherry blossoms were still showing no signs of opening, a couple of small green buds were there but were nice and tight. By the end of the day on Saturday a few of the over 200 branches had started to blossom but I knew at this point that I was going to have to put my thinking cap on to avoid a major disaster. 8 10 foot high arrangements with the cherry blossoms were to be set around the ballroom… and just a bunch of sticks was not going to cut it.
Luckily I had ordered lots of extra orchids and with lots of extra hours put in I hand wired orchid blossoms to all of the branches making the bare limbs into beautiful orchid blossom branches.
In the end the arrangements looks beautiful, the bride was delighted with everything and the wedding was deemed a success.
Lesson learned: Cherry blossoms may take more than 3 days to bloom when they arrive from the supplier! Luckily a few extra hours of work and some forward thinking on the extra orchids saved the day!
GoIzzy
June 7, 2011
A venue once didn’t order enough tables for our event. Not only we couldn’t set up on time, but also my employees including me were moving tables from the other rooms that were finishing parties in order to finish our wedding set up on time. That was horrible and in the end we got also preached about not finishing our designs on time. At some point it’s just a bit too much…
One time also a bakery brought a their wedding cake for 400 people that had a lower tier of the cake damaged (it was a horrible weather and they ended up breaking last min. which forced entire cake to slide and damage it’s structure). They still set up all 6 layers on top of that damaged tier and entire cake was totally leaning and slowly sinking minute by minute. We had enough flowers to save it and actually created a design around it that fooled the eye into believing it was actually straight. (most people didn’t know how bad it really was)