When it comes to decor for your event or wedding you need develop a cohesive picture of what elements you want to incorporate.  I say elements and not an overall look for a very specific reason.  Most people don’t have tens of thousands of dollars (or more!) to put into decor so you need to know what you love before you commit to anything.  It’s hard to fix a poor venue or colour choice when on a tight budget!  The easiest way to do that is pull together a set of inspirational elements that you want to see and from there you can move forward.   This could be as simple as a single colour to more complex elements such as a graphic you want to use.

The best way to GET INSPIRED is by going on a Visual Tour.

What is a Visual Tour?

Humans are very visual and we normally don’t know what we want until we see it.  Images easily convey a message and allow you to create a mental picture of the overall event elements based on those images.   A visual tour is simply looking at things and finding images that inspire you.

How do you go on a Visual Tour?

That’s fun part!  My two favorite sources are the mall (ooohhh…shopping!) and the internet.   There are tons of others though.  Look through magazines or books, flip through pictures you have, or go for a walk in a place that you love.  You never know where you will find an image that sticks with you.  If you’re using a search engine start your tour with a word, colour, or style (i.e. Vintage) you love.  If you’re completely stuck find a event or wedding blog or webpage and look through their images (scroll to the bottom of this post for some great websites).  From these points you can  expand your search for other images that strike your fancy.  Save any images you like to your hard-drive in a single folder. If you’re looking through magazines and books start with Home Decor, Wedding or even Architectural magazines.  Photocopy (if you’re borrowing the books) or clip the pictures and save them in folder or envelope.

What to look for on your Visual Tour.

It’s one thing to go on a visual tour but you do need to go in with a plan on what you are looking for.  As I stated earlier you need to look for ELEMENTS that you like.  Find images that show a single element that you like.  By choosing images with a single focus you will have a better idea of what you want.

For example choose this:

Tiffany Cake from www.chateaulamercatering.com

Not this:

Tiffany Box Cake

The first picture clearly shows the cake, it has good colours, and is well lit. The second picture is surrounded by plates, chairs, a centerpiece, and is poorly lit.  The first image gives a stronger visual of what you want.

What do you do with all the images?

Okay, now that you’ve gone around a looked at tons of images and pulled all the ones you like, start sorting them.  Sort them into groups that are similar.  There are tons of different categories that you can sort by but here are a two of the ones I use most often:

Colour:  Find images that have similar colours and tones and put them together.  The colours don’t have to be the same.  You might find that you have a bunch of images are all pastel or soft muted colours.

Style: You may find that your images fall into different style categories such as vintage, modern, whisical, reflective, sparkly, etc…

Don’t be afraid to keep sorting your pictures until you have a pile of pictures that really appeals to you.   If that means you sort by colour, then by style, then by favourites then do that.  It’s really about ending up with a bunch of elements that you love.  Try to stick to 7 – 14 images.  Any more than that you’re likely to loose focus on what you really want to see.

This pile of images is your go-to when you are making a decision about your event.  Before you make any decisions from venue, to food, to decor look back at this pile and see if it fits what you are trying to create.  If it does then go ahead, if it doesn’t then really consider if you want it at your event.  This pile will save you from making costly mistakes and will ensure that everything at your event works together!

For some examples of what a pile of these inspiration images looks like take a look at some of these websites:

Snippet & Ink:  Probably one of the best sources for inspiration boards, especially for weddings.

Martha Stewart Weddings:  They have an aptly named section call ‘Inspiration’.  It has tons of ideas all grouped together for you already!

Hostess with the Mostess:  This is a great blog that has tons of real events plus some great inspiration boards.  It covers all types of parties.

BizBash: This is an industry website that showcases some of the top events happening around North America

Style Me Pretty: This site has some awesome pictures of real weddings.  It’s great place to see what other people are doing.

1. Get Inspired – You need to find something that inspires you.  You often hear interior decorators talking about finding a fabric, art, or even a piece of furniture that inspired the room.  It’s the same when you decorate your event or wedding.  You need to find that piece that will inspire future decision.  I’ll give you some of my sources of inspiration, plus ways to find that thing that will bring everything together.

2. Focus on Key Areas – There are lots of places you can put decorations.   If you don’t choose to focus then you end up with little bits of stuff everywhere and it doesn’t create a the big impacts you’re looking for.  When you think of where you want to focus you need to consider what people will see when they come in, where they are spending most of their time at your event and wedding, and how much you can spend on each of those areas, if anything at all.  I’ll give you my top 6 areas to focus on when you’re planning to decorate you wedding or event.

3. Make an Impact with your Decor – Now that you’ve been inspired and decided where you want to focus your efforts you now need to make an impact with what you are putting in those places.  There are five simple techniques and guidelines to making a statement with your wedding and event decor.

Hope you’ll tune in to see how you too can have a beautiful event and wedding!

1. No Reply Cards: Instead they asked everyone to reply online.  This has the added bonus of saving you money on paper, envelopes and postage.  If that wasn’t enough you know instantly when somebody says yes!
2. Neat alternatives to recycled paper: Weddings traditionally use a lot of paper for everything.  Mike and Shannon reduced their paper use where possible, but when they did use paper we thought outside the recycled box for some neat environmentally and socially conscious choices.
   • Sheep Poo Paper Oh you read that right…this company based out of Wales uses sheep droppings and makes really lovely paper from it.  We used it for seating cards. It’s a great alternative to recycled paper, plus it gives your guests something to talk about!
   • Fair Trade Paper. Knowing that your paper comes from an ethical source and that people were fairly paid for making it is another alternative to recycled paper. We used this paper as table labels.
   

   Herb plants with Fair Trade Hand Made Paper. Photo by http://www.drphotography.ca/

3. Centerpieces: When planning this wedding Shannon really wanted her centerpieces to be able to go home with guests and be useful long after the wedding. We chose to use herbs on each table sourced from the local farmer’s market. Believe me when I say they were a hot commodity at the wedding!

Head Table with Herb plants. Photo by: www.drphotography.ca
4. Favours:  Go organic. Favours can be a big part of any wedding. Mike and Shannon were big tea drinkers so chose organic tea from a local tea house in a re-usable tin. If tea isn’t your bag, try organic chocolate, coffee or your favourite blend of herbs and spices with a recipe to go with it.


Organic Tea Tins. Photo by: www.drphotography.ca

5. Go Carbon Neutral: It would be great if all your guests could walk, bike or take transit to your wedding. Sadly this isn’t just practical for all weddings with guests coming from all over. Buying Carbon offsets is a practical alternative to making your environmental footprint smaller. The David Suzuki Foundation has some great information on how to go carbon neutral.



As defined by dictionary.com a theme is: a unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., as in a work of art.

Just as in a work of art, they come in all shapes, sizes, colours, and mediums.  From big to small, themes are what keeps an event cohesive.  They provide the backbone that make event elements come together to build on each other so that each dollar means more impact.

So how do you put together a good theme?

COMMUNICATION!

You need to have good lines of communication between yourself, your client, and any suppliers you are working with.  At the end of the day it makes a difference if the graphic/colour/music doesn’t match or if the ticket is presented in one way and the event looks completely different.  If everybody understands the theme they will work towards the final goal together.

UNDERSTAND THE PURPOSE

Each event should have a purpose.  Now, almost any theme can be fit to any purpose but the key is understanding HOW the theme supports the purpose that makes a difference.  It will dictate if you choose one band over another or if you use a certain colour of light instead of another.   If you understand the purpose it means that your decision making has a basis and it will come out in the final product.

BE CONSISTENT

I would like to emphasize this point:  once you choose a theme use it consistently throughout!  It means that the messaging doesn’t get confused and each element builds on the other aspects of the event.  It keeps your guests focused on the purpose of the event and not questioning why something doesn’t fit.  This goes from fonts choices, colours, food, or even venue selection.

Engaged Events is often called upon to help clients develop overall themes for their events.  Recently we had the fortune to work on the Safeway Foundation Gala with the talented Event Producer Aimee Barnabe of Smile Productions.   The client had some very definite ideas, which was great as it guided our design process.  The biggest element was that the event was to be a black and white gala.  It had to elegant and formal, and there needed to be enough (but not too much) seating for all the guests.

The elegant black and white theme that we developed used the thematic element of lines that were repeated in a big way in a number of places to really create an impact. (All the pictures below were taken by Stephanie Leblond at Jade Media)

Black and White Floor & Celing Treatment

One of the largest pieces we incorporated was this black & white floor.  Given that the venue has very orange and brown flooring adding this in made a huge impact.  Instead of using the checkerboard floors you would typically see we opted to use a random pattern of black and white lines that created flow into the room.  The other really big element was the ‘donut’ over the entrance.  Being so large it anchored the entrance to the room without giving up any precious floor space!

Black & White Seating and Bars

We wanted a variety of options for seating.  On the flooring we used these sleek tables with contemporary profiles to keep with the clean lines of the floor.  The oak bars were covered with a fireplace surrounds on this and the opposite side.  The adjacent sides had tufted white vinyl with a huge gem for a little bit of sparkle (see photo below).

Black & White Seating

We chose a variety of high and low seating and different chair options to divide the different seating areas from each other.

Black & White Striped table cloth

We ensured that all the linens we used were black and white and incorporated some form of line as the organza overly in the picture above.

Soft Seating & Backdrop

The backdrop was a huge element as it covered the entire far end of the wall.  Originally designed as surrounds for screens we broke them into individual elements and hung them at different heights and spacing to create a fantastic visual behind the band and the soft seating areas.  As the panels were frosted white they took the light really well.

Art Wall

The Art Wall was my favorite part of the whole event.  Most silent actions feature an art wall, and it is always time consuming to hang and stage.  This wall solved all those problems and was a STUNNING visual in the pre-function space.  Here is where communication really comes in – the client found all black and white pictures to go on the wall which really fit in with the theme.  We used simple silver table number holders to hold the piece number and a description of the art to create that final modern touch.

Here are a couple of places to find some amazing event themes:

1.  David Stark and his work for Robin Hood Responds is a great example of a really bold theme that uses a few key visuals to create a theme, but look around he has done some amazing work.

2. Hostess with the Mostess has some awesome ideas but one of my favorites is definitely Cirque du Bebe

3. Inspiration boards are a great place to start for themes and some of the best (especially if you’re doing a wedding) are at Snippet & Ink

Good luck and happy theming!

A super easy way to start  is with Bullfrog Power.  They supply energy exclusively  from wind and low-impact hydro to the power grid.  It means that when you turn on your light or use your computer the power you’re using is from a renewable source. You can even get them to provide green power for your event!

To get started today visit www.bullfrogpower.com.

Engaged Events has been bullfrogpowered since May 2009.  We hope that you consider doing the same at your home or business!

Bud vases only accommodate a few stems so it means that you only need one or two blooms or leaves to make the container look full.   Apart from this fact this they come in a number of shapes, styles, and materials which allow you to create a different look for whatever event you are doing.  The other great thing about bud vases is that they have a smaller footprint on a table so you can group them to really create a big impact.

I have two styles of bud vases in my collection that I adore.  The first is the Stilt Vase.

Stilt Vases only need a single bloom to look full

This simple cube vase on a stem is great because the opening really will only accommodate one or two stems to look gorgeous.  In the picture above there is a single dendrobium orchid with two stems of lily grass.  The vase comes in 3 heights and placed as a trio on a table with a single bloom it really fills the center of a table (even a 72″ round) – a look that normally eats into any budget.  Engaged Events is now carrying these as rental items so now you too can create a stunning centerpiece.  Check out the Stilt Vase Rental flyer for prices.

Another great bud vase that I am happy to have in our inventory is the very trendy white salong vases.

A coloured bloom can really pop against a white vase

These vases play with both shape and colour.  The white of the vase really makes coloured blooms pop and their sleek lines have a great modern aesthetic appeal.

The salong vases, like the Stilt Vases, also come in a number of sizes so grouping them is really easy.

A trio of vases can create a big impact

In this case I took the 3 bigger vases (they come in 4 sizes) and used a Monstera leaf along with dendrobium orchids (did I mention I love orchids?) to create a big impact behind couch groupings at an event.

Things to keep in mind when using bud vases:

1.  You only need one or two blooms or a large tropical leaf to create a big impact.

2.  The container is just as important as the flowers you choose. Really consider the shape, colour or material of the bud vase and flower to create the overall look of you want to achieve.

3. Group different heights of the bud vases in odd numbers: 3, 5, 7 to create a stronger visual picture for your guests.  You can make a much larger statement without drastically increasing your budget using this technique.

That is how you can create a big impact using bud vases while reducing your environmental footprint and maximizing your budget.  It’s a win for everyone!

When you talk to Sue, she is a lively woman who enjoys life.  The idea behind the invitation was to capture some of that youthful energy to set the tone for the event.  Nobody said it better than Pablo Picasso “It takes a long time to grow young”.  As Sue’s favorite flower is the poppy Engaged Events created a digital invitation for her guests that brought all these elements together.

Birthday Invitation

Visiting the local farmer’s market we found inspiration with all it’s handmade items and colourful food.  Walking around she saw a hand-painted poppy that inspired the hand painted place cards that we had made for each guest.

Hand painted poppy placecard

She was also inspired by the intense orange colour of the mokara orchids at the florists and this helped create the accent colour for the event – orange.  The main teal linen colour was chosen to create a vibrant offset to the punch of orange.  Paired with the crisp whites of the chairs, napkins, place setting, and a clean modern vase it created an intense and bright feeling in the room.

Place Setting

For a personal touch and to continue the poppy element into the decor the napkins were hand stamped with the poppy image found in the invitation.

Hand stamped poppy napkin

As Sue didn’t want to have any clean up I brought in my absolute favorite caterer for the event.  Chris Halpin from Manna Catering.  He is an absolute gem and I always had the most delicious meals at the events he has catered for me.  He created a custom menu for Sue that had everyone raving.

Buffet from Manna Catering

It was a lovely celebration filled with energy.  Sue was able to visit with all her friends and have a memorable 65th Birthday.  It does indeed take a long time to grow young!

Download a PDF with images from this event: Poppy_Birthday

It was an amazing day.

Hot – the temperature reached 32 degrees Celsius.

Tons of people – 37,000 of them.  We expected 10,000!

Amazing performers – Mama Lou (who lost her luggage but performed in a borrowed costume from the Costume Shoppe), the Aerial Angels who were up in the air performing over concrete, Circus Montreal who wowed crowds, Basketball Jones who in his last performance of the day up on his TALL unicycle threw the ball under his leg and made the almost impossible shot, Netti Spaghetti who had little kids hula hooping away, and many others who really made the festival a great place to catch a show.

Vendors – It was great to see all the different vendors, from the Inglewood businesses to independent artists, to non-profits, to jewelery dealers.  It was great to see so many different groups participating in the festival.

Volunteers – who just never stopped!  They were incredible helping out in the heat and really making our festival a success.

It took countless meetings, hundreds of phone calls, and thousands of e-mails and I can tell you it was definitely worth it too see everyone walking down the street having a great time.

THANK YOU to everyone who made it possible.

See everyone next year – and I promise it will be bigger and better!

As the Festival Director, it falls to me to ensure that we have all the permits, our suppliers are bringing the right things at the right times, and everyone on the team knows what’s happening the day of.  One of the most important things to do for that day is create a production schedule.  It compiles all the details, attaches responsibilities and times and communicates the big picture to all the key players.

The production schedule becomes my go-to document for the day of the event.  It makes me really think about all the details that are going to go on.  It ensures that five people aren’t going to be showing up to use one loading dock, or that I haven’t magically cloned one of my team on paper and they are now in two places at once.  I never forget to get an outside perspective either.  It gives a fresh eyes to a document that I have been staring at for many hours.

To be sure, the day of the event not everything will go according to plan – but the production schedule gives me something to refer to make sure I haven’t forgotten something because I had to deal with an  issue.  In a way it allows me to be in many places at once because people know what they are supposed to be doing and when.

Here’s to the months of planning for the Inglewood Sunfest and the production schedule that will guide the event!

It was simple – just 30 guests.  No fancy decorations, big meals, or entertainment.  It was just a great mix of people in a garden with some great food and wine.  It was relaxed and easy going and each guest felt that the bride and groom were genuinely happy that they were able to share in this special moment with them. You could see the love between the bride and groom.

It was a wedding that vividly expressed the purpose of gathering together to celebrate these unions.  Don’t let yourself get caught up in all the fuss – instead celebrate with people that are important to you in a way that makes you happy.

The happiest of couples

So Liz and John Calloway – I hope that your life is like your wedding – filled with happiness and friends.