Saturday, October 14, 2006

Knot Market Party


I had the honor of being selected to plan this year’s market party for the Knot Magazine. The event was held at the newly renovated Pearl Stable on August 24th. Planning this event was an absolute blast! I had complete creative freedom and the results turned out beautifully.

I wanted a atmosphere that made the guests want to keep moving around so we chose food stations and the food was delicious. The blue Hawaiian martinis weren't bad either. The magazine chose the invites which were pink and brown, the same colors as last years event!!! So I decided to focus on other colors that are very “The Knot”and bring in the colors of the invite elsewhere. I chose aqua, bronze and spring tea linens for the event and had the floral in shades of pink. William Garza is an absolutely amazing florist. I work with him exclusively and this event says why. On a previous event in June at the Hotel Valencia we used these fabulous crystal trees and I knew that I wanted to use them again. William did such a wonderful job conveying my vision. I simply told him I wanted shades of pink flowers and to use the crystal trees. With that he pulled together a wonderful look that accented the rest of my event design.

I selected Steven Pizzini to do the lighting for the event. I knew that I wanted to have the Knot logo splashed on the walls of the Stable. He did a wonderful job.

I got all of my linens from the Linen Studio. Michelle Hartl has such luxurious fabrics!

I was having the hardest time trying to decide what I wanted to do with the upstairs area in the Stable. The weekend before the event it came to me. A lounge area!! I had to have lounge furniture up there!! With only 4 days before my event I was able to secure comfy lounge furniture from Marquee Events out of Austin. It was a huge success.

The stationary was printed by You've Got Paper. She did a great job on finding the exact color of paper that I wanted and printed my menus and programs.

Inside the Pearl Stable I feel you MUST have a band so I chose Night Fire! The lead singer Jennifer is simply the best. She has a great voice and the live music was a big hit.

I have to say the ONLY thing I would have liked to change was the temperature inside of the Stable. We had the cocktail hour in the foyer and the temperature was just about unbearable and I was wearing a strapless dress!! Once we opened the doors to the main room I was hopeful that it would feel better and it did but only for a bit. Once everyone got inside the temperature heated up again. I went upstairs to enjoy my lounge area and almost passed out from the heat! Also I know several guests mentioned that they did not really feel like dancing because of how warm it was in the space.

I sincerely hope that the Pearl Stable does something about this because our event was only about 125 guests. I can not imagine what it will feel like in there when they have the space maxed out.

Otherwise it the party was a success! I had a team of 6 associates from The French Connection there to make sure all went as planned.

I look forward to my next big event!