From the Publisher: Falling Back in Love With Weddings
It was a beautiful setting. The wedding was designed around a series of ponds, in a backyard encircled by huge old oak trees. Conversation was lively as guests enjoyed pre-wedding champagne cocktails and lovely steel guitar music. The ceremony ahead promised some very unique and heartfelt moments. Up to this point, it had been one of the most pleasurable weddings I had ever planned. I went in to let the bride know that all of the guests had arrived. She was in tears. Why? The red roses in her bouquet were not the shade of red that she had thought they’d be.
Seriously?
I had always been a “fairy tale” planner — I believed the wedding itself to be just a moment of celebration in a much grander fairy tale. But from that day forward, I vowed to myself that I was going to stick to high-strung CEOs in cushy ballrooms with a never-ending supply of hotel coffee and pastries. At least with a corporate event, you rarely ran into the kind of emotions that so often drive very personal, social events.
I’m sure many of you have had similar moments in your careers. Some of you stuck to your guns, like I did, and graciously referred adoring brides to colleagues. Others were tempted back every now and then by a corporate client’s daughter, only to be reminded why you swore off weddings in the first place.
But it’s a whole new world now, isn’t it? As we’ve asked you for your business success stories over the last few months, we’ve begun to see that many of you finding new business in this economic environment are those who have included social events in your repertoire.
In this issue, our story “Going Social” (see pg. 32) identifies the differences in corporate vs. social events and offers advice for making the leap, if you haven’t already done so.
And, social doesn’t mean just weddings. I love that Jill Lazar of Everything Events points out really fun, innovative ways you can jump into the social market.
I also find as I get a little older and perhaps a little wiser that helping people celebrate great moments in their life sounds appealing to me again. Perhaps, after all of those years of catering to high-profile entertainers and trying to get a CEO to correctly pronounce an employee’s last name, I might be better equipped to handle a bride’s emotions.
It is my hope that as our economy recovers and the corporate event business returns, we’ve all learned a few lessons from the still-busy social event market. At the end of the day, events are a celebration of life. Weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries and bar mitzvahs are all evidence of that. We should help our clients celebrate, regardless of whether they are a corporate or social client. And, to keep our own businesses celebrating, we should be diversified into both markets.
About the author: Meredith Mcllmoyle
Meredith McIlmoyle is the publisher of Event Solutions magazine and leads the Event Solutions team in coordination of the Event Solutions Conference & Tradeshow.
She brings more than 15 years experience managing relationships with partners and clients across a broad spectrum of the event industry. She joined Event Solutions in January 2001, and has since excelled in a number of roles including magazine sales, tradeshow sales, sales manager, and conference director before assuming the lead role as publisher.
Her roots in the events industry run deep, beginning in her college student days, planning alumni, sports and fundraising events with the Office of Special Events at Arizona State University, from which she earned a B.A. in Journalism.
After earning her degree, she moved on to work for multiple event services and production companies, including TBA Global, Image Entertainment Productions and Ultimate Events. Meredith’s expertise in new business development grew through experience in every aspect of events, including: entertainment, weddings and social affairs, corporate events, meetings, conferences, plus outdoor fairs and festivals.
Meredith is an avowed outdoor junkie and constant volunteer, working as a Certified Marine Naturalist, volunteering for an assistance dog program, participating on a committee for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, and walking annually in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day event. She lives in Anacortes, Wash., with husband Sean, son Brayden and their golden retriever, Blaze.
You can contact Meredith via e-mail or by calling at 612-238-7557.