Event Tip: Hire a Planner

In the last tip from the Oprah article, “Cutting Costs with Class,” we explain why hiring a wedding planner saves you money.

Hire a wedding planner! It sounds counterintuitive, but you’ll save money because of the special relationships that the wedding planner has cultivated.

So how does paying a planner save you money?  There are a variety of ways, but I’ll narrow it down to a few:

• We keep you on budget.  Many brides who don’t hire a planner go over budget.  However, a planner will guide you to the best choices to keep you at or under budget.  For a recent event I planned, my direction saved my client 20% from their original budget.
• We help you navigate policies and contracts so you are sure to not miss any hidden fees.  Tables. Chairs. Linens. Set-up fees. Clean-up fees. Napkins. Chair sashes. Labor. Sales tax. Taxable service charge or non-taxable gratuity? Extra fees because you stayed to long?  Security. Insurance.  The list goes on and on and can easily blow out your budget if it’s hidden.  Hiring a planner mitigates this problem.
• You’ll be able to take advantage of the special, long-term relationships that we’ve cultivated.  Because weddings are “one-off” events, the individual bride doesn’t have the same repeat business incentive that a planner does.  As an example, one of my vendors immediately gives me the best possible deal because I do a lot of business with them.  We’ve taken the time to build the relationships that offer the best service for the money.  Use it to your advantage. 

These are just a few of the ways that hiring a planner saves you money.  We also save you significant amounts of time and stress – but that is for another post!

 

Food Geek Friday: Super Bowl Treats

Football is about to culminate into a full-blown frenzy this weekend with the Super Bowl.  In honor of this, I’m going to share some great recipes with you that take a fresh spin on the standard fare.  One is relatively healthy, one not so much.  And of course, it wouldn’t be one of my parties without an awesome specialty cocktail.

 

Smoked Turkey and Bean Nachos

I found this recipe on the Serious Eats website - one of my favorite foodie sites.  That link will take you to the original recipe and alternatives.  I like this because it’s a healthier alternative to your usual nachos without feeling like it.

Ingredients

• 1 cup salsa
• 1 cup water
• 1 smoked turkey wing (about 12 ounces)
• 1 1/2 cups cooked black beans (or 1 15-ounce can)
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 bag tortilla chips
• 2 tablespoons chopped chives
• Sour cream

Directions

1. Combine the salsa, water, turkey wing and beans in a wide, shallow saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

2. Remove the turkey wing and let it cool slightly. Pull the meat from the skin and bone and chop or shred it. Return the meat to the salsa mixture and discard the skin and bones.

3. Transfer the mixture to an oven-proof bowl and top with cheese. Set the bowl under the broiler (or in a preheated 400° F oven) to melt the cheese on top.

4. Serve the smoked turkey and bean mixture with the tortilla chips for scooping and sour cream and chives on the side.

 

Peanut Chicken Skewers with Chili Mayonnaise

I got this recipe from Real Simple magazine.    I’ve been a fan of this magazine since it was first released.  They always have great recipes, many that are super-simple to pull of.   I like this recipe as a twist to the usual hot wing.  Not as messy, and you still get the spice from the mayo. 

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup salted roasted peanuts,finely chopped
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 8-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut crosswise into 24 thin strips
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 to 2 teaspoons Asian chili-garlic sauce
• 24 6-inch bamboo skewers

Directions

1. On a large plate, combine the peanuts, bread crumbs, cilantro, and ½ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Thread each strip of chicken onto a skewer and coat with the peanut mixture, pressing gently to help it adhere.
2. In batches, heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat and cook the skewers until golden, 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Transfer to a plate as they are cooked and add more oil to the skillet as necessary.
3. In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise and chili-garlic sauce. Serve with the chicken.

 

Bourbon Slushy

I love serving a specialty cocktail at an event.  It adds a special extra little something that you just don’t get without it.  This recipe comes from Divine Caroline, which is a great resource for all sorts of things.  It’s targeted to women, but I think there are things on there that men would like too.  This is a fun, adult twist on the average slushy.  

• 7 cups water
• 3 cups bourbon whiskey
• 12 oz frozen lemonade concentrate
• 12 oz frozen orange juice concentrate
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 cups strong black tea

Mix all ingredients a day ahead inside large Tupperware container and place in freezer. When ready to serve, take out of freezer and scrape with a fork.  Scoop shaved ice into glass and serve. 

What are you serving at your Super Bowl party?

 

Event Tip: Let Them Eat Cake

Before the holidays, we had a series expanding upon the budget tips featured in a story on Oprah.com.  We weren’t quite finished with it when we launched into our Daily Holiday Tip series.  I’ll now continue with our Oprah series.

Order the same amount of the bride and groom’s cake and only order about 75 percent of the expected guest attendance. Not everyone that RSVP’s shows up and not everyone eats cake.

I realize that having both the bride and groom’s cake isn’t a tradition in all parts of the country, but it is pretty standard in the South.  Often, the bride’s cake is big and elaborate while the groom’s cake is about half to a third of the size.  However, what happens is everyone takes a piece of both and you are left with a LOT of leftover bridal cake.   Leftover cake equals wasted money so order about the same amount of each. 

Also, order enough for about 75% of the expected attendance.  Not everyone that RSVP’s comes to the party and not everyone eats cake.  I recommend this to all of my brides and I have never run out of cake.  I’ve come close, but that’s what you want when you’re watching your budget. 

An extra cake tip – do NOT order the same flavor for both cakes.  If you do, you’re essentially ordering food for twice as many people as you’ll have attend.  I once thought this was obvious until one of my clients did it.  We ended up with enough amaretto cake for 3 times as many people as attended and I sent huge slabs of cake home with guests, family and all of my staff members.  I even took some up to my favorite local bar to share with the bartenders and their customers!

What are your favorite cake tips?

 

Thoughts on Customer Service

This is something I’ve wanted to write about for a while, but have held back.  However, I’ve recently experienced and heard others discuss this so often that it’s time to discuss it.  

Poor customer service makes me very, very angry.  Unfortunately, this seems to be a growing trend.  Now, I don’t mean the occasional mis-step because that happens.  I’m talking about lazy, apathetic service from people who obviously don’t care and have no problem showing it.  Cashiers that tell you how much they hate their job while they’re checking out your groceries.  Bartenders that tell you how much they can’t wait to go home when they take your drink order.  Restaurant servers that would make you swear you were invisible because they’ve completely ignored you. 

This reflects true for the events industry as well and it’s not just me that’s experienced it.  I hear the stories all the time from current and potential clients.  I’ve had potential clients profusely thank me for just returning their phone call because nobody else did.  Every year at Christmas, an aunt that tells me the catering guffaws from their company Christmas party.   Quite frankly, the stories I could tell along with all the ones that I’ve heard could take up its own blog. 

But there’s no need to dwell on that.

Luckily, there are still businesses out there that “get it” and staff that provide outstanding, V.I.P. level service.  Just the other day a restaurant ignored me so I left for another one.  At the second restaurant, they went so far as to create a special dish just for me because what I wanted was no longer on the menu.   I didn’t ask them to do this.  They offered it immediately and joyfully. 

When you are researching, meeting and deciding who to hire for your event, how they treat you in the beginning reflects upon how they will treat you the entire time you work together.  The beginning is the courting period, when a vendor earns your business.  If they don’t treat you well when they want your business, how do you think they’ll treat you after they have your money? Events are personal and can become stressful.  There is no need to exasperate that with a vendor that doesn’t give you the service your money deserves.   This is called the ”hospitality industry” for a reason!  You should be excited to give someone your money because you trust that they will deliver a fantastic service/product for you.  Here at Melinda Massie Events we hold excellent, personal customer service as a top priority and my promise to you is that you will always feel appreciated and never ignored.  If not, I will do everything in my power to make it right.

 

Food Geek Friday: Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

At the beginning of a new year, many people try to eat healthier.  This is a really fantastic recipe I discovered a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been having it a couple of breakfasts a week ever since.   If you’re throwing a brunch event, this would be a great dish to serve.

(Full disclosure: I can’t find the specific recipe I originally saw, so I can link back to it.  There are many others out there but they aren’t quite the same.  I don’t know specific measurements, so just go be adventurous with it!)

Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

Serves 1

• 1 serving cooked oatmeal
• 1 scoop of canned pumpkin
• splash of milk until consistency you like
• dash of pumpkin pie spice to taste
• drizzle of maple syrup to taste (the original recipe called for brown sugar, but I prefer the maple)

Cook your oatmeal.  Once oatmeal is done, add in remainder of ingredients and heat.  If you’d like a little crunch, you can always add some toasted nuts on top.  Enjoy!

 

Crisis Averted – Hey Mr. DJ

In my last post, I discussed the importance of crisis management on the part of a good wedding planner.  Today, I’ll begin our occasional series - ”Crisis Averted” – with a story of a great DJ that had an unfortunate accident at a venue I was working for.

Everything started according to plan.  All of the vendors for my wedding reception arrived on time, everything was set and we were good to go.  I’d been notified that the ceremony was over and the guests were on their way.  I cue DJ to start music and we wait. 

Guests arrive and are getting acquainted when we suddenly lose music. I look over and the DJ seems panicked.  I go to him to see what’s going on and he doesn’t know.  At first, he thinks it’s a problem with the laptop.  I call the venue’s A/V guru and we try to resolve the issue by phone.   We can’t because we discover that it’s not the laptop – the speakers blew out. 

My wonderful A/V guru leaves the dinner he’s attending to come fix my problem, which ends up being to plug into the house system.  This venue had a policy of not allowing outside sources to plug into the house system.  However, when it came down to breaking work policy for a reprimand or breaking a bride’s heart and tears, I’m biting a bullet and keeping my bride happy. 

We get the DJ hooked up and the reception is back on its perfect track.  The wedding party arrives mere moments later.  The DJ and I go outside to greet the party and arrange their grand entrance.  The bride looks at me and asks, “How is it in there?”

“Perfection now.  You wouldn’t even believe it,” I reply.

The DJ looks at me as though he wants to say something about what just happened and I stop him by asking, “Isn’t it perfect in there?”

“Yes,” he replies. “Absolutely!”

The rest of the reception went off without a hitch. 

A week or so later, the bride calls to thank me for everything and asked how it went on my end. “It was perfect,” I tell her.  “You were a pleasure to work with.”

“I know what happened,” she says.

“Know what?”

“I know about the DJ.”

“You do?  Crap.  I didn’t want you to know.”

My bride worked with the DJ’s wife and the next week at work, the wife spilled the beans.  My bride had absolutely no idea and couldn’t believe that I never told her about it.  She asked if I was ever going to tell her about it. 

“Of course not.  Why would I do a silly thing like that?”

We had a good laugh and she then thanked me for fixing his problem and in turn saving the reception.

 

What to Look for in an Event/Wedding Planner

First – Happy New Year and thank you for your patience while I’ve been on hiatus from regular posts to the blog.  We will now resume our usual programming.

Recently, I’ve seen a lot on the web about traits of event planners - what to look for, what to ask, etc.  “Canned” questions are a helpful resource, but don’t always give you what you really need to know.  Obviously, you want skill and experience.  However, when you’re in a saturated market of talented professionals how do you choose?  I think the following two factors will help you make your decision – personality and crisis management skills. 

(Granted, yes, I’m over-simplifying a bit, but these two things can significantly assist you in making your decision.)

Personality - You will be spending a LOT of time with your planner.  You should be comfortable around them and enjoy working with them.  Event planning, while a lot of work, is supposed to be fun.  If you and your planner have a personality conflict, this will be a really uncomfortable process for the both of you.  This is especially true if you’re planning your wedding.  A wedding is major and also extraordinarily personal.  The last thing you want is to dread talking with your planner when you need to be able to tell them anything.  Choose a planner whose personality you like and work well with.  This will go a loooong way to helping you have a fun and stress-free experience while you’re planning your event.

Crisis Management -  This one is HUGE.  The last thing you want on your event day is a major catastrophe and a planner that can’t cope.  I guarantee you that every single planner worth their salt has had something go hideously wrong.  Even the most perfect planning can go awry.  A good planner will handle it swiftly and with grace, and hopefully without the guests or client finding out.  When I get a “canned” question list from a  potential client, I always advise that they add “What has gone wrong in the past? How did you fix it and did the client find out?”  

A client once asked me the results of the celebrity event I put together the week before hers.  I gave her my usual response, “Fabulous.”  She asks me, “Have you ever had anything go wrong?”  I explain that of course I have.  Looking at law of averages, when you’ve planned hundreds of events something will go awry.  At the end of her event, she asked me, “How was everything?”  I told her fabulous.  She then asked if I would lie to her if something went wrong.  “Well,” I replied, “Do you think everything was fabulous?”  She said yes and I told her that was all that mattered.  Was everything perfect for her event?  No.  But we were able to make swift alterations so that nobody knew. 

Personally, I think that crisis management is so important that in the upcoming weeks, I’ll be writing a new series on the blog - “Crisis Averted.”  Some of the things that go wrong won’t be full blown ”crises” but things that would have been noticed and left unpleasant memories with the guests.  This won’t be to sensationalize things that have gone wrong but is to demonstrate that no event is perfect and that’s perfectly ok, and also the importance of having an experienced planner on your side to fix things for you.

So remember, when interviewing event/wedding planners – make sure their personality is a good fit with yours and that the planner can handle problems that crop up with grace and style.  

What do you look for in a planner?  Leave your answers in the comment section below.

 

Introducing Melinda Massie Organizing!

We got soooo many wonderful ideas from all the fans of I Wear Your Shirt!  Thank you so much.  What many of you suggested really confirmed what I was already thinking about - stick with the name brand already established and expand from it instead of trying to create an entire new brand.  So now, the professional organizing division will be known as Melinda Massie Organizing!

If you need any help getting things into order or have a clutter situation that’s become out of control, let us know!  We’re here to make it effortlessly chic and functional for you!

 

Welcome IWYS Fans and a Naming Contest!

Happy New Year and thanks for stopping by! 

I’m the Melinda of Melinda Massie Events.  My event planning  career started in 1995 when a friend needed help with a benefit rock show.  Since then, I’ve planned everything from business meetings, company picnics, cocktail parties and dinners to weddings, receptions and rehearsal dinners.  Size ranges from intimate gatherings of 20 people in someone’s home to 3,000 people with a Cirque de Soleil style performance.  If you’ve got an event need, I can handle it.  I have a simple, yet effortlessly striking aesthetic that gives you an event that is memorable without overshadowing the occasion being celebrated.  My meticulous attention to detail and crazy-organization skills make sure nothing is missed and when things go wrong (as they can easily do) a back-up solution is fast at hand. 

It was my knack for effortless organization that got me into event planning.  When clients started inquiring about putting these skills to use in other areas of their life, I knew it was time to start a second business that we are officially announcing TODAY!!!  We’re in soft open and have taken some clients already.  You can catch a couple of before and after pictures here.  As things progress, we’ll update that page and then move the company to its own site. 

So here’s where I need your help.  This new company needs a great name.  It’s based on the same tenants as my event company – effortlessly chic organizational systems that meet the needs of the client.  My event company slogan is “Because Less Than Fabulous is Just Unacceptable” and the new professional organizing company will be equally as fabulous. 

If your suggestion wins and you are within 45 miles of downtown Fort Worth, Texas, you will receive 2 hours of organizational time.  If you are outside of the range, then we’ll do phone consultations.

Also, if you or someone you know is recently engaged then please direct them to my Recently Engaged page on my website where you can sign up for your free report, “Congratulations, You’re Engaged! Now What?”  This report tells you what you can do in the beginning of your engagement to make the wedding planning process easier.

Thanks for your name suggestions in advance and have a FABULOUS day!

 

Food Geek Friday: Spicy Black-Eyed Peas

Happy New Year!!!  In Southern tradition, it’s good luck to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day.  For the longest time, I did it begrudgingly until my Mom found a spicy black-eyed pea soup recipe.  It’s always been easy to get me to eat spicy foods. 

Over the years, Mom has tweaked the recipe so that it’s more spicy black-eye peas and less soup.  She does it the old-fashioned way using dried black-eyed peas, soaking and cooking them over night.  It is really fantastic…and really time-consuming.  I’ve altered the recipe into an easier, less time-consuming version in the event that you’re feeling the effects of last night’s champagne.

Spicy Black Eyed Peas

• 1 can black-eyed peas
• 1 can Rotel
• bacon

Chop and cook the bacon, but just until done, not too crispy.  Add into a pot with black-eyed peas and Rotel.  Cook until done.   If you don’t want it too soupy, then drain some of the liquids from the black-eyed peas and Rotel.  If you need a little extra kick, add in some fresh chopped jalapeno.

Wishing you health, happiness and everything you desire.  May 2010 be your most FABULOUS year yet!!