Event Planning Tips, From the Experts
How to Find Event Planning Inspiration
Regina Young is the owner and creative director of Meant2Be events, a top Arizona wedding planning firm that manages 30-40 weddings a year. In this post, Regina gives us some expert tips on how to find event and wedding inspiration!
I have been designing & coordinating weddings for more than a decade. So I have years of writing about, dreaming about, and scheming about weddings—they still don’t get old to me! As a wedding planner, even if you don’t advertise design services, you will be asked what the trends are, what you have seen, and what new exciting ideas you have for your client’s wedding.
For both the inexperienced and the experienced this can be a challenge!
If you are a student with QC reading this, chances are quite strong that you are in the beginning of your career, maybe even are coming up to the first wedding to organize. And if not, I’m sure you’re looking for new wedding inspiration. In this technology age, inspiration is at our fingertips, but like all new things, you might need a little nudge in the right direction.
Keeping up with design trends
But where to begin? I am going to let you in on the big DESIGNER SECRET to stay one step ahead of the trend, to predict what’s coming, and to be an innovator in your community! It’s a million dollar secret, trust me.
Ready for it? You’ll need to know the magic word: PANTONE.
To know Pantone is to know everything. What is Pantone and how does it influence the wedding sector? The website says it all, “The Pantone Color Institute’s color reports and color forecasts provide a global point of view on the movement of color across current and future seasons.”
Every year the PANTONE color institute puts out a report of what will be the color of the year. 2017 is Greenery, 2016 was a rare year with 2 colors: Rose Quartz & Serenity (think pastel pink and blue), 2015 was Marsala…and so on.
The general public doesn’t follow Pantone trends, but designers do! That’s why it’s important to know the flow of how people come to love a color madly for weddings, but typically only for a season or two.
Follow it through
First, you’ll see a color on runway. But really who wears stuff on the runway? No one. Well, no one most of us know. But again, designers are looking for trends. When a fabric company sees a hot thing coming all of a sudden the world is full of that fabric…and that’s when you see it in home decor & furnishings—pillows, drapes, and accessories.
Last, now that all the high-end retailers are carrying it in clothing and home goods, the ready-to-wear market wants it and slowly but surely it ends up at your local Target or value retailer. Now every girl wants what she loves to wear to be part of the signature of her wedding day! Tada- a new wedding trend is born!
Stay ahead of the game
Did you follow that? Pantone says here’s what’s hot. High end fashion to High end interiors to Value fashion, and on to weddings and value interiors. That process takes about one and a half to two years!
So look at Pantone’s color 2 years ago…Marsala (like a wine red). Easily I can say now in 2017, about 80% of my clients are looking at wine reds to compliment their day. But guess who’s been rocking Marsala since the day it was announced? This girl! I have tons of photos that everyone is dying to publish because I have what’s popular ALREADY! It just took everyone else two years to catch on.
And that my friends, is the secret. You can thank me later.
So my biggest tip for you is to stop looking at Pinterest or wedding magazines for wedding inspiration. If it’s up, it’s been done. Don’t be just another copycat of the tired and boring. Get subscriptions to at least 5 interior design magazines. Everything you see is one hot minute away from ready to wear and another six months to a year before your brides are begging for it!
Ready to create your own unique event designs? Check out what you’ll learn as a wedding planning student!
