TSE 2013

I was happy to attend The Special Events Conference and Show last week, January 15-18, at McCormick Place, Chicago IL.  I signed up for the Full Education course and learned so much! Here are some of the classes I took: "Market Your Business Through Promo", Events Your Clients Will Pay For", "Creating Co-opertition, How working with your competition can boost your Wedding Business", "5 Super simple steps to a Profitable Business", and many more! It was definitely an experience and a big information overload for me, but super informative and glad that I signed up to go.

Day 3 of TSE, I saw Michael Cerbelli's Hot List 2013. He told all of the attendee's what trends will be hot for the upcoming year.  Some of his awesome ideas were, Xylobands, The Cupcake Pod Machine, Bronkar Lee, Casabubble, Check In Easy, and so much more! I will touch base on many of these things individually in another blog, but you will be amazed!

Next years TSE is at Nashville's Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. I hope to go and learn about all the trends for 2014!

Enjoy a few pictures we took at the Exhibit Hall, we met so many vendors that came from all over the world.

Please go to our Facebook page to view all 93 photos from the Special Events!

Latin America meets Chicago, Marilia and Daniel January 5th 2013

It was our first wedding of 2013 this past Saturday, January 5th!! Here is our story of Marilia and Daniel's wedding.

 Our first meeting was over the phone back in August, since Marilia and Daniel were planning their wedding from Iowa, we had an initial phone consult and met a couple months later.  Marilia and Daniel are from Latin America, and all of the guests that they were inviting were out of the country and out of state.  

They already had St. Mary of the Angels Church booked, http://www.sma-church.org/  Although the church is going through some renovations inside and out, the church is absolutely stunning, and we didn't let the construction ruin the ceremony!

The reception venue was also booked at the lovely Penninsula Hotel http://www.peninsula.com/Chicago/en/default.aspx  Since the wedding was in January this saved the couple a lot of money.( Reminder to couples that off season weddings will save you a lot of money!!)


Marilia and Daniel needed help with booking the rest of the vendors, so the search was on.


At the end these wonderful vendors were booked for the big day!

Photography:  http://annkam.com/

Videography: http://www.lexoriaweddingfilms.com/

Florist: http://www.flowerfirm.com/

Ceremony music: This was actually a friend of Marilia's brothers' who used to play with Michael Daly.

DJ: http://cagenmusic.com/

Hair and Make-up: the lovely Carla and Carrie from  http://appease2you.com/

Transportation: http://elitechicagolimo.com/

Favors:  http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/bem-casados-by-cristina-miami/website/bf4da0e06e22acc1.html

One of my favorite parts of this wedding was the small intimate guest list of 45, and the smaller tables used for the room that fit 5 people at each table.  Also, the unique Bem-Casados cookies used as favors which was a Latin American wedding tradition.


Congratulations to Marilia and Daniel again and thanks for letting us be a part of your special day!!

Please enjoy our non-professional pics, and can't wait to see the professional pics and post them for all of you to see!

2013 Wedding Trends

Wondering what the 2013 Wedding Trends are? Well look no further, www.bridaltweet.com  has listed the top 10 wedding trends for this year.  My top 2 favorite are lace, and Victorian luxury,flapper style, and art deco.

What are your favorite trends of 2013?  http://www.bridaltweet.com/page/2013-wedding-trends

Happy 2013!

Happy New Year to all our couples, past, present, and future!  We apologize for our lack of blogging last year, but since a new year we will start from scratch and be much better at blogging and updating pictures.  We have over 20 weddings booked so far for 2013, and we're so excited to start our season this weekend, January 5th at the beautiful Peninsula Hotel!

Kris and Ralph 4/28/12

Let's go back to April. I met Kris and Ralph roughly 2 months before their wedding. Planning their wedding from Nashville,Tennesse, they realized they wanted a Day of Coordinator to tie up loose ends, and just make sure that all their planning over the last year came together.  Well the details sure came together and their wedding was nothing but beautiful.

They decided to do a first look photo at the JW Marriott Downtown, a great place to take some photos!http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/chijw-jw-marriott-chicago/. Off they went to take photo's around the city before the ceremony. Their photographer Tasha Schalk, from Redwall Photography, http://www.redwallphotography.com/ knows the city really well, plus she's super AH-Mazing so the sneak peak photo's are Beautiful! 

The Ceremony was at the First Immanuel Lutheran Church, http://www.firstimmanuelluth.org/, and music played by an organist/pianist who has played for the Queen of England!! (Of course I forgot his name! )

The unique space that Kris and Ralph chose for their reception was the Aeree Loft, also known as Room 1520, http://www.room1520.com/aeree-loft.shtml. One of the reasons they picked this place is that the venue allows you to have your wedding reception go until 4a.m.! Which not a lot of venues let you do. They had a lot of out of town guests and wanted them to party and enjoy the evening with them for as long as possible.

Another thing Kris and Ralph wanted to do is feed their guests, and boy was there a lot of food! Ralph being Polish they used Polonia Catering, http://www.poloniacatering.com/ and had a family style meal. Pierogis, sauerkraut, Polish Sausage,  and more Oh My! Yum... is all I can say about that menu. Alcolholic Beverages were provided by Binny's, http://www.binnys.com/, and served by Corky's Catering bartending staff, http://www.corkyscatering.com/.

The color theme was yellow and gray. The yellow really popped and looked fantastic! Using white linens with a yellow pop of napkins, on the main tables, and yellow linens for the highboys during cocktail hour really made the yellow come out.  Floral centerpieces by Garland Flowers, http://www.garlandflowers.net/ made the room look great!

A few other things that were super great were using Molly's Cupcakes as the place card holders. Yum...  http://www.mollyscupcakes.com/chicago/home.php.  Another fun idea by the Bride was a Lemonade, Grapefruit, and Iced tea dispensers that were used for the cocktail hour.

Since the space is pretty much your own and there weren't many limitations, the Bride/Groom decided to make the entrance feel like an art gallery, so they blew up a bunch of old family photo's in black and white, and my assistant and I posted them on the wall, it was great, and got a lot of guests talking and loving the old photo's.

Lighting and drapery was done by the great MDM Entertainment, www.mdmentertainment.com  and a unique request by Kris and Ralph was to add a Ginger Rogers black and white film playing on one of the open walls in the background. The couple loves to dance, and loves old movies so this was a very unique addition to their wedding.

Sweets and more goodies. For the sweet table, there were a ton of sweets provided by Polonia Catering, as well as left over Molly's Cupcakes, Garrett Popcorn, homemade sweets by the Bride's mom, chocolates from Nashville, and Denver (where the Bride is originally from) and a huge Oak Mill Bakery Cake, that was stunning!  http://www.oakmillbakery.com/

Entertainment was nothing short of super as well. Ralph's dad is part of a Polka Band, so they had them play in between the DJ they had mixing some great music, DJ Mark Mikowski, from EMM Entertainment, http://emmcc.com/

Overall such a sweet couple, and a great wedding! Thanks again for letting us be a part of your special day!!! Congratulations again!

To view photo's from this day, please go to our Facebook Page, https://www.facebook.com/weddingsbykarolina  and  www.redwallphotography.com  for some sneak peak photos. Also, to view the video trailer go on the main page of our website and watch it. :) Produced by the fantastic Robert Cawthorne,  Wedding Films by Robert, http://weddingfilmsbyrobert.com/

Love this couple!  :)

Photo's by the great Tasha Schalk, www.redwallphotography.com 

Wedding Season is in full swing!

We apologize for being gone so long from our last posting back in April, but boy have we been busy! We've had 6 more weddings since just our last post, and have worked with some great couples, and vendors! We will continue our posts from all of our weddings. Thanks for following our blog, and being so patient!

Amanda and Bobby 3-10-12

I had met Amanda in August 2011 to discuss ideas to plan her wedding. She had some great ideas, including having a DJ Cabana at her reception. She wanted a night club/lounge kind of feel to her wedding, and boy did it come true!

 March 10, 2012 was a sunny, cool, and windy day, it was also the day Amanda and Bobby got married!  The Ceremony took place at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Huntley, http://www.stmaryhuntley.org/ ,what a beautiful, big church! A special touch to the wedding was that it was officiated by Amanda's Uncle Bernard. 

The beautiful pops of color down the aisle with fuschia and green pomanders, and bright altar arrangements were provided by the lovely Paige from Details in Bloom, http://detailsinbloomnyc.com/. She also brought out Amanda's earthy tones in her centerpieces of manzinita branches, and huge Pomander balls.

The beautiful reception location was at Venuti's, which I love and have worked at many times, http://www.venutisbanquets.com/.

Post ceremony pictures were taken at the Indian Lakes Resort, due to the high winds, we didn't want our lovely Bride/Groom to fly away! lol http://www.indianlakesresort.com/  This is also where the Bride/Groom had their guests hotel blocks.


Beatufiul pictures were provided by Furla Studio,  (below) and the Video was from Furla Vision(which you can view on the front page of this website) http://www.furlastudio.com/  http://furlavision.com/

Entertainment was provided by the great DJ Alan from Okyne Media Lab, http://okynemedialab.com/

The famous DJ Cabana was provided by my friends at MDM Entertainment, Mike, Patti, Nick, and all the hard workers not only did the Cabana, but the lighting, backdrop, and pillars. You can see a picture of this on our facebook page, or MDM's blog, http://www.mdmentertainment.com/

A few other special vendors to make the day special BBJ Linens, for all the linens, http://bbjlinen.com/

Prestige Wedding Decor for Chivari Chairs, http://www.prestigeweddingdecoration.com/About_us.html

The yummy lemon zest cake provided by The Baking Institute, http://bakinginstitute.com/

Last but not least, Exotic Coach limo for Transportation,  http://www.exoticcoach.com/

Thank you again Amanda and Bobby for letting me be a part of your special day! Love you!

Below please enjoy some of my favorite pictures of the special day!