Photo Shoot Challenge: Introducing Our First Sponsor

I am so thrilled to announce that Le'Penn Designs has come on board as the exclusive stationery and paper designer for the Photo Shoot Challenge. Owner Le'Trice Penn has been designing couture stationery for weddings and special events since 2007 and will be an integral part in bringing our selected design to life. Thank you, Le'Trice, for your enthusiasm and support of this fun project! And... for our lucky winner... Le'Penn Designs will be creating a set of custom thank you cards! But, as they say, you can't win if you don't play!

There is still time to enter the Challenge, and with each day, new sponsors are joining me to offer great incentives for our winner. I have extended the deadline to Friday, May 7th, so get to it and submit those interior inspiration shots! I have received some amazing options so far, but the winner might still be out there... Send your entry to lindsay[at]lindsaylandmanevents[dot]com. Details here.

Did you notice Le'Penn Designs' super-cool new ad on the blog? Do YOU want a super-cool ad on the blog? Become a sponsor of the Photo Shoot Challenge and it shall be yours!

Check back often for more sponsor and incentive announcements.

Good luck,

Invitation Heaven

I don't often write about vendor experiences, but I have been so thrilled with the design process surrounding this party invitation, that I would be remiss not to share the love with you. After designing the overall concept for a beautiful birthday celebration for a long-time client, I was on the hunt for a letterpress invitation that suited my vision without the need for creating a completely custom design. I had worked with Bella Figura a number of years ago for a wedding invitation and was very happy with the outcome, but it had been a while and I had forgotten the pleasure of truly personal, consistent and customized service from a boutique stationer. I was beyond pleasantly surprised with the entire experience as well as every item we received.

Proofs came quickly. Changes were made intuitively. Shipping was expedient. Product was perfect. Presentation was impeccable. Now this is how an invitation should arrive...



A beautiful box with a ribbon tied around it and a customized label.



The presentation when you open the box... coordinating box lining, wrapping and shred.



My favorite part! Envelope sealant!! Every company out there should include this!



The gorgeous letterpressed invitations: double thick, rounded corners, two inks, ooh la la! We've whited out our clients' names for their privacy - I didn't want you to think there was a printing error.

Little things go a long way in this business of details. That envelope sealant alone will have me going back to Bella Figura again and again. That and the stunning invitations, of course! I can't wait to receive the favor tags and menus to complete this suite of products for the late May fete. More photos to come soon, of course!

I'd love to hear about your favorite small boutique printers who do something similar. There are so many new ones out there, I lose track, so please share!

Photo Shoot Challenge: Update!

Thank you so much for all of the great support for the photo shoot challenge right out of the gate! It's going to be a blast! After conferring with some of my potential sponsors who are all talking about "sweetening the deal" for our winner, I wanted to start things off right by adding a little of my own sweetness. So, for the winner, in addition to the opportunity to participate in the actual photo shoot, I will also be awarding a 90 minute design consultation! If you are planning a wedding, we can work on your wedding decor. If you are planning a dinner party, we can plan a fabulous table setting. If you are re-designing your living space, we can talk about that too. And, if you are an aspiring designer, we can talk about breaking into the biz in a meaningful way. You provide the design challenge and we'll work together to find a spectacular solution.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates including the announcement of the sponsors. I am looking forward to receiving more submissions.

Cheers,

Photo shoot challenge

I have been itching to put together a photo shoot for some time now. I just adore the design process and, like all of my friends in this business, have always been plagued with more ideas than clients, so I've been thinking a lot about bringing a few of my designs to life simply for the sake of my portfolio and for some good old fashioned fun. My problem is that I have so many ideas for tabletop designs that, without some guidelines or stipulations, I don't know which to choose. With unlimited resources and time I could put together 50 different tabletop styles!

So, that got me thinking... Maybe instead of producing one of my own ideas, I'd raise my own bar a bit and reach out to you and produce one of your ideas. That's right - a challenge! As if designing a tabletop isn't enough fun for me, I'm going to make a contest out of it! Am I crazy? Perhaps. Do I have enough readers for this to work? I don't know. Will anybody enter? I can only hope. I was once told that the internet allows you to fall softly, so I guess I am willing to take a leap for the love of the game. If this post magically disappears into cyberspace, though, you'll know why.

In the hopes that I will be flooded with submissions, I figure I should provide some basic contest stipulations as well as some incentives. So, here it goes:

Introducing....

The-First-Ever-Totally-Experimental-And-Possibly-Crazy
Lindsay Landman Events Design Challenge

Overview: Readers and fans are invited to submit a photograph of a home interior. It can be from a magazine or blog (as long as you provide proper photo credit, please) or it can be from your own home or the home of someone you know. I will select one winning submission and design an event-appropriate tabletop inspired by the home interior for my photo shoot.

Rules: Each entrant may submit as many photos as he/she would like, but each photograph must be accompanied by an explanation of what you love about that interior space in 50 words or fewer. Kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms, bedrooms and any indoor spaces are welcome. Submissions should be sent to lindsay[at]lindsaylandmanevents.com with "photo shoot challenge" in the subject line.

Deadlines: Submissions will be accepted until Friday, May 7th. The winner will be announced on the blog on Monday, May 10th. The photo shoot date will be announced shortly, but will be no later than June 30th.

Incentive: The winner will be invited to the photo shoot to assist in styling the tabletop and the surrounding environment (travel, if required, will be the responsibility of the winner should he/she choose to attend).

Sponsors: Those interested in participating as a photo shoot sponsor (venue, photographer, rentals, etc.) will receive unabashed accolades and love on this blog as well as on all related social media campaigns. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll even give you a free ad on the blog! Email me at lindsay[at]lindsaylandmanevents.com.

Tip: I am obsessed with spelling, punctuation and grammar, thus if your photo description has a typo, you have no chance.

So.... Game on! Good luck to you - and good luck to me! Stay tuned for updates including, I hope, additional incentives and sponsor announcements.

Thanks for playing,

Ps. Just to give you an idea of how this may work, the bedroom photo below inspired the tabletop design (yet to be produced) shown here.

From the Vault: Amanda and Andrew

This spectacular wedding was in July of 2007 at the bride's family farm in Central Pennsylvania. It was a "destination wedding" of sorts because few of the 250 guests lived nearby and so we worked with the bride and groom to create an entire weekend of wedding events. The rehearsal dinner and Sunday brunch were, to date, some of the most amazing non-wedding events we've been a part of. Friday night was a lobster bake (I am sorry that I don't have a photo of the killer ceiling treatment we did with fishing nets, shells and hanging candles) and Sunday morning was a Jazz brunch, complete with a full Dixieland band and dancing!

But, this wedding was a stand-out for so many reasons. First and foremost, there couldn't be a more gorgeous setting: 200 acres of farm land with rolling hills as the backdrop to a sweet pond with a charming dock. My clients took enormous pride in the property and put in tons of work on the landscaping prior to the wedding to insure that the land we were using for the wedding was in pristine condition.

There were so many moving parts at this wedding, I can barely skim the surface, but suffice it to say, it took a village to facilitate this beautiful event. I was so fortunate to be able to bring with me some of my A-team vendors from New York and around Pennsylvania so I knew I had the support I needed to pull it off. The gods were also on my side that weekend and the weather was absolutely perfect - which is a good thing because the distance of more than a football field separated each of the tents for ceremony, cocktails, dinner and after party.

Just a few design notes: first, the design for the dinner tent came entirely from a dirty cocktail napkin the bride gave me at our first meeting. She said she loved the colors and the feel of the napkin - it just goes to show you that design inspiration can come from anywhere! Second, we used more different plates at this wedding than the last five of my weddings combined. The bride and her mom selected a different plate to match each course - and even different plates for each of the cocktail stations. I don't know if guests appreciated the thought that they put into it, but I certainly did! The caterer, on the other hand.... not so happy. Finally, as in all of my design projects, lighting was a key element for the decor at this wedding - but in some new ways. In addition to lighting the interior of the tents, we lit the treeline on the perimeter of the property to better define the site - it was just like a stunning frame on a beautiful picture - a great touch.



The rustic ceremony canopy positioned so that the lake would frame the wedding couple



The bridal party did photos on the adorable dock over the private lake



Escort cards were nestled in wheatgrass - out of the frame of this photo was the 4 foot tall tree dripping with strands of orchids



The tent before the sun set



The bridal party sat at a long feast table while the rest of the guests dined at square tables



The tent at night



After the sun set, this was the view from the dinner tent to the afterparty tent




The afterparty tent before the debauchery began

There were so many other fun details at this wedding, but hopefully just this little peek gives you a taste of what was possible in a big, empty field with a little imagination and a lot of heavy lifting!

Photos by Guy Cali

From the Vault: Ines and Augusto

Since I did weddings long before the days of the blog, I thought I'd pull a few "from the vault" to share with you some of my favorites... and I'll start with one with a good story!

Ines and Augusto were married in September of 2005 at a relatively unknown venue on Long Island - The Nassau County Museum of Art. This is a gorgeous site with a wonderful collection of paintings and sculpture, so for those of you who are New Yorkers, it is definitely a great place for a Saturday drive! In any case, the museum is set on oodles of beautifully manicured acres with spectacular gardens and lawns perfect for a wedding reception. The site is relatively complicated in terms of catering and logistics, so definitely the reason to select this venue is for the gorgeous setting, particularly the facade of the museum building itself. So, lo and behold, when we went for a quick, unscheduled pop-in just 2 days before the wedding, you can imagine the bride's face when we pulled up to the front of the museum covered from top to bottom with scaffolding! Not an inch of the spectacular brick building was visible behind the scaffolding and mesh for a "routine building cleaning." I was told that it had just gone up one day before and was planned to be up for 3 - 4 months! Hmmmm... wouldn't a phone call have been nice?? Well, phone call or no phone call, consoling hysterical Ines was one of the most heart wrenching, challenging moments of my career. Would her wedding have been "ruined" by the scaffolding? Certainly not. But, it would have been far from what she imagined, and that is tough to swallow just 48 hours before her wedding.

For those of you who know me, you know that I am a pretty laid-back, calm gal. But, on this fine day in September, I let that venue manager have it. I mean all-out, don't-mess-with-the-wedding-planner-I-will-kick-your-ass-if-you-make-my-bride-cry-for-one-more-minute HAVE IT. So, the end of my very long story is that first thing the next morning (Friday before the Saturday wedding), workmen ascended upon that scaffolding and took every last piece down. Yup, every last ugly, unseemly piece and all the orange mesh that went with it. I even had my mother-in-law, who lives nearby the museum, sit there and watch them to make sure they didn't cut any corners since I couldn't be there myself.

Anyway.... after all the yelling was done and the scaffolding was gone and the tears were dried, it was a spectacular wedding. It was a sunny, gorgeous day that lead to a warm, late summer night and this Peruvian couple had a sizzling, Latin-flavored celebration that reflected their heritage and their love.

As a side note, once the wedding was underway, I had made my peace with the venue and we even said that we could work together again. I haven't had the opportunity to do another wedding at the museum, but, armed with a slightly tougher contract, I would go back, since, despite the need for the yelling, what needed to get done, got done... and with one or two whole hours to spare!


How gorgeous is the front of the museum??



The escort table was set in the formal gardens where cocktail hour took place



The dining tent in daylight



The tent after sunset

Photos by Sharon Schuster

Hope you enjoy this and my other vault extractions to come!

Sara and Scott - A Sneak Peek

We created such a beautiful, romantic wedding for New York couple Sara and Scott a few weeks ago at Cipriani 42nd Street. Despite some of the worst rain ever (well, not as bad as the rain at Ali and Gene's wedding, but slightly worse than the rain at both Hillary and Miles' and Rushmi and Vikram's wedding) it was a spectacular event in one of the City's most glamorous venues. Though I don't have all of the photos back yet, I thought I'd "wet" your appetite with a little sneak peek of the room decor... see... that's my attempt at rain humor. Ha, ha?

More photos soon!
L

photo by Douglas Benedict