5 Top Styling & Planning Tips ahead of the Festive Season

Planning an event or celebration over the festive season? Our Creative Designer & Lead Event Stylist Jen, has put together her Top 5 Styling & Planning Tips. Perfect timing as we head into holiday season!

We recently celebrated Jen’s Baby Shower & Gender Reveal, using several local vendors & suppliers. We will use this set up as an example of how to create the perfect space for your next event.

Whether it’s an intimate dinner for 10 of your friends or a large wedding reception of 100, here are some great tips that are practical and may seem like a small element to include, but can make a world of difference for your guests’ experience.

Tip One: ‘know Your Numbers’

Your guest numbers can depict your choice in a lot of things, how large the space you need as well as how large your budget needs to be!

It can be hard in this day and age to get definite RSVP’s from people, but friendly reminders ahead of your big day can prompt people to let you know if they’re coming along.

Once you have an idea on numbers you can then start canvasing venue locations that will fit the number of guests, as well as, order or start planning the amount of catering and refreshments you will need.

Tip Two: ‘Choose Your Venue & Use of Space’

Especially in these later months of the year in North Queensland we start to battle the weather with both extreme heat or the chances of rain being a very real option.

Your venue space will have to ensure that it is cool, be it by air conditioning or by way of access to a cool breeze and always have a back-up plan in case rain decides to show up on your special day.

A ‘blank canvas’ is always fun to work with, loads of local venues have function rooms or spaces (be it both inside or outside), that you can essentially ‘clear’ and start filling from scratch with the floorplan design that you like!

Other things to keep in mind, does the venue / location have access to catering, or allow catering onsite? Does it have an available operational bar on site? Are the bathrooms accessible? Remember if you have any guests who have special needs, like wheelchair access – this can change your design to ensure they have plenty of space to get around and no stairs or steps to inhibit their access.

For our recent baby shower we booked in with local Café Bambinos and their newly renovated space on Miles Street, it provided a beautiful neutral palette for us to add too, air conditioning, in house catering and access to bathrooms – not to mention, incredible service!

Tip Three: ‘Make a Statement with a Few Key Pieces’

Sometimes with event settings ‘less is more’, you only need a few key pieces of statement features to really make your event shine! For example, base your design around 2 or 3 key areas, a backdrop that triples as a photo area, cake area and backdrop to you event space is a great way to have a focal point. Signage is always a great statement and personalises the event, as well as gives your guests another photo opportunity, and then you could tie in the signage and background with some fresh florals (flowers are always the perfect finishing touch to any event setting). If it is an evening event one of your features could be the lighting, lighting always helps create a spectacle and ambiance in one.

Tip Four: ‘Creative Styling Hacks’

Textures, lighting, Tones… all of these (AND MUCH MORE) are factored in when we start the design process. For us you can’t beat straight symmetrical lines, for example making sure your dining tables are centred or evenly spread apart, yes… we even go as far as measuring the width between each table at some of our settings. If there is a blank wall in the venue, this is always a good backdrop for any setting, then making sure you are centred or your furniture is evenly spread to the blank wall.

Try not if possible, to ‘block’ anything out, we want our guests to visually see all of the amazing sections or stations that you have planned for them!

Consider logistics, think about the flow of your event and how naturally your guests will walk in and move around the space, this will help with placement of your sections, for example. When your guests enter most times, they will have a gift or card, so ensure that there is an area near the entry for them to place these down.

Décor! (The fun part)... Our best tip for décor is to consider textures, lighting and tones, you want everything to not necessarily ‘match’ with each other but to complement each other. If you have all the décor, florals, linen and balloons all in the exact same colour you run the risk of things feeling muted – of course – there are some themes and occasions where this is the ‘look’ you are going for. But for us, we like to ensure each shade of colour compliments and works with the next. If you look closely at our settings, you will find everything is done with purpose, you will see a pop of colour in one section that will compliment a pop of colour right in the back where your eye will naturally flow through the area.

For the recent baby shower, it was a neutral palette we wanted to achieve so we went with the base line of ‘sand’ which then grew to encompass real shells throughout the setting, as they are found on the ‘sand’ and have a beautiful patterned and neutral tone to them. We also offset the neutral tones to include a burnt orange to break things up and provide a raw hard element so the overall setting didn’t feel too soft.

I guess that’s why you pay us the ‘big bucks’ as this is our speciality, they are skills both fiercely studied and learnt over time, but if you can take away a few helpful hints for your own settings, you might find that your event flows a whole lot better!

Tip Five: ‘Timeline of Events’

If you are anything like us, you strive on feeling prepared & organised… over the years even in our personal event bookings, the celebration tends to flow better if you know (even a rough forecast) timeline of events on how your event is going to run, including all of the items / things you want the guests to do!

Even simple things like, music / live band starts, guests arriving, refreshments available, first round of catering to come out, hens party / birthday / baby shower games, cut cutting, speeches, dancing, etc.

Mapping out the day really helps to have a flow on the day and for you to feel organised. This can also help if any vendors that you have booked ask what time their services are needed.

A 'timeline of events' is an extra service that we provide for our Wedding and Corporate Clients.

We hope you have enjoyed some helpful hints and tips towards your next event over the festive season, we wish you a wonderful few months celebrating as we prepare to welcome our newest bundle of joy into the world.