BIG NEWS

Okay, so I have been horrible about keeping up but in July I did a wedding at the Historic Post Office here in Havre.  I've posted about it, but haven't finished the blog about it yet.  Well after that wedding, I decided to speak with the owner about hiring  For You, By Me Events to be the events manager.  Both owners (husband and wife) have full time jobs, so it was a little stressful for them to be needed for the event and needing to be at work.
Well, today we officially signed the contract!!! I'll be working on developing their marketing and helping them get all the paperwork in order that they may be missing.  Neither has worked events or owned an event space before, so I get to help set it up!! (Insert excited noises and fireworks!!) They have had a few events already, which helped them see different areas that needed to be worked on and since I was hired by the bride at their first wedding, I was able to get a little of the client insight.  I will also be taking over the scheduling of events and making sure the client has a pleasant experience.  They already have a few weddings booked!!! This doesn't mean I'll stop with event planning but it means I have a space to use but can be hired for office site events, and I'll have more of an office space to go to!! The great thing is that I can still work from home a lot so that I don't miss out on watching all the milestones with the kids.  There are still things that I need to set up and things that need to get done, but I just had to share since we officially signed the contract today!!!

For those of you not in Havre, here are the few pictures I have from the wedding to give you an idea of the space.  The decorations were the bride and groom's for the most part but it at least gives an idea of the space.  Right now, the refer to the larger space at the mail sorting room because that is what is was.  I'm not sure I like that name because I think it can be confusing for new clients.  The front space where this bride and groom held their ceremony will remain the "foyer" but any ideas on what to call/name the backroom would be welcomed. :)  Hopefully after I get some paperwork done and a few things set up, I'll be able to post more and post some better photos.  So excited!! Now off to pick up kiddos!

Foyer

End of foyer...arbor was brides.

mail sorting room

Back in Action After New Baby

Hello and welcome back!?! It has been quite a while since I was last able to post about anything.  I backed off a bit as it got closer to my due date, then pretty much put everything else on hold when baby number 2 was born.  Thomas Oliver is about 10 weeks old now, so it is time to pick things back up.

Let’s see, where to start.  Let’s do the family update first.  Eli and I are going great.  Tired and just about fully adjusted to having a newborn and active 2 year old, but so far so good.  Isaac took a few weeks to warm up to Thomas, but now he can’t go to bed unless he has given Thomas a kiss.  He even will give him kisses when Thomas is upset and I ask him to help kiss Thomas’s owies.  He has held Thomas a few times, but tends to ask to hold him when Thomas is eating so it doesn't always work out.    

Thomas gets pretty gassy most days, so it makes it difficult to put him down to get things done.  If he doesn't have gas, he is a good baby.  He has been holding his head up for quite a while now and does pretty good.  I've had him sitting on my lap or stomach (when laying on the couch) and he holds my thumbs to help him sit up.  He is pretty strong and is already showing signs that he is wanting to sit up on his own.  He will play for a bit with his play gym and stays awake quite a bit during the day.  He used to sleep pretty hard, but doesn't sleep as hard during the day anymore.  I can live with that cause he still sleeps harder during naps than Isaac does and he is usually in bed by 10 PM and doesn't usually get up until 7 AM.  It makes it so that I can get a good night’s sleep, unless something else wakes me up.

Isaac has been doing pretty good and has been learning to play on his own and to listen better the first time, especially since he has to share attention with Thomas.  He got a sty on his eye in November.  We just left it alone until December when it started getting bigger.  It has turned pretty red and will have white spots every so often, but has started to get smaller in size (finally!!).  We tried to put heat on it since that is what the eye doctor suggested when we asked about it (without actually trying to make Isaac sit through an appointment).  Isaac was fine with the heat, but didn't like his eye being covered so we had to hold him down while he was screaming.  It didn't last long.  No one was a fan of that, so when a friend said he had one for about 3 months before it just went away without him applying heat religiously we decided that would be our method.  The sty doesn't seem to bother Isaac and we just think it looks like he got hurt or something.  Isaac has also been potty training.  He has good days and bad days but seems to like being about to wear big boy underwear, unless he is sleepy.  He is getting better all the time, and though it may take a while, I’m sure he’ll have it down pretty good before we know it.  The true test will be the travel we have coming up.   Not only do we have long car rides in March, but we also have a plane ride.  It will also be interesting to see how he does when he is allowed to be outside more during the day.  It hasn't been warm enough yet, so we haven’t been able to see how he does with potty training when we are outside.

Well, now that we are updated on family, let’s turned to the business.  On Saturday I attended the Havre Bridal Fair.  It was my first business activity since about a month before Thomas was born.  There was a great turn out and I’m excited to hear from the brides who were interested.  A new event venue also opened this year in Havre, so I was able to meet the owners.  I’m hoping to meet up with them soon and take a tour of the space.  We were able to talk a bit at the fair and it sounds like we will be able to work together quite a bit and help both of our businesses grow.  We also see some of the same areas in which Havre is lacking, so we are hoping that once we are a little more established, we can fill in the holes.  I’m sure once March comes to a close and my big travels are done (good thing I planned them so early in the year), I’ll be pretty busy gathering information for brides and preparing for wedding season.  Hopefully I’ll be able to fit in some other events between the planning of weddings. 

Now that we are a little up-to-date on the happenings in the Yost house as well as in the For You, By Me Events business it is question time.  I am refilling my emergency kit.  It is typically needed at weddings, but I do take mine to all events that I plan.  At this point I don’t have any that I sell, but here are my questions.  Number 1: What are some of the items that you have needed at an event or when preparing for an event that you didn't have? Number 2: Any suggestions on what I should include in my kit that you think I might forget about? Number 3: If you were the bride (or the person setting up an event), would you purchase an emergency kit, if I had a mini-version available?  I wouldn't make it as big or include some of the items I use in the kit since a few are items that are standard to take with you when you are setting up an event, but I would be willing to put together a mini-version if people would be interested.

I can’t wait to get started on events now that the little one is old enough to go to daycare with his big brother.

MSU-Northern Foundation Ball

Hello, it has been quite a while.  I was looking at my posts last night and realized how long it had actually been.  I have been pretty busy preparing the decorations for the MSU-Northern Foundation Ball and time has been getting away from me pretty easily.  I thought I was doing pretty well, then the whole family got sick.  Isaac showed signs first but he also gets a few cold symptoms when he is teething.  Then when Eli and I got sick and Isaac wasn't wanting to play at all, things didn't go well in our house.  We were all pitiful and grumpy, Isaac started getting better first which sucked! I got a little worse when he was getting better so trying to keep him busy and happy wasn't easy.  He liked when I would read to him but my throat was hurting so it was hard to speak.  He would want me to play and I'd be achy and low on energy.  Luckily, I'm starting to get better.  Still a little stuffy and getting pressure headaches (and caffine headaches cause coffee has been taking more effort than I have the energy for in the mornings), but Eli is pretty good to go, Isaac is just teething now, and hopefully I will be completely healed by the end of the week for the MSU-Northern Ball, Mardi Gras!!
I'm guessing you aren't reading this to hear about me and my sick family so let's get to it.  I have been debating if I wanted to post these or not.  The photos are from when I was working on the mock-up designs for the ball.  They aren't the best photos and when I was able to take the photos I didn't have a few of the items in yet.  I thought about waiting until we got things set up for the ball, but we didn't choose some of the mock-up designs and for those that want some insight on how I work or how to come up with centerpiece ideas, I wanted to talk about some of the goods and bads of the process.

For this event, I was hired on after they set the date, chose a theme, and even after they had come up with a few decoration ideas.  During our first meeting, they brought this:

This was a big help as I had an idea of what they would like.  They said lots of feather, glitter, and the colors were purple, green, gold, and black.  We talked about what they liked and didn't like about each photo.  The following are what I came up with...and your imagination is needed with a few of them.

I made them one with a mirror to see if they liked it.  Mirrors are good to add demention and because they make it look like there is more on the table since they reflect what is already on the table.  Imagination time: add a variety of masks on sticks and a street sign.  The tables are reserved so each one will have a street name that corresponds to the group that has purchased that table.

Sorry about the blurry photo here. Not sure what happened with that. This is the same idea as the previous but with a boa around the bottom. They decided on this idea with different boas on the bottom so that not every table is the same. The photo below is what the hurricane would look like on a charger. I had it as an idea because they had lots of chargers that were free reign and could be painted or whatever we needed to do with them.

 

In order to have something to set the boas on, we used their hurricane vases and hot glued them to the chargers they had.  We will be wrapping the boas around the base to cover the chragers.

 I tried it wrapped with tinsle thinking it would add a little sparkle and shine and be a little cheaper than boas.  I ended up not liking this idea because it didn't look the same in life as I had pictured it.

 

 This is a cylinder vase filled with a boa.  I thought it'd be a way to incorporate feather in the centerpieces other than being wrapped around the base.  They wanted more than one type of centerpiece so I was trying to come up with a few other idea.  The boa looked a lot more squished into the vase than I thought it would.

 

 I tried it with actual feather to see if I liked it better. Nope.  I also tried sprinkling feather around (like many do with gems) and I ended up not liking this either.  I did take both photos and supplies in case they liked it.

 

I thought maybe a boa wrapped about a vase would look kinda cool. Now there are multiple types of boas.  The one shown is a chandelle style with bigger feathers, there are also marabou that are fuzzier.  When I pictured this and didn't turn out the way I pictured, I was slightly disappointed.  I decided that I must have been picturing it with the marabou style. Well, I decided maybe the tinsel would look better....

 

 Nope.  Didn't look any better.  I had another style vase that the Foundation already had, and another style tinsel.  So I thought I'd try a different way.

 

Now, I had imagined this filled with the clear stones that you see people put in vases, fish bowls, and scatter on the table.  The Foundation already had some of these stone so I didn't buy any.  The other option that I had pictured was to fill it with purple glitter...or to make it cheaper purple sugar glitter like I made in my last post.  I still didn't like it.  I showed them and I took the glitter sugar to show them how it turned out.  Luckily they didn't like it either.

 

The Foundation also had some square vases so I thought I'd come up with a few ideas for those.  I found the gold coins so I thought I'd see how they looked.  Nope. The masks and street signs won't stand up well and there just isn't enough there.

 I thought I'd see what beads looked like.  Nothing says Mardi Gras like beads.  I looked what they would like with Mardi Gras beads and they didn't look too bad, but I thought with loose beads it would be easy to add demention and maybe a little cheaper.  Didn't like it as much.  One of the other options was to use the glitter sugar to fill it.  We decided on the last of my designs, and the supplies purchased would be used in other areas where we decided needed a little something extra.

 

This is floating candle bowl with a boa in it.  The masks don't stick up, so we decided to add some styrofoam to stick the dowels into.  There are a variety of boas so that not all of them are the same.  I did try it with the tinsel...

Again, didn't like it as much.  The tinsel would be cheaper, but we liked the boa more and had a big enough budget to go with the boas. The tinsel will be used to add a little Mardi Gras color to the bathrooms without focusing too much on the bathrooms.

 

 

To imagine these better, note that the tablecloths are black with gold taffeta overlay...well it is called champagne but looks like the gold that we were going for.  For the most part, these centerpieces can also be put together before the actual day of. We luckily had a room we could use to store the items in because the hurricane based centerpieces are difficult to store and transport.  Another thing to note, we used different sizes and shades of gold, purple, and green ornaments.  We had a tough time finding purple, so I spray painted them.  It is fairly easy to spray paint ornaments and most only needed one coat.  It was easy because I had a place to hang them up so I didn't have to do them one side at a time.

So, if you have any questions or want some help on developing your centerpiece ideas, just let me know! Can't wait until this weekend to see everything come together.  In my next post, I'll show my makeshift photos I used to help convey my thoughts on how the rest of the decorations would look, and watch for the actual event photos!!

Holiday deals!!

This is my first post from the ipad. Not quite sure if I like using it over the laptop yet or not...it is much easier than getting the laptop out, especially when Isaac is up. He likes the laptop and ipad but it is easier to distract him when I'm using the ipad.

The main reason for this post is to let everyone know about the latest deal at For You, By Me Events. Starting now and running through the holidays, every consultation and package is 10% off if it pertains to holiday events. Some package options will not be available, sadly, due to visiting family. From the 26th through January 1st, we will be out of town making the rounds to see the grandparents. This means that any events during this time, I will not be able to be in attendance. If you're event is during this time, I will help plan, organize and make sure that you are ready to set up and host your event. I will still be able to guide you via phone, text, and occasional email while I am out of town.

So, what are you waiting for?? Time to start planning your event! Whether you are planning a Christmas party, New Year's party, or just a holiday event, call or email me to get started.
What's even better? I'll include any Valentine's Day related events.

I'm really excited to get started on your event, so contact me today!

Side note...apparently on the ipad I can't choose where the photos are in my post. They automatically go to the end...interesting.