New Orleans Country Club Weddings
New Orleans Country Club weddings with a Timeless AestheticParents of the bride hired our team for planning and event management services for their daughter’s traditional fall wedding. Having attended countless weddings at the New Orleans Country Club, where the reception would be, the parents of the bride wanted to change up the use of the space while respecting the integrity of the ballrooms. Entrusting our team for advice and consultation throughout the planning process, we also worked to build a stellar team of creative vendors for this special event.
Because of the bride’s busy schedule and her distance to the wedding location, we collaborated with both the bride’s mother and father throughout the planning process, both of whom were heavily involved with planning. The bride’s parents both had specific ideas about what their first family wedding celebration would entail, based on their entertainment style and overall expectations. As the mother of the bride wished to design the wedding herself, including drawing up her own floor plan and communicating directly with the florist team, we were on hand for regular consultations providing advice on best practices and ensure that she was not overlooking any major logistical and efficiency details that would impact the event.
The father of the bride was most interested in assistance understanding the overall run of show for the day, given the prep location, church, and reception spaces were in different parts of town, and managing transportation seamlessly for all involved from beginning to end was a high priority. Keeping a close eye on the financial targets throughout the planning process was of critical importance as well, in order to ensure each budget line item from their selected team of vendors stayed on track with the estimated expenses from beginning to end.
The Client:
The parents of the bride planning a traditional ceremony and reception for the first of three daughters getting married. The parents, living in Dallas, and the bride and groom, living in Atlanta, planned a ceremony at Trinity Episcopal Church in the Garden District, followed by a cocktail-style reception at the New Orleans Country Club weddings in Old Metairie.
The Objective:
Blending a traditional overall landscape for the celebration from start to finish, with an integration of intentional and thoughtful touch points to elevate the typical country club experience for their daughter’s big day. Priorities included seamless logistics, functional efficiency and financial efficacy for the overall investment, with high value placed upon quality details in an atmosphere of understated elegance.
Challenges
Working collaboratively on the planning with both parents of the bride living in another state from the event itself afforded us the opportunity to systematically communicate in a series of scheduled phone calls throughout the planning process. Email communication was effective for our internal use along with our process set up with our project management system; however, both parents felt it was more informative on their end to discuss questions arising from the planning process and project any anticipated complications over the phone. With the wedding planning experience being the first for these parents of three daughters, a great deal of information and questions relating to the planning process as well as the consequences of decisions affecting the flow of events on the day itself would arise. Many of these questions surrounded the efficacy of flow in the reception space for a given floor plan that the parents wanted to put into place that differed from typical New Orleans Country Club weddings. Coming up with personalized touch points and possible focal points to enhance the experience was an important aspect for the design created by the mother of the bride. Making sure that the entertainment, food, and beverage options were quality controlled also proved an important factor to the clients, seeking to stay within their target budget range for each aspect while maximizing the value of their selections to enhance the event experience.
Our Strategic Solutions
Our lead wedding planner established a timeframe for scheduled phone calls in the early months of the planning process, and in the last two months of the planning process, occurring regularly at bi-weekly intervals. Touching base ahead of time over the phone with an agenda in mind helped the parents stay on track for wedding planning, and provided a structure within which they could understand how we would proceed in booking certain vendors in a particular order. Laying the groundwork for overall expectations of how our process works allowed the clients to anticipate the milestones we would target over the course of the entire engagement period. Anticipating these milestones would facilitate conversation among the parents in advance of our regularly scheduled calls to maximize efficiency of the content of the information we would be able to share. Even though our process for destination clients is readily established to devote a good portion of the communication in writing over both email and through our project management system, we committed to follow through after each phone call with a written record of the action items discussed on each call, and a brief agenda for what we would discuss on the following update.
Results
The adjustments to our communication style internally provided our clients with the power of information they’d need to make effective choices during the planning process. We applied this approach to every aspect of planning, from logistics, budget and payment tracking, design advice, and an entire team of professional vendor recommendations that our clients could rely on to both fit within budget and also rise to the level of quality the clients expected for their daughter’s big day. Our clients enjoyed the benefit of peace of mind, in knowing that they were not at risk for overlooking important details, and having a chance to address their concerns in real time, as they happened, well in advance of the wedding day itself. This resulted in a smooth and carefree experience throughout the week of the event and especially on the day of. Mother and father of the bride were both able to relish in every delightful moment of their first daughter’s wedding, soaking in each touchpoint and experience with trust and confidence that our team had faithfully orchestrated each detail in earnest.