Dr. Bailey & Dr. Blum
Well, we are back- no fanfare, no excuses, just a resurrection. I’ll start with a bit on the Bailey and Blum weekend:
Yes, there are lots and lots and lots of “Academies”, “Intensives”, “Boot Camps” and all sorts of sessions and seminars for wedding and event planning professionals.
Why, you might ask (and you’d certainly be entitled to do so), would the world need another?
The answer is because my friend Preston and I thought it would be fun, and we thought we could do something different and special. And we did. We kept it intimate and we made it pricey enough that we could entertain in our style without skimping. We kicked off Friday night with a cocktail party at SoHo House, where we were so amazed and tickled that our friends came out to support us and to meet our attendees. Carley Roney, founder of The Knot, Vane Broussard of the Brooklyn Bride Blog, Anne Chertoff, who is heading up AOL’s new Aisle Dash site, some of the BIG GUNS of the wedding universe stayed for drinks and conversation.
Saturday, we started with breakfast at Preston Bailey’s studio and then we hit it-hours, and hours of focused, pointed and sometimes controversial discussion As happens with any good ensemble (and boy were we lucky with this one) there was an energy that enhanced the individual experiences.
Maria Mcbride, the Style Editor of Brides and author of umpteen exquisite books, a dear friend, talent and yes, a mentor of mine (see how the circle works) joined us, and then Millie Bratten, the editor in chief of Brides (and a friend for over 20 years) joined us for lunch and the afternoon session.
Lunch was served (catered seems too prosaic a term for what it was) by Olivier Cheng and his team of servers, who might have been royal footmen they were so elegant and solicitous. Olivier and his executive chef Jenny chatted about food, trends, designer/planners in relation to catering- before we scarfed down what I definitely wouldn’t describe as a light lunch.
Back to class with a case study of a wedding Preston and I had worked on together, which gave us the opportunity to illustrate exactly what a designer does, and what we do as “eventistes” (just bear with me please, I cant bear the term planner anymore).
Dinner at Charles with our friend the star chef John Delucie, lots of good wine and good food and signed copies of his book, The Hunger.
Chrisya Enriquez from Zen Events, John Delucie and me
Next day, some more show and tell and then each of our guests had individual one-on-ones with Dr. Bailey and Dr. Blum (better than a spa treatment, I guarantee it).
Of course there are all sorts of sexy details that I’m not sharing here, suffice it to say we will do this again..