MiaKoda turns 1! Sweet Table Sensations!

Hi everyone,

 

So the event I am blogging on was not so much an event we arranged or coordinated, but rather a new exciting service we are offering. As mentioned in our last blog, we introduced “The sweet table”, where we literally arrive at your event and set up a sweet table according to your choice of colour and theme.

 

We had the honour of being a part of Miakoda Quinn’s first birthday party as we had a sweet table request. Meagan contacted us and wanted a whimsical /fairy tale theme with soft pastel colours for her lovely little daughter. Part of the sweet table arrangement is we have the basic sweet table which includes five sweet varieties in vases, custom hand made tags, table cloth and theme specific décor. From there on the client has the option of adding additional sweets vases; cupcakes or cake-pops, our famous Candy display tree etc.

 

We had a beautiful princess cake as the centre piece supplied by the one and only Lucy from Freedom Cafe, surrounded by the gorgeous sweet jars and a candy floss tree. We kept the colours pastel as per request and added a touch of magic by sprinkling edible glitter on the candy floss. We spruced up the jars with pretty ribbon and displayed the suckers on a pink painted, glittered polystyrene ball.

 

 

Meagan ordered some extras which included the take away boxes, so guests could help themselves to some sweets to take home. Meagan also ordered party packs which we personalised with an M for the birthday girl, made it look pretty with some ribbon and filled it with all sorts of yummy goodies!

The kids were all amazed by this glorious sweet table and even the adults couldn’t help themselves as their sweet tooth kept them coming back for more.

 

Everyone loved the concept and you know you have done a good job when you get asked for business cards at the function. This is a really fun idea and makes for an amazing focal point at any event. No theme or colour is too bizarre; we will take your idea and run with it. We have had more requests for our sweet table, which can be set up for any event from kid’s birthday parties to bridal showers and best of all weddings! It makes for an awesome wedding favour for guests, to take a box home filled with amazing sweets.

 

We really hope our readers love this idea too, and that you will keep it in mind for your next function, you cannot go wrong, your guests will love it!

 

Until next time, have a “sweet” weekend all…

 

Lauretta

Wedding Invitations

Hi everyone,

So LA Events has had two extremely busy weekends in a row. From hosting and planning an event to hand making an order of 42 wedding invites, in a space of two weeks we have impressed even ourselves.

Although we offer event planning services, we also specialise in the making of stationery for weddings, bachelorette parties etc. We had our first official wedding invitation order, and boy did we have fun with it! There was a lot of menial work involved such as cutting and sticking what felt like endless pieces of cardboard, but designing the layout and playing with different ideas and paper and then watching them slowly come together was a real treat. The bride had a basic idea in mind and gave us the benefit of the doubt to make a few changes as we saw fit and really trusted us. Every design, from the pattern to the wording was our own design from scratch and every detail was handmade. We also did all our own printing, cutting etc.

We were put under a bit of pressure time wise as the bride needed to send out the invites soon as the wedding date had been brought closer, but as our aim is to please we burnt the midnight oil and got the job done as promised. You know the phrase about working hard, “blood, sweat and tears” -well this literally applied to us with this job. I sliced my finger twice on the guillotine which involved some blood. A bit of sweat as we pushed to get the invites completed on time. Tears – only tears of laughter, because we truly have fun while doing this, spending all this time together leads to some funny conversations and a whole lot of laughs, especially when your friend manages to half mutilate her fingers while folding, not even cutting, invites on a guillotine!

Once again we had a happy client, who has now even enquired for further quotes on more wedding stationery. The reward is in handing over a pleasing end product to a happy client. What excites us most is knowing this was just the first job, and we are only going to get better and better with each new one.

This was really an enjoyable task and we look forward to many many more, cutting and sticking and all! Hopefully just no blood next time.

Keep well guys, and remember we are here to assist with all stationery for any occasion, handmade with love and passion!

xxx

Durban Academy 10 Year Reunion

Hi everyone,

LA Events hosted their second main event for this year. We were approached by the 2003 ex-head girl of Durban Academy, Melody Freemantle towards the end of last year as she wanted us to organise their 10 year reunion.  Of course we were thrilled and immediately began the quoting, and after our first official meeting we were appointed as the event planners.

A face book page was created for this event and Melody faced the very daunting task of tracking down all past students from this year and sending them invites. We created a digital invite which we emailed out to as many students as possible, and face book messages, phone calls, smse’s and bbm’s were sent out in their hundreds as Melody tried to get as many people as possible to attend. The main challenge we faced was that we did know the final amount of people that would attend the function. Our quote was based on a total of 80 people, as this was the total number of positive RSVP’s that were received. We gave everyone a cut-off date for payment.

We had a fabulous theme to work with: Viva Las Vegas baby! What an awesome, exciting theme it was. Lots of glitz and glam, and the main colours were red, black and silver. Ideas flooded our minds and we could hardly contain our excitement, however we wisely decided to not start the shopping until monies were received from the guests, it was a real Vegas case of “show me your money honey!” as you cannot afford to take a gamble in this industry.

We faced a real and very disappointing reality when a few weeks prior to the event half of the students who said they were coming pulled out. This in turn halved our budget which halved our profit and all our amazing ideas. We had to make the serious decision as to whether continuing with this event would be worth our while. It was not only our profit which concerned us, but as a company our reputation was on the line, the budget we had to work with meant we could not deliver the service we aimed to deliver on such a large scale event. Since we knew Melody on a personal level, we agreed to take on the event and offer the best we could.

A lot of cuts had to be made due to this new budget, and so we decided to do the catering ourselves. Normally the night before we would be setting up the décor but this time around we were playing master chef in my kitchen, preparing the snacks. We have to mention my mother in law who did us a huge favour by making some of the snacks for us.

Finally the day arrived, our adrenaline kicked in and our creativity took over. I believe what makes our company successful is the fact that Angie and I work so incredibly well as team. The ability to walk into a teacher’s staff room and transform it into a glamorous Vegas themed venue fit for a party is what fuels our passion for LA Events. However the process of this transformation is definitely not half as glamorous and involved some manual labour as we shifted somewhat thirty heavy chairs and a few tables out the venue. We arrived with boxes full of décor and worked our magic. Our basic layout consisted of a dance floor and cocktail tables, (with fabulous centre pieces) and our focal point being the food table, with food also served off the bar which we of course glammed up. Most of the décor was handmade; Angie has an incredible talent of making amazing décor out of polystyrene. This worked wonders especially for this theme.

Before we knew it the guests arrived and they all seemed very impressed and surprised with the end result. We received continuous appraisal on our food (thankfully) and décor. Angie set up a photo booth with lots of fun props and the guests thoroughly enjoyed the novelty. Everyone had a great time catching up and all in all we are proud to announce that even with a lack of funds and students, the night was a great success. 

 

A special thanks goes out to our other halves JT and AJ as they did some running around for us during the week and helped to clear up afterwards. We couldn’t do it without your support. Especially working from the crack of dawn to well after midnight, two nights back to back!

 

We both agreed that this was a hard lesson learnt, working with such a small budget and having to deliver such large results, but the reward was standing back and watching our hard work pay off as the evening went off well. You kind of stop, take a look and think, “wow, was this really just two girls with a passion that pulled this off?” and then you know in your heart and soul this was your calling, and no amount of money can pay off watching your ideas come alive. Yes we were exhausted, yes we worked harder than what we were paid for, but we are still small fishes in a massive pond, and one day we will hopefully be singing that extremely annoying song “started from the bottom now we here..”

 

We have also introduced a new exciting service where we hire out a sweet table designed to fit your desired theme/colour scheme.  Our aim is to keep offering exciting new things in store for our clients. Please do not hesitate to find out more. You can contact us via email or our facebook page.

I hope you enjoyed our latest blog, with some awesome pics taken by Angie (the benefits of having a very talented photographer as your business partner). Until our next big event, keep well and plan some parties and contact us so we can make it a memorable one for you

 

xxx

Lauretta

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LAEventsandPhotography

Email: info@laeventsandphotography.co.za

Website: www.laeventsandphotography.co.za

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



50th Birthday Celebration - Rocky Horror Style

For those who have been following us quite closely, you will know that L.A Events &Photography is currently running as a part-time operation. Purely fueled by the passion that we have developed for this industry and for that end result when the vision comes together. The hard work and late nights are all worth it when you see the impressed expression of the guests who attend your functions and over hearing the compliments on your little creations. Our “day-time” employer is fully aware of our little projects and we do our upmost to keep it separate from our jobs in reality. That being said, our boss (myself and Angie both work for the same company) approached us and requested a proposal late last year. We are only writing about this now as the proposal was for a surprise event. The 50^th birthday of her husband. And we just pulled it off only last Saturday the 16^th of Feb.

Teresa (the boss), told us she wanted to have a surprise birthday for her hubby, Craig. The problem is that Teresa is currently residing in London as she is in the process of applying for residency and is required to be in the UK for a specific amount of days. She asked us to hand her a proposal of if we had to organize the event and what our ideas would be. We came up with the concept of a themed celebration to the Rocky Horror Picture Show! We put our ideas to paper and emailed it off to Teresa holding thumbs that she would see what we had in mind and would approve it. We got the go ahead in early Jan and got to planning straight away. We wanted to bring through all the glamour and sensuality that is Rocky Horror. In the beginning we struggled to find a suitable venue, most places being too far for guests to travel, or too small to accommodate the proposed +100 guest list. Finally we were able to book the Kloof Country Club and the invitations were sent!
 

With only a few weeks to go Angie and I set out to our suppliers and started getting all the little detailed custom stationary goodies. We spent a day driving around getting a variety of costing quotes on all sorts of things from linen to feathers; from Bluff to Hillcrest we searched high and low for everything we needed to turn the vision in our minds to life. Unfortunately we had a little run in with the law on that day. Angie had to make a U turn to get to one of our stops. As we came around the corner, there was Metro waiting for us with a white glove up in the air. Immediately we both knew she was in the wrong and had no choice but to pull over and hand over the drivers licence. Fortunately we were blessed that day and police officer on duty let us get away with a small fine of only R300 (50% off if paid in 30 days) the fine for making an illegal U turn is actually R1500!! But the cop did not specify which road sign Angie had disobeyed and we were intensely grateful for that! With that done, we quickly finished up the last of our shopping for the day and headed back home.

We had just one week to go and still A LOT to get done. During the course of the week I started preparation of the 100 name place cards for the tables and roped hubby into folding the 100 boxes for the thank you gift for each guest. Angie was pre occupied on week nights with a night course she is currently completing for Graphic Design so it was up to me to push out the handmade crafts as much as possible so that we didn’t have a lot to do on Friday night (the night before the big day). We got home from work on Friday afternoon and got stuck into the last details that we needed to complete. I finished up the name tags & put together the ‘thank you’ boxes while Angie got herself covered in paint, glitter and glue. She was in charge of creating the Table Seating chart, which involved paint, glitter and glue and was hilarious to watch her get stuck to herself with super glue after I warned her to be careful. That stuff is dangerous. After I had to scrub her down with acetone we were just about done and it was just about midnight! They say time flies when you are having fun. We pre-packed everything we had created into neat piles that would be easy to load into the car the next morning.

10 am on Saturday morning Angie arrived at my gate with a hoot and the scramble began. We loaded up the car and left to pick up the linen we had booked with BluffFunction Hire. With the car packed to the brim (seriously, it was stuffed to the roof) and me squashed up in the back seat we hurried down to Lucy’s CakeShop to collect the beautiful cake that we had ordered! Now with me squashed up in the back seat and this 5kg cake on my lap, we made the trip up Fields Hill and on to the Kloof Country Club. Arriving just after 12h00 we unloaded and began the set up stage.

The evening progressed with Craig arriving dressed up as the main character (and had no idea about any of this until that same day at 4pm when Teresa told him it’s time to dress up). Almost all the invited guests went all out on their outfits and dressed to theme. There were men in corsets everywhere you turned. While starters were being served there was a surprise performance by a few dancers including Shalane Byrne who choreographed the routine to the “Time Warp”. Everyone who attended thoroughly enjoyed themselves and everything went smoothly from there.

This was our very first BIG function for the year and we would like to thank Teresa for giving us the opportunity to prove ourselves. The next big event will be in June for the 10^th reunion of Durban Academy – class of 2003! And we are looking forward to doing this all over again.

 

See you at the next event

xoxo



 

Studio Photo Shoot for L.A Event girls

Just so that you can get to know us a litte better, we had an awesome oppurtunity to get into studio with Kelly Epskamp. Here's a little look at our amazing pictures!

 

Check out more work from Kelly here.

 

 

 

And don't forget to book your Valentines Photo Shoot specail, running for the month of February!!

For more details: click here.

 

xxx



Catch Up Sesion with Lollo

Hi there, so Angie is actually the techno fundi when it comes to LA Events, she has set up the websites and our blog and Facebook etc. and she has done a brilliant job. I enjoy the ‘getting my hands dirty part’ more and actually making stuff and setting up for our events, but I used to enjoy writing once upon a time, so I hope you enjoy my blog too….

Since my blog was initially about our last event for 2012, which was a Christmas lunch, I thought I would wrap it all up and share about our year and what 2013 has in store for us. LA Events was really a little company that started off by chance. If you read the first blog titled, 'What started it All' , you will have an idea of how it begun etc. Looking back now, I never saw myself as the type of person who would one day be interested in starting my own business. Angie had this dream, I had a passion, and so we kind of just made it work. She has this ability to make me believe something can work, and her enthusiasm is infectious. So 2012 was the start off a new adventure as we officially began LA Events.

As any other small company, LA Events has taken off slowly. The events we did were mainly for friends and family, never the less we pushed ourselves and gave it our best and enjoyed every moment. We love DIY décor, and stayed up many nights turning our ideas into awesome pieces of visual delight.

As for the Christmas lunch it was an informal get together we arranged for Angie’s mom Charmaine, as she moved to Cape Town in the beginning of the year and came down just for the weekend. It was the easiest way she could get to see all her loved ones at once. We kept the décor simple as it was in a restaurant and since she was paying for the food we decided to keep the costs to a minimal. We went with a white, silver and aqua blue colour scheme instead of the usual red and green normally associated with Christmas for a more modern look. We did a basic display of Christmas tree baubles and fairy lights under organza down the middle of the table. Simple, yet very effective. We hand made the name tags and thank you gifts which were mini cupcakes, and they tasted divine! The guests loved it! We had a bit of an unfortunate mishap with the venue, as they had booked another function and did not inform us until on the day, which forced us to leave earlier than planned. Of course we were not impressed, but in this industry things are bound to go wrong and so you get to know who and who not to deal with in the future. All in all it was a lovely get together and as for LA Events we impressed our guests.

2013 Seems to have a promising start. We are currently arranging a surprise birthday party so not many details can be given but you can be sure to hear all about it once we have done it. We have a first birthday party which is going to be loads of fun and cannot wait to get started! We are also planning a ten year Las Vegas themed reunion for Durban Academy (my old high school) which is going to be quite a big one.

In the meanwhile Angie and I still have full time jobs which we take very seriously. I am building a career for myself, and I absolutely love my job. But running LA Events is a passion we have, and to anyone out there who thinks they cannot start a small business because of their current jobs which income they cannot afford to lose, we are proof that it’s possible. I pride myself in my day job, whether I need the income or not I want to continue my bookkeeping career as I love it, and still continue with my passion of arranging events for people as it’s just as much a love to me. It requires hard work, dedication and time management.

We wish all our special supporters and clients a prosperous, successful new year. Make the most of every birthday, anniversary and special events like Valentine’s day, Easter etc. Life is a celebration, and if working hard is one if your goals for 2013, then make enjoying life one too, it can’t always be ‘all work and no play’…and remember for all your party and celebrations, LA Events is just an email/call/Facebook enquiry away from planning the event of your heart’s desire!

Until next time xxx Lollo

Year End Madness

Wow, so we completely missed the fact that there was an October this year!!! Where did that happen? The end of the year stereotype really lives up to its promise! We have managed to get up to some good mischief though.... check it out....

ABOVE: We got to hang out with the local boys from EXPLOSION. Durban Rock 'n Roll band! What an amazing group of boys! With a very interesting point of view on life in general! The above shoot was done at Mini Town - Durban.

 

 

 

ABOVE: Then we did our first set of free lance work for Nouveau Dance Studio batchelorette party!! :) The girls indulged in some topless entertainment supplied by Nouveau.

BELOW: Finally we did our couples shoot with Melody & Liam! Played with a lot of new locations, and got to source some great new ideas for Valentines Day Special for next year.

 

On the cards with regards to the event side of things, we have a Christmas Dinner party that is in progress. (Photo's will follow soon) And two pretty impressive proposals for the new year. We'll keep you guessing till then.

xxx