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Party Decoration: Planning and ExecutionParty Decoration: Page 2 of an interview with Richard Kisco, Florist, Decorator, and head of Le Fleur/The Princeton Flower Shop RK: First I normally start with the tables. I develop a beautiful table. Is it going to be a 60” round or a 72? Is the table going to seat 8 or 10 or is the table going to seat 12? After we’ve decided that the general rule of thumb is if we’re going to do a low arrangement, it’s from your elbow to right under your wrist. So we are not interfering with people talking across the table. Very, very , very important! Then the next option would be the committee or the guests or the people throwing the party decided that they would like to do a tall arrangement. Tall arrangements are fabulous - they do a lot for a room, they give a lot of ambience. They need to be at least 32” to 36” over the table so that your guests can communicate around the table during the evening and have a wonderful time talking to the other partners at the table. Technically, the social graces are that we should not talk across the table. That’s the Emily Post book. EMZ: Laughter RK: But what happens is that people do talk across the table. So what you cannot interfere with their sight lines. You can do talk candles, you can do candlesticks, and still do a low arrangement. Candles do not have a tendency to block. They add a lot of ambience, candle light, and romance. You can use a lot of votive candles to add shimmer to the table, but we’re not blocking sight lines. Those are two options. Some people have preferred going to a live plant or a wonderful topiary or ivy or something like that which is almost like a third or fourth option. And your fourth option is sometimes just wonderful candle treatments with lemon leaves and rose petals and ivy... EMZ: Umm. Party decoration can be quite beautiful. RK: Which is a very pretty and elegant look. But whatever the look is it has to fit in with the party, the linen and the facility. You can have a wonderful concept and wonderful ideas and pick some wonderful colors, but does it work within that facility? Are we competing with the walls, the curtains, the carpeting, and everything else? Your florals and your party decoration has to work with your space!90% of the time we’re not, but there are some instances when you try to do a beautiful black and white Erté theme and you are in a ballroom that is brown and peach...well it just doesn’t work out well sometimes.So you’ve got to look at all of it. When you walk into the room you want that “wow” effect. It’s what looks the best in the facility that you’re working in. It has to fit. If you have a tent, there’s no framework, it’s white, it’s basic, you’re putting in the decor. If you go to some country clubs or hotels, there is a decor already built in. There’s either an elegance, mirrors... a Ritz Carlton look is not a Holiday Inn look. It’s not a catering hall look. So what you have to do is work within those confines to really make it all come together. If you’re spending the dollars, you’re putting the time, effort and design into it, you want it to work the best in the space. Prop Centerpieces: Another Party Decoration Idea!The other concept that we can do is prop centerpieces where we have Oscars for an Oscar party or we have a lot of items we use for a Western parties. Or there’s a lot of items we use for hockey or basketball, football or sports themes. Or Mardi Gras. So you can really do florals and props, you can do all props. It’s really where the client wants that visual. What makes it important to them...It’s got to be custom to each individual client.We do not package. We feel that you need to talk to the client, find out what’s really important to the client, where do they want to put their emphasis in the budget? Everything has a budget...I don’t care if the budget is a dollar or the budget is $10,000. Every party has a budget. There’s a food budget, an entertainment budget, there’s a facilities cost. So when you come to party decoration, you want to take the dollars that are going to be spent there and get the best bang for the buck.Party decoration has to look good, reflect the client’s taste, and at the same time give the elegance to the facility or space that’s being used. Party Decoration: The ProcessEMZ: OK, So how does the party decoration process work? When a client contacts you for the first time, what happens?RK: What we do is ask the client to come in. We make an appointment. That can be done during the day... If it’s a Bar Mitzvah, it might be Mom, it might be Mom and the thirteen year-old, and it might be mother and father and its a 5 or 6 o’clock appointment. We do take day appointments, evening appointments, and we do some on Saturdays. A lot of time, I’m out working on Saturdays. So, it is pretty hard sometimes to do appointments and deal with a client and set up a facility and a job. What we do is come in and we get all of the vital information, emails and faxes, so that we can send them a proposal. What we do is walk through with them what they are envisioning, what they foresee. Most of the facilities we know, so if they say to us they’re at a Hyatt- Regency, or a Ritz Carlton, or that they’re at the Seaport Museum or at the Franklin Institute, we know the facilities. We’ve photographed it, we know the loading docks and the ins and outs of the rest of it, what will work and what won’t work. So we try to get from them is the information of colors and theme and what do they have in their mind. Sometimes we will come up with two or three different party decoration ideas. The decision is never made on the first interview. I think they need to digest it all-to think about it...so that when they make a decision, they become a more educated consumer. Whether it’s in the coloring or the linen they have to work with ourselves and the caterer, because we’re both producing the environment. Or if they have very specific entertainment that they want to keystone in the event, we have to be very cognizant of that so we can have the appropriate party decoration to work with it. We all have to work hand-in-hand. It’s the client, it’s the caterer, it’s the decorator. Sometimes we’ve gotten very involved with the bands or DJs or entertainment because of costumes. When they decided they want these costumes to work in the party. Maybe there’s an opening number to give it a little sizzle or pizzazz. So what you do is you get where your space is, what their needs are. If there’s cocktails are there cocktail tables or high tops and what is the caterer providing? If he’s doing all the linen, we don’t need to rent the linen or bring the linen in. If he is doing the linen, then, what sizes are his tables, what sizes are his linen, what colors, so that we can better work with the client for the end result. For someone telling us that the client is bringing in blue linen and everything has to work with blue, and you get there and the linen is white...that doesn’t work with the party decoration arrangements. So, it’s that open communication. Sometimes we ask more questions than the client wants to hear, but it’s only for us. And people have asked, “why do you need to know this?” Well we need to know to make it better. We need to know when we can get into the facility, when the caterer is going to set up, when are the tables going to be ready, when we can install the party decoration. And as important as that - it is our responsibility to remove the party decoration So once all of those questions are asked I sit down with the design staff. We come up with some ideas. We write up a proposal, we type it up, we do it line item by line item like a menu. We fax or email it and hard copy to each client. That’s what we call “first blush.” 90% of the time, there are tweaks to it. They’ll say, “now we’re going to have more children” if it’s a Bar Mitzvah, or “instead of 15 tables we’re having 25 tables.” The bride wants to discuss the colors of the dresses but she hasn’t yet picked the dresses. She’s telling you it’s going to be purple but it ends up being burgundy. That’s normal. If the bride doesn’t have a dress color or the attendants, I don’t write it in, I just put in a question mark. Until those decisions are made we can’t do our job. But all of that is a very natural process that does develop. As all of that, those party decoration ideas are developing. As the clients bring in pictures of things that they have seen or color tones what we’ll actually do is fine-tune the proposal. Make the changes in it. And then as we get to a point where we feel we are ready to go, we will bring the clients in and actually do a sample table. The linens, the arrangements, the centerpieces, the votive candles, the candles... so that the client can actually see it hands-on what the party decoration is actually going to look like. EMZ: Wow, that’s neat. RK: Then we digitally photograph it, write down all of the elements that are in the arrangement, and that goes into each client’s folder. EMZ: OK, And then... RK: And from there it goes into design and production so on the day of the event, we are setting up what they’ve seen as an arrangement on the number of tables they have ordered. EMZ: The process of creating party decoration is really interesting. RK: There’s a lot of client contact. EMZ: (Laughter) I can imagine... RK: We’ll work a lot with in-house food services. Marriott Sodexho or a lot of other catering facilities that are in corporate centers. Restaurant Associates. They provide all the food. We do everything else. More about Party Decoration: Contracting with a professional, How to find a party decorator
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