Memphis Wedding Planners
It is always so nice to see our local venues use our bride’s photos from their weddings to feature their venue space in Southern Bride magazine. Thank you to Hillwood/Davies Manor and Memphis Botanic Garden for using our beautiful weddings!
Hillwood/Davies Manor
Tracy Dugan Wedding Reception
Memphis Botanic Garden
Amanda Austin Wedding Ceremony at Bleckon Pavillon
Who doesn’t love to have sweets at weddings? Although there is wedding cake to enjoy at wedding receptions, many brides and grooms chose to provide other sweets too. If you are looking for ideas or options for offering a sweets station, here are a few of our favorites:
Donut station – whose doesn’t love a good glazed donut or a maple bacon…mmmmmmmm yum!
S’more’s station – great for fall/winter weddings
S’more’s Bar courtesy of CFY Catering
Cheesecake pops – enough said!
Pies in a mason jar – you heard right, your favorite cobblers or pies stacked nicely inside of a cute mason jar.
Simply Delicious Catering provided these adorable pies in a mason jar!
Ice cream station – for your summer wedding, have your caterer use some liquid nitrogen and make ice cream on the spot. Make sure you provide your favorite toppings to your guests.
Ice Cream bar toppings – we used Liquid Nitrogen bar from
Mahaffey Tents & Party Rentals.
Cookie station – a twist to the traditional candy bar, is to provide cookie jars with your favorite cookies!
Why just have a macaroon wedding cake – why not different flavors of macaroons for your guests to try.
Popcorn station – just rent a cute popcorn popper like those at movie theaters and set out various toppings. The skies the limit here.
A Coastal Dinner Party…
Nothing gets us more in the mood to entertain than spring on the Coast! With plenty of daylight in the forecast this coming season we are planning all sorts of dinner parties to celebrate! This Coastal celebration couldn’t have been more inviting as guests enjoyed the sunset on the rooftop for cocktails and a surf and turf menu for dinner. The Gulf Coast of Mississippi has so much to offer when entertaining. The Oyster Reef restaurant sits right on the beach in Long Beach, Mississippi- so when we found out they had a rooftop & private dining room available for events we snatched it up! The restaurant also has gorgeous panoramic views throughout.
This intimate dinner party for 30 guests was to celebrate a milestone birthday, but could easily be duplicated for a rehearsal dinner, pre-prom dinner, anniversary party or even a girls night out! The options are really endless.
About the food…
We chose to do a pre-selected menu for a buffet style dinner for this party and offered the following:
To begin, Chargrilled Oysters on the half shell and Cajun Boiled Royal Red Shrimp served with Remolaude Sauce,
Caesar Salad with homemade Dressing tossed with Parmesean Cheese and fresh baked Croutons, Roasted Beef Tenderloin Served with Horseradish Aioli
Green Beans Almondine, Garlic Infused Vermicelli and Chocolate Ganache Birthday Cake.
We also offered a beer and wine selection and Southern Sweet Tea to drink.
Tip: When choosing a menu for a buffet, be sure to include starters and accompaniments with the main course. This ensures you have something for everyone no matter their preference and also you have a complete meal.
About the decor….
The French Portager of Bay St. Louis, did the floral design. When throwing a dinner party you want to keep the centerpieces low so guests can talk easily, but you don’t want to sacrifice the look of the table so go with something full and lush, but low. We chose a garland and incorporated lots of candles for ambiance. We added some italian bulb lights in the ceiling to give the room a soft glow.
We chose a bold linen from Party Tables with a deep cobalt blue pattern that really popped! With long dramatic tables a bold pattern is all you need to really create a dramatic affect. Everything else can be simple to coordinate with the look.
About the details…
The invitations, place cards,menus, and cigar labels were all custom designed by Joanna Larson of Southerly Post. We found her on Etsy! We even had the option to print everything ourselves which saves time and money! The cigar labels were our favorite! Those doubled as a favor and entertainment during this “Dirty 30” themed bash. We also gave each guest a little bag of local coffee from The Coast Roast.
Sources:
Photographer: Lisa Cooke, www.
Venue & Caterer: Oyster Reef Club, Long Beach MS
Event Planner: Michelle Hope, Social Butterflies LLC
Invitation & Paper Details: Southerly Post, www.southerlypost.com
Floral Design: The French Portager, www.facebook.com/
Linens: Party Tables, www.partytables.com
Cake: Candace Giuffria, 850-238-9702
Rentals: ABC Rentals, www.abcrental.com
Coffee Favors- www.thecoastroast.com
Get the word out officially and show off your bling! Let both of your families know in a special way first, and then share the news publicly. This gets everyone excited and the free advice will begin flowing in. You can even do a fun photo session to use on social media announcing the news!
The ‘B’ word
Before you delve into planning and designing your dream wedding, determine a realistic budget. Figuring out an estimated guest count is important and will help guide you in nailing down a budget. The average wedding cost in the South, based on 250 guests, is $30,000. We like to tell brides to consider taking all of your guests out to dinner at a nice restaurant. That cost in addition to a private location, ceremony cost, and entertainment and decor all factored in can add up quickly and make sense of why the budget seems higher than you would expect. The dress and other necessary details are not even factored in yet so you can see how it adds up quickly.
Set the Date
Knowing the season or month you want to marry in will help you in choosing that perfect date, but flexibility can be an asset when searching for venues and ceremony locations. Many couples plan 10-12months out so popular venues may not have the first date you want open. Keep in mind — Friday and Sunday’s are usually a more economical option if you are on a tighter budget. Once you set the date you should book the church/ceremony location and reception venue. However, if you are considering hiring a full service planner, don’t sign any contracts or hire any other vendors until you have hired the planner. They can negotiate contracts and often offer discounts that will save you money on the front end.
Get Organized (or Hire Someone Who Is)
If you are doing all the planning yourself- start researching. You don’t want to skimp on your own wedding and without any prior experience you are setting yourself up to be overwhelmed, frustrated and exhausted throughout the process. Get a notebook to keep everything organized. You should include your budget, vendor information from meetings and your vision — aka lots of photos and examples from magazines. If you are spending close to the average wedding cost, you can afford to hire a wedding planner. This will be the best money spent and hopefully (if they are experienced and good) they will help you maximize your budget and create the wedding of your dreams with very little stress! In the least — if you cannot afford a professional planner to help you from start to finish, consider hiring a day of coordinator. This will allow you to enjoy the day and all that you have planned.
Hire your A-Team
I recommend making a priority list of what the most important aspects of your wedding are to you and your fiancé. For example, you love to dance and your fiancé loves to eat. Make sure you allocate money in your budget according to your priorities.The band and caterer would be where you want to spenda little more money to ensure you get top notch professionals that will exceed your expectations. Once you really jive with a vendor, ask them who they like to work with! The wedding industry is a small world and having a team that works well together ensures a successful event. Don’t be afraid to check references for vendors either. You don’t want to have any regrets and there are too many reputable companies to settle for second best.
Choose your people
Who will stand by your side? You can find a unique way to ask your bridal party to be part of your wedding. There are tons of ideas online to help you. Once you enlist them — let them help you in the planning if you need it.
Say Yes to the Dress
You don’t want to wait too long to start dress shopping. It can take months to get in that perfect dress and then you almost always have alterations. Looking your best can take some work — so the sooner you start, the better. Finding that dress can also help you jumpstart your wedding diet if you intend to start one.
Last Saturday, we had the opportunity to participate in the Jr. League Bridal Show. Most brides who attend bridal shows are there to get inspirations, ideas and hopefully some freebies! So with inspiration in mind and Spring not far around the corner, we chose to create a tablescape of blushes, greens and ivory. The blush sequin linen sparkled in the pink lighting. The gold chargers and gold flatware enhanced the place setting and brought out the gold chivari barstools. We chose to raise the table so that it would be different than other designers at the show. Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Would like to thank the following vendors for helping us make this table looks amazing!
Elegant Chair Solutions – Sequin linen, gold chargers and napkins/napkin ring holders
Le Fleur Memphis – Florals
Mahaffey Tent & Party Rentals – Barstools, table, place setting/glassware
Mrs. Post – Stationary (place cards and the Bride & Groom signs)
Thanks to Starbucks, many of us are coffee lovers. As with most weddings or parties some of our clients are looking for a fun thank you favor to hand out at the end of their parties. And thanks to Pinterest, we can now combine the love of coffee and the party favor idea into one. Here is our attempt at recreating a Pinterest pin – “Thanks a Latte” coffee favor, our treat to our guests at a special birthday girl’s Sweet Sixteen party.
1. Visit your local Hobby Lobby and check out the glass jars. They have various sizes and tons of options with clasp tops or gold twist tops. We chose a gold twist top mini mason jar. We also visited our local Costco to purchase some Dunkin Donuts fine grind Original Blend coffee to go in the jars. The jars were on sale 50% off (I waited for them to go on sale before I purchased them) – regular $1.49, got them for $.75 each. I purchased three bags of coffee at $18.99 each.
2. Next I took off the price tags from the bottom of each jar – a little tedious but I don’t want our guests to know the price! Stuck them in the dishwasher, ran an express wash so as to make sure they were clean before I added the coffee.
3. Then I opened the coffee and scooped the jar in the bag and filled up each jar to the top. I originally thought I would try a funnel but that was too messy and this was a lot quicker and a lot cleaner! I did measure out one jar with a teaspoon to find out how many it took to fill the jar. Each jar held 12 tsp. so it would make up to 24 cups of coffee; just in case a guest asked how much the jar would make.
4. I also purchased thin white satin ribbon from Hobby Lobby – they always have their ribbon on sale. I purchased four spools – 18’ each, one spool did about 12 long pieces of ribbon. I cut each length about 18” long.
5. I had our local stationary company, Mrs. Post in Chickasaw Oaks Village, print small square tags and hole punch them for me in the corner of the tag.
6. Finally, I tied the ribbon, slipped the tag on the ribbon and had the cutest coffee favor ever! Hope you enjoyed this quick coffee favor tutorial. 🙂
As we celebrate eight years of Social Butterflies, LLC (SB) this month, I thought it would be fun to look back at where it all started! Come along on the journey with us as we reminisce.
The short version of how “The Butterflies” began begins with Michelle (myself) pursuing Jaime, as an advertiser/client with ” “I Do” for Brides Magazine” in 2004. We became instant friends and realized we had so much in common. So, in time, Michelle left her magazine job and the following marketing job for the Cadre building in downtown Memphis to begin Social Butterflies, LLC- Weddings, Events and Such with Jaime.
Jaime had previously sold her business, Savannah Woods Plantation- a wedding venue and had been doing weddings under the name of Elegant Event Planners. So we joined forces and started Social Butterflies, LLC, the perfect name for two fun, life loving, friendly, Southern, and social girls! We are literally Social Butterflies! 🙂
With the start of any business comes the logo and website planning! My good friend Natalie Chang and I met for coffee to collaborate and design the SB logo. It always helps to have a creative friend to bounce things off of! The SB butterfly logo was actually something I sketched on a napkin at Pei Wei! Ha!!! Natalie then helped us design the business card, which was a bright and bold die cut card. Here is a picture of the original business card and the current business card. Although our logo has changed over the years, the butterfly designed with an S and a B has remained consistent. Check out our original brochure and one of our first ads in Southern Bride Magazine! So fun to look back!
The website was soon to follow along with an office and showroom a year later. Then came a revised, more sophisticated logo, to help lead the company in the direction we were heading. Serving high end brides and creating luxury events seemed to be our niche and we have embraced it. A fun brochure finally was printed after keeping the design and ideas under wraps for a while. 
We had several fun parties at our quaint little office in Midtown and it was such a fun way to show off our creativity and current trends. Sadly, we decided to close the showroom after a few years because the overhead just did not make sense for us. We loved our office space but just didn’t use it near enough to make the upkeep and expense worth it. Our client base seemed to be taking the path of meetings by appointment only and clients requesting that we go to them to meet. Midtown was also not where the majority of our clients live which was another deciding factor. We now both have home offices and that has worked out great for us. Here is a shot of Wade Hartsfield of Wade and Company with us at our “Christmas in the City” party! So much fun!!! I’ll have to do an entire post on the fun parties we had at the office/showroom later!
During our fourth year of business, we won our very first industry award through NACE (National Association of Catering and Events)! We were so excited that we decided to throw a big Fifth Anniversary party to celebrate!! Gosh we had a blast getting to design an event just for us and invite all our precious clients, vendors, friends and family to celebrate with us! Check out our website (http://socialbutterfliesevents.com/such/)for fun pics from the party of the year…. at least we thought so!!! 😉
Now we have three awards under our belts and continue to strive for more! Winning is addictive!! It also truly gives us a since of accomplishment in this crazy competitive industry and lets us know we are doing something right!
On our eighth anniversary we launched a newly revised logo and fresh website! We could not be more excited to showcase our clients and their fabulous events!
What a fun and adventurous ride it has been thus far and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for Social Butterflies!! So flutter by the new website if you have not seen it yet and let us know what you think! Our 10th Anniversary party planning is already in the works-gotta top our last party right? After all- party planning is what we do best!!! Stay tuned for some amazingly gorgeous weddings to be seen in magazines, on blogs and on the website in 2015!! It’s gonna be a great year!
It is always a pleasure when you can plan both your client’s daughters weddings and also help them Christmas decorate for the holidays. This year it was our distinct pleasure to help our client Shari decorate her new home for the holidays. She has a very calm and neutral home, which gives it the perfect balance for a vintage Christmas design. Shari wanted to stick to light greens, gold, taupe colors (like burlap) and ivories instead of the traditional reds, burgundy and hunter green colors.
In keeping with the vintage theme throughout the home, we did a more natural evergreen garland on the chandeliers, buffet, dining room table and the entertainment bookshelf. We added LED ivory candles throughout the greenery and the home – lighting is a very important element for any design. You want to be able to see the beauty of the designs so light it up! We added gold glitter ribbon bows to the greenery that was attached to the chandeliers. Everywhere we decorated, we decorated in layers. The 10’ real Christmas tree was layered with big and small ornaments and tons of floral picks.
Since there wasn’t but one fireplace mantle in the home, we chose to use a vintage wooden ladder to hang the stockings on. Lanterns and an antique sled, which was embellished with greenery and a bow, complimented the entry fireplace. The amazing stick LED Christmas trees from Restoration Hardware made a profound statement on each side of the fireplace– no need to put a real Christmas tree in every room…everybody has done that! Pier 1 and Hobby Lobby were our go to places for most of her decorations. We used lanterns (some with ornaments and pine cones and some with just LED candles) to accentuate tablescapes and the staircase.
Our favorite design was the window treatment – the simple but the awesome gold sequin 3 D stars on each side balanced the glittered burlap wreath. Who doesn’t love sequins!
Although Shari really wanted to keep with the vintage colors throughout most of the home, we did add pops of red to the screened in porch and the basement media room. In the screened in porch, since it already had a rustic country feel – we chose to add pops of berries, a red felt runner on the farm table and the red mercury votives. The red pillows on her taupe linen couch complimented the other pops of red.
We did have a custom made floral door piece made by Holiday’s Flowers, Inc. The massive floral arrangement was the perfect accent to their front door. We also had white Christmas lights professionally put in the clients trees and shrubs and in her backyard. Love how the lights light up the pool.
The luxury of working with beautiful venues in Memphis, Tennessee like the Dixon Galleries is that you get to also create beautiful weddings in these places. With fall weddings abounding right now, espeically since late September through November in Memphis has gorgeous weather, we thought this would be a great time to show how an ordinary concrete pad outside the Hughes Pavillion can be transformed into an amazing wedding reception. The pops of orange, reds and golds make the flowers come alive in this space. The clear top tent is now a show stopper with the added orange draping. We loved the gold and brown embrodiered circle overlays from Mosaic Linens ontop of the burnt orange polys. The floral designer, Haute Horticulture, used mercery gold vases and votives to enhance the floral arrangements.
