A seasoned wedding planner has seen it all: The good, the bad and the ugly. While it may be tempting to trust your BFF to design your wedding, buyer beware. It takes more than a good eye to orchestrate a grand party, and you only get one chance at having a dream wedding.
True pros—including these Utah-based experts—execute ranch weddings without the hillbilly, city weddings without the traffic and winter weddings without the frostbite. What makes a wedding work and what doesn’t? Wedding planners Chris Lavoie, Amanda Hansen and Karley Parker reveal their secrets for wedding-day success.
Planner: Amanda Hansen
Company: Decoration Inc.
Bio: Nationally-recognized floral artist and owner of Decoration Inc., a Salt Lake floral boutique with a 25-year history of creating contemporary designs for clients in Park City, Sun Valley, Laguna Beach, Aspen, Sonoma and New York.
UB&G: Tell us about one of your favorite small parties.
HANSEN: I really loved this a co-ed shower inside Salt Lake’s Studio Eleven. Tom Call served the most amazing food. He comes out with each course to describes the dish, where ingredients were sourced and so on. It’s better than any restaurant, banquet or hotel.
UB&G: How did you transform this space?
HANSEN: My inspiration was a loose library theme. I love how textured old libraries are. I wanted to keep a really neutral palette with ivory, tan, grey, white and blush. By doing so, I was hoping the focus would be on all the textures: wood, glass, fur, lucite, linen, leather, bits of brass. I also used books from my personal collection for elevation and notebooks for menus. I styled a bookshelf at the end of the table to create a reading lounge.
UB&G: What were the key elements?
HANSEN: The grey faux-leather hide topper paired with lucite chairs topped with fur, the little notebooks used for hand-written menus, the limited edition Evian water bottles designed by Christian Lacroix and the green wall built to soften the white loft.
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