Food Fun and Love: The Makings of A Great Event and Wedding Design

By Pauline Parry

Months before The Special Event in Phoenix this January 2011, a group of creative partners gathered at Good Gracious! Events one morning to brainstorm our wedding design contribution to the Wedding Gallery. We were represented the Wedding Industry Professionals Association (WIPA) of which we are members and so had a little more pressure to work as a team than if we were just doing this ourselves. This room at the Phoenix Convention Center was our, ahem, inspiration ... Just a little pressure!

But our thoughts on that day of brainstorming our design and concept was a wedding brunch in a meadow ... cows, flowers, wine, cheese. All very bucolic and lovely. But of course that wasn't enough. What if we turned that on its head in some artistic, Phillip Stark sort of fashion? So the initial sketch that came from Eddie Zaratsian at Tic-Tock Couture Flowers was this ...

It was bold, fun and ripe (sorry for that cheese pun) with design opportunity! From there the team kept throwing in more suggestions until we got to this:

AMAZING, yes?!

It ALL came down to teamwork! This was a great example of how we work at Good Gracious. As president of WIPA, it fell on me to take the lead on the gallery, but from there I assembled a team of creative partners that were right for this project and were WIPA members.

We work this way on all our events as well. We don't have all these services in-house so we can partner each time with a team that is right for the event. It allows us to say to the client: "We've assembled just the right team for you." And then communication, professionalism, trust and teamwork make it all work perfectly.

With that said,this team began with myself and Good Gracious Creative Director, Dan Smith. We assembled Eddie at Tic-Tock, Vanessa Rockafellow from Cachet Wedding Designs, and Erin O'Donnell at BBJ Linen as our core team. Together we brought in the additional partners listed at the end of this post. They are all great and we could not have done this without our CREATIVE PARTNERS!!!!

THE MAIN EVENT

SETTING THE SCENE

THE TABLETOP

THE DETAILS

THE CAKE

Bringing new meaning to cheesecake, this was a savory cake; each tier was another round of cheese as is illustrated in above.

THE MENU

The menu was placed between two squares of white lucite, very chic. The brunch may have been fictional but the menu created for it was really delicious!

BEGIN
CROQUE MADAME
grilled ciabatti country ham, mustard aioli, smoked gouda topped with quail egg grilled tomato and tomato thyme jelly

SECOND
SMOKED SALMON FLATBREAD
than flatbread with ribbons of smoked salmon goat cheese cream fraiche capers and red onion

MAIN
CAPRESE EGG WHITE OMELETTE
basil, burrata, tomato balsamic reduction crispy basil
with
FRISEE PANCETTA SALAD
frisee pancetta crispy yukon potato pancake

INDULGE
FRENCH TOAST NUTELLA
squares filled with nutella and cream
BABY DOLL PANCAKES
with golden syrup, almond praline
BERRY SMOOTHIE CARAMEL CLUSTERS
three berry yogurt with caramel popcorn oatmeal clusters

THE TEAM