More Father Daughter songs

Here is another great song by the group Heartland called “Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle!  Its an all time classic!

“.

Father – Daughter songs

So recently a friend of mine asked me to suggest some songs that are appropriate for a Father/Daughter dance.  As a premier wedding cplanning team we get that question quite a bit.  So over the next few days I will post a few that I adore!!

Better ideas for your wedding

The number one biggest challenge I see is a wedding devoid of the couple’s own personalities. Now, I’m not saying everyone has to have a theme wedding – cause I’d prefer you to have a color we weave through the wedding than a theme that isn’t representative of either of you.  One area that could do with an immediate face lift is in the Reading.  If I hear one more wedding ceremony with the standard “Love is patient” reading, I’m gonna cry.  The best wedding readings are  writings that express what you believe about love and marriage.  So today I am going to give you four alternate suggestions on readings that are more unique.

“To a Stranger” by Walt Whitman
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you;
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me, as of a dream).
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you.
All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured;
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me;
I ate with you, and slept with you–your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only;
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass–you take of my beard, breast, hands in return;
I am not to speak to you–I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone;
I am to wait–I do not doubt I am to meet you again;
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

“Hope Is The Thing With Feathers” by Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.

“To Be One With Each Other” by George EliotWhat greater thing is there for two human souls
than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen
each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,
to share with each other in all gladness,
to be one with each other in the
silent unspoken memories?

“A White Rose” by JB O’ReillyThe red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips

Hope these inspire you to find one that works for you!

Venue Spotlight – The Foundry at Puritan Mill

As an Atlanta Wedding Planning company we simply adore The Foundry at Puritan Mill.  It is the perfect venue if you have the imagination and a great planner (hint hint) to make it fabulous for you!  Run by the fabulous Novare group and represented by the DIVINE Kristen St. Hilaire, this venue is everything you could want in an event space and more.  Great blank canvas but yet with a Chic urban feel.  It comes with all of the tables and chairs nd even fabulous draping already in place to help you set the mood.

Located at 916 Joseph E Lowry Blvd in the heart of downtown Atlanta, the facility was originally built in 1921, and The Foundry at Puritan Mill was constructed and operated by Puritan Chemical Company. Puritan soap and other cleaning products were manufactured and stored in the building until they were shipped on the neighboring Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. The site served as the Atlanta headquarters for Puritan Chemical Company until 1996. In 2000, the location was purchased by Urban Realty Partners and Weaver & Woodbery Company to be restored and converted into a mixed-use facility. Call them today to book the space and tell them we sent you!

Seasons Greetings!!

Christmas is here and for most of us it is a magical time of the year when Christmas, Chanukah (Hanukka) and Kwanza all commence and no matter how hard things have been and how many challenges we have faced, there is an air of hope and renewed promise in the air.  So today I want to wish all of our blog supporters a very happy holiday and seasons greetings!!

So to celebrate this season I want to share with you one of my favorite carols of the season.  It is one I loved to sing when i was in my university choir.  Here is “Carol of the Bells”

Destination Weddings: What Vendors Should You Take with you?

We at F & G Events know that destination weddings can be wonderful events but we also now they can go horribly wrong if you have not ensured your day is well protected and planned.  It can be extremely stressful if you do not have a grip on what is going on, which is especially hard from thousands of miles away.

Even though some larger resorts across the globe offer you a list of “preferred” vendors that may meet all your wedding-day needs, there are two specific vendors you should always take with you regardless of where you’re getting married, no questions asked. Those are your consultant and your photographer. Your consultant has been planning your special day with you from the very beginning, and it is their job to make sure all the hard work pays off for you on your wedding day.

It is also crucial that you take your photographer with you as they are someone you trust to meet your stylistic expectations. More importantly, the person capturing your special day on film should be someone you are comfortable with.  Now we say, get planning that special day abroad and when you pack that swimsuit and the dress – don’t forget to pack your planner and your photographer.

Some planners like us offer brides the great option of planning their international weddings for free.  That’s right I said Free!  We will plan your international wedding for free.  All you need to do is to cover airfare for two planners and provide hotel accommodations for 4 days (2 prior to the wedding for planning, the wedding day and the day after to ensure everything has been wrapped up.)  In most cases, if you have guests going with you and you are utilizing 15 or more rooms in the hotel  they will provide one complimentary room which can be used for the planners.

Introducing F & G Weddings

Yes that’s right we are launching a new division of F & G Events called F & G Weddings!  This new site is specifically geared towards our lovely brides as we wanted to provide them with a site that was 100% dedicated to them and their planning needs.  A wedding is a special occasion and while most bride’s know that the majority of their planners also plan social and corporate events, they are only interested in their own wedding and rightly so!

Our goal as event planners here in Atlanta was to create a division to the company that will allow our brides to see all the details they want to see and samples of our work without burdening them with having to search the site to find what it is that speaks to their needs.  To steal a well known tag-line…they can now have it their way!

We invite you to have a look, pass it on and tell your friends to log on and request a quotation today!  Click HERE to be taken to the site.

Cheers!!

Piedmont Park Atlanta!! It’s great for your special event!

On Friday last week, we had the great fortune of visiting Piedmont Park to look at it for one of our upcoming weddings.  We have just started working with a wonderful bride and groom who want to combine both of their cultures as well as combine a love for the outdoors.

Being wedding planners in Atlanta, we immediately felt that this was the perfect wedding for Piedmont Park because they not only have great outdoor spaces, but amazing indoor facilities as well!  The tour was EVERYTHING we wanted it to be and more!  The park is ideal!  If you are looking for the quintessential Atlanta venue that combines traditional with a twist, and will give you amazing vistas – great photo ops and the facilities of a full service hotel – then we suggest you put the Park on your must see list.

We toured historic Magnolia Hall, breathtaking Dock & Visitors Center and we got a sneak peak at the upcoming Greystone facility – which used to be the old bathhouse!  IT IS TO DIE FOR! It will be ready for Summer 2009!

The reason we also loved the Park as a venue is because the park is run by the Piedmont Park Conservancy which is a nonprofit organization, working with the City of Atlanta for the preservation of historic Piedmont Park. Since 1989, the Conservancy has raised and invested more than $23 million in private funds to transform the once dilapidated Park into the most visited in green space in Atlanta. In addition to raising funds for capital improvements throughout the 185-acre park, the Conservancy manages more than 90 percent of the Park’s daily maintenance care and security.  What is more amazing is that every dollar spent on your special day goes back into preserving the park and helping the conservancy do the amazing job they do every day!

Why the park is also amazing is because unlike most venues you will get your chairs (and I do mean lovely chiavari chairs) and tables!  So less rental fees will be incurred!  The rental cost are also on par with any major venue in the city so there is no massive outlay of cash!  They work with amazing vendors on site – many of whom we also work with regularly, and of course – they are amazingly accommodating to event planners and for us that is a joy!

Do yourself a favor, go see the park!  I guarantee you that you will fall in love with it as much as we did.  it is the wonderful gem right in the middle of Atlanta with great views, open spaces, amazing facilities a dedicated staff and you will be a part of the green movement!  What’s not to love!  I tell you as a planner in Atlanta, its a venue not to be missed! Here is the link to their website!

Atlanta’s coolest photographers!

A few months ago we had the great fortune to meet some of the best and definitely the sweetest couple ever and can now proudly say they are great friends as well!  As an Atlanta based event planner who works on both weddings and corporate events, we are always on the look out for amazing vendors who will get the job done and deliver ABOVE expectations.  Well, this couple are just that!

Anna and Spencer are a married couple who are also business partners in a wedding photography business.  What we loved instantly about them was their great personalities and then we saw their work!  WOW!  If you want a photographer who understands that your wedding is more than just about  those posed photographs with Aunt Tilly or those often time over styled shots of the bride and groom posed in the most unnatural positions – then this is the team for you!  They are definitely not your typical photographers!

They capture what we like to call the quiet moments.  Those shots when you think no one is looking and its just tender, and warm and you can feel the love coming through the lens.

Click on  Anna and Spencer! and go have a look!  They also were kind enough to take some terrific shots for us at a recent corporate event we did and they were amazing!  In fact, the shot at the top of our blog was at that event and taken by them!  We will be posting a case study of that event shortly so you can see what we did and how it turned out!

I promise you will fall in love with their work!  I am putting three of my favorite shots here so you can see what I mean when I say – they GET IT!  (Can you tell we love them to pieces!!)

Trash The Dress

A Look Back

Pure love and joy!

See what we mean!  They totally get it!  Their site is annaandspencer.com!

Green wedding tips!

As an Atlanta based wedding and event planner our team at F & G Events get lots of queries about planning a wedding but still trying to be green, and we know it can be difficult trying to marry the two (no pun intended.)  As you know a wedding is one of the most significant days in a couple’s life and many wonder how they can incorporate their love for each other while showing respect for our earth and the environment without compromising on what their dreams of the ideal wedding look like.  Well the easy answer is to green your wedding.  The better question then becomes – How do I green my wedding?

We do that by integrating your environmental principles into your big day. The average cost of a wedding is approximately $28,700 and that number would suggest that weddings leave a huge footprint, both ecologically and economically. Going green doesn’t mean we all wear vegan clothes and eat alfalfa sprouts.  Here are my top favorite tips for greening your wedding

Source in your local area
Almost anything you need for your wedding can be sourced locally in your area.  Food and beverage is a great place to start, as that is also invariably your largest cost.  If there’s a good farmers market down the road, why use up the earth’s precious resources trucking in a keg of your favorite produce.  Do you really need that imported beer from Mexico or Germany?  Why not try the one from the micro-brewery in your neighborhood.   And not only will these items be fresher, you will be financially supporting local suppliers!

Minimize your wedding’s size
No matter what other choices you make, the biggest factor in your wedding’s footprint will be its size. The fact is that every person you invite means more miles traveled, more food consumed, a bigger venue, and sadly more waste at the end.  We are not saying that you should not invite those near and dear to you – but do you really need to invite the lady who lived down the street from you when you were 4 months old? Really??  A nice courteous announcement should suffice.

Think eco-logical invitations
An invitation sets the tone for your wedding, so you don’t want it to look inappropriate, but you also shouldn’t have to compromise on your green principles. The good news is that in every city there are a number of eco friendly suppliers of recycled, handmade, or “tree-free” invitations.

Source with green in mind
Everything you buy or rent for your wedding has an environmental and social impact, so keep this in mind when planning a green wedding.  Encourage your vendors to use organic products where possible.  Rent you linens, tables etc.  These items are used over and over again and therefore are green friendly.  Same with a rented Tux!  It’s the greener way – as opposed to spending money on an organic suit and then never wearing it again.

Make it personal
While you want to have a great time and throw one great party, that doesn’t mean you need to go over the top. Why not create a scrap-book to which friends and relatives can add poems, drawings, pictures, or anecdotes. Or a great decorated old hat box where they can place their written best wishes for your happiness in at the ceremony.  These are the things that your guests will remember most fondly.

Those are just a few of the many green tips out there that we at F & G Events wanted to share with you and as you can see by taking a look at the bigger picture of your wedding, you can move beyond the norm  to create a truly personal and more importantly sustainable celebration that your guests will rave about for years to come!

The official hot color for 2009! – MIMOSA YELLOW!!!!

Mimosa Yellow!

Yup!  Its Yellow.  Announced this week by Pantone, the institute that provides color standards to design industries, specifically cites the shade of yellow they call “mimosa,” as the hottest color for 2009.  Mimosa is a vibrant shade of yellow and can be found by the flowers of the mimosa trees as well as my brunch-time favorite cocktail!   In general, Pantone says that they expect the general public will embrace many tones of optimistic yellow in 2009.

Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute says that she thinks it’s just the most wonderful symbolic color of the future.  “It’s invariably connected to warmth, sunshine and cheer – all the good things we’re in dire need of right now.” “People know yellow lightens up the atmosphere,” Eiseman says.

The color is already being seen on the runway.  In the spring fashion collections previewed earlier in the fall for retailers and editors, various pops of yellow showed up in the collections of Carolina Herrera, Badgley Mischka and Michael Kors just to name a few. 

As an Atlanta based wedding and event planner, we are already seeing quite a few brides for 2009 showing excitement over the new hot color and working it into their color schemes!

Without a doubt yellow looks great in florals.  Yellow is a sharp turn from the color of 2008 which of course was blue iris!

Why hire a planner??

Planning a wedding?  Getting ready to work on a gala?  Having a party at home and need help?  Here is a list of reasons why it’s better to hire an event planner:

• An event planner is a dedicated professional who stays on top of new trends, products, services and equipment. We are there to use our expertise and experience to help your event run smoothly and stay within your budget.

• An event planner has resources and contacts that we can draw upon. You need a DJ, a motivational speaker, the right venue, the perfect wedding dress? We can do that. An event planner has experience to know how to handle last minute changes that may affect the outcome of your event.

• An event planner frees your time. Event planning is time consuming. The list of tasks to accomplish is endless: scouting venues, negotiating, sending invitations, designing the appropriate layout, hotel bookings, airline bookings, managing the budget, sourcing the right vendors, obtaining best contractual agreements or providing directions. The list is endless. We are here to do it all for you and simply let you shine.

• A planner has the skills and connections to save you money. This is achieved because we have relationships with many vendors who offer us special discounts for our clients, which you are unable to get otherwise. This helps both companies because: (1) the planner’s clients will get spectacular pricing so we in turn will continue to send business to this vendor and (2) the vendor will continue to book several events through the referrals.

There are many questions that need to be asked of vendors before you book them. There are several ways that you can be taken advantage of if you’ve never had experience planning events, regardless of their size or scope. That is where the experience of your planner comes in handy. In the end all of those savings really add up!

Hiring f & G Events for your next function is the right thing to do – And we will have fun too!!

Hello world! Our blog is here!

F&G Event Production and Management LLC is one of the leading meeting, event and production management companies. We dedicate ourselves to the highest standards of service and quality; and we deliver above your expectations.

We believe that the entire process is a collaborative effort between our team and you. We achieve this process in five simple steps:

Understanding your needs;

Creating custom-made concepts for you;

Developing an efficient timeline to achieve your goals;

Executing the event to perfection and

Enjoying the process.

The best results come when you’re having fun along the way. We’ll not only make the process painless, but we’ll make it completely enjoyable.

We deliver full service
We allow our clients to decide whether they would like to use as much or as little of our services as they desire.

We can plan, manage and execute your entire event, from concept to completion or we can simply manage the day of the event for you to take the stress of the big day off of your shoulders.

Our clients benefit from working with not just an experienced team but rather a true full-service company that brings to each project the team’s creative skills and management backgrounds.

Attention to Detail
We believe that love is in the details. It is the little touches that make your guests and attendees know that you care enough about them to go that extra mile. As your planner, our job is to ensure that this is achieved.

Anyone can see the big things to be done, but not everyone has the eye for the most minute of details. F & G Events built our business on delivering excellence.

At F&G Events we understand that serving the needs of our clients is the key to our success. Our aim is to always develop long lasting relationships with each and every client.

Simply put, we love what we do and it shows. That’s because we know that it’s never about us, it’s about you and your needs. That’s why our motto is:

The work is ours – The applause is yours!!