It's the Climb...

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Fete

August 26, I went to my first industry networking event...Fete. Fete is for the top event industry owners and their employees. Lucky for me, all 3 of my companies were attending and invited me. I attended with Ray (from Images), Nick and Rubin (from AOO), and Brandon and Clifford (from TFS Studio). It was hosted by "the green room" which is an event venue in Hollywood. It was from 6-9, then all of my co-workers (yes from all 3 companies since they're good friends : ) ) and some other friends of theirs in the industry went out to eat. We all had a great time. I thoroughly enjoyed going and meeting different people. Plus a lot of them gave me advice on what they thought I should do next and lessons they have learned throughout the years. A major advantage of an internship, is that I am getting to learn from all of my co-workers' experience. Below are a few fun pictures we took while waiting for our table....

Nick, Kim, Me, and Rubin

Ray Thompson - Images By Lighting

Me and 2 of my AOO Boys : )

And here again with Nick...

L.A. Fires

As most of you know, Los Angeles has been surrounded by forest fires. Sunday night, as we were driving back from Los Olivos, California this was our view...

It's very hard to see, but the red is the fires along the mountains. This was when I realized how "close" the fires actually were to me. The next day, I was working at AOO Events. Our office is right off of Vine St. near Sunset Blvd. Nick, Jahon, and I walked to taco bell for lunch and we could see a white cloud to our left. They informed me that it wasn't just a white cloud, but a smoke cloud. If you look closely to the top of the mountain you can see that it is grey smoke. It looked like a volcano erupting.

Here is another pic of the drive towards "Hollywood" from AOO Events.

Luckily, firefighters are working hard to make sure the fires do not spread anymore.

Auguest 22/23, 2009

My weekends have been full of events as well as "tourist" time : ) This weekend was no different. On Saturday the 22, I met up with the Images by Lighting crew for a weekend wedding. I love getting to see all of the sites with Images : ) We were doing a wedding at Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles. For all those golfers out there (including my parents) this course was beautiful!!! The ceremony was outdoors over looking the golf course while the reception was inside the ballroom.

Later that night, I met up with 2 of my co-workers: Brandon Dunn and Rubin Sierra for a true LA experience. SUNSET JUNCTION!!! Basically, it is a street fair along Sunset Blvd. with concerts and tons of food. The guys figured it would be a good "LA experience" for me : ) It definitely was! We ate at a Mexican restaurant, then met up with a few of their friends.

On Sunday, I was LAZY and coming back from a slight cold so I just rested and went to Malibu for the day. I walked around some of the shops and ate pizza in the mall courtyard then hit the beach. I am a beach girl, always have and always will. For me, no matter what mood I am in the beach is always perfect : ) And there were some MASSIVE waves...

After a short walk, I found my new favorite spot with this view!!!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Thought of the Day

How appropriate !?!

Story time: One of my cousins, Laurie, gave me this "Be..." gift for graduation. She gave it to me as something to go on my desk, but since I have 3 offices and am constantly on the go, it is on my night stand. It is the cutest present that came with 50-75 little green cards with inspirational/motivational words ranging from "Be..Sexy" to "Be...Productive" to "Be...kind" to "Be...generous"(you get the picture?) and one day last week I got "Be...a Dreamer." I loved it and posted it as my "thought of the day" on twitter :) I decided to post a thought of the day on my blog and knew exactly what I should choose...this!

So to everyone reading this..."Be a Dreamer" no matter what your dream might be. No matter how far fetched it is or the looks others might give you when you tell them your dream, don't take no for an answer. If you really want something, be a dreamer and follow your heart, the rest will fall into place along the climb.

My new ambition:

Okay folks....I have a new goal. Lately, I have found myself coming up with lots of goals for the future : ) Some are random, some are activities for a "bucket list," and some are so real... that I am kept up at night figuring out how/when I should accomplish them. I have a new goal that is a 10 year goal. It is SOOO exciting-BUT you will have to wait 10 years to see if it has been accomplished :) Sorry!!! Hopefully by then, I will have the knowledge and money to make it happen! We'll see...(who knows a week from now I might have canc. it)

GOOD NEWS IS: I have a goal that I CAN tell you about : ) I am going to begin DESIGNING WEDDING VEILS!!! Yes ----VERY RANDOM---- I know! But let me tell you how I came to this idea...

Thanks to Brandon Dunn, who I work with at TFS Studio, and who is an interior designer for B + C (Brandon + Clifford Interior Design). I have fallen in LOVE!!! with wedding veils : ) He is a designer of bridal veils and made his sister's 10 years ago and has been in the process of making his cousin's. She is getting married this weekend in Ohio. SOOO I got to go shopping with him for all of the supplies and he filled me in on how to make this happen. Which explains how I got the CRAZY idea to start designing wedding veils : ) I will keep you posted on how this goes. I have a few of the supplies already, but have to go back to the fabric store. Then, I will make a few samples and of course BLOG about them. Together we can decided if this is a match made in heaven or... if I have fallen out of love.

Sorry if you think I am rambling on about this, I'm just SUPER Duper excited. Also, if you would like to custom order veils, you can, but you might want to see one of my finished products first : )

I survived my first 17 hour work day!! YAY!

Thursday August 20 was super busy, but a day I will definitely remember from my internship! My check in time was 7:30am in Burbank for the set-up/tweaking of the Emmy Governor's Ball press preview. Then the preview was from 9-11 am, and looked fabulous (pictures on an earlier post, check it out). Then preparation was going into a wedding in Malibu. The wedding was atop on of the mountains overlooking the canyons and ocean at a family friend of the brides home. It was a stunning outdoor ceremony and reception produced by Jowy Productions. I helped Joey and Sarah out until break down at 12:30am. They did a fantastic job on every detail, and Sarah just so happens to be a Kappa sister!!! This event was great with a fire pit for guests to relax around, a sundae bar, lighting in the trees, and an energetic crowd. I had so much fun working with these ladies and there staff, as well as the Images by lighting crew.

The florist had candles in the trees, but there were also area lights in the trees, Lekos projecting a gobo on the dance floor, and uplights in the shrubs.

One thing that I really enjoy about my internship is getting to interact with so many vendors and producers in the industry. Halfway through my internship, I am a firm believer in the learning advantages of a shared internship program vs. a single company in the event industry. It is SOOOO great getting to learn and see a variety of aspects that go into planning an event. Whether it is a scheduled meeting going over agendas, prospecting new clients, completing and analyzing RFPs, or planning out budgets, so much goes into making a successful event.

Who wouldn't want to eat here....

Forgive me, I am way behind on blog updates!!!

Lets catch up:

Wednesday August 18, 2009 was a "on-set" day for me with Images By Lighting (the "premier" lighting company in LA and one of the top lighting companies in the industry). I was shadowing one of the Owners, Ray Thompson, at the press release set-up (see pictures on my last blog) in Burbank and a wedding in Malibu. It was a fun day and I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with Ray. He is such a great guy. For our dinner break we were in route to our next site and stopped for subway on the edge of a Malibu Bluff...lets just say.....GORGEOUS! The drive to and from locations was just as fun, because it was my first time driving through the canyons on the edge of Malibu. Here are a few pictures from the day!