90s Themed Party and How I broke my own rule!

Hey glamfriends, It’s been a minute but I’m back! Today’s blog post is featuring the 90s themed party I recently styled and how I broke my own rule while doing so. I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to be this transparent with my followers.

I decided to write this post because I wanted to accomplish a few things:

• to allow my followers to see what goes on behind the scenes and the struggles that I sometimes encounter. 
• for other party stylists or professionals to see what happens when you compromise or break your own rules. 
• so that my followers and potential clients can understand why I am firm about my budget minimums 

The Broken Rule

While Morgan’s 90s themed party turned out spectacular, I broke my own rule.  What rule, you ask? The rule of hiring professionals to do what they are experts in and I’m not. To do this requires a budget that allows for you to hire said professionals. 

Why didn’t I follow my rule when it came to this party? For a couple of reasons. This was my 2nd time working with Morgan. The first time she ordered a party box for her best friend’s bridal shower and was very pleased. When she reached out to me about styling her 90s themed party to celebrate her 30th birthday, I was ecstatic because I had always wanted to style a 90s themed party. I mean who doesn’t love the 90s!?! I also didn’t want to disappoint her by saying no because she didn’t have the budget that I require clients to have when working with me. I hate disappointing my clients, especially those who are repeat clients! 

The issue was that Morgan didn’t quite have the budget required to incorporate the kinds of details I wanted the party to encompass and that are consistent with my brand. A Glam Good Time is known for producing parties that heavily focus on details. I was left with 3 choices: I had to decline the opportunity to style this party.  I had to scale back on the details. Or… I had to do quite a bit of the detail creation work myself.  I chose the latter. 

90s Themed Party Vision 

Now anyone that knows me and how my creative process works, you know that ideas come to me all throughout the process. I no longer create mood boards for my clients at the beginning because I never know where my creativity will lead me. I also know that I can’t come up with the complete design upon command. With that being said, I did know two things. I knew that I wanted each table to have it’s own theme and color scheme. Early on I came up with the themes for each table: music, tv shows, movies, candy, fashion, and games. 

The second thing that I knew was that I wanted my dessert table to have a graphic in front of it. In this case, it was a cassette. Initially the table was supposed to look like a boombox but boomboxes were being used quite often throughout the overall design so I decided to go with a cassette. From this point, the rest of the process evolved. 

90s Themed Party Design Process 

The amount of details that went into this party was unbelievable. To be honest, when I started the design phase, I had no idea how much work would be involved in tasks such as creating the centerpieces myself. I did, however, outsource all of my graphic needs to my graphic designer.  I told her what I needed and she came through! Thank goodness!

Now here is where it gets tricky. I won’t lie..I am not a crafter by nature. Sure I can create some things but overall I stay away from crafting because it’s simply not my area of expertise.

Before undertaking the task of building the centerpieces myself, I reached out to a local design company who has the team, equipment, and capabilities to create seamless and fabulous centerpieces. The quote that I received was for $900 plus taxes and delivery. That was over $150 per centerpiece and would have blown a great deal of my client’s budget.

Next, I reached out to a few other designers but they weren’t local and couldn’t guarantee that the centerpieces would survive shipping. I also couldn’t find anyone else in this area to do them for me soooooo that meant I had to do them or I could scrap the idea and go with something else. Well anyone that knows me, knows that when I get a vision, it’s hard for me to walk away from it. Needless to say, I forged ahead with building the centerpieces and the cassette for the dessert table. 

The Final Results

Now you have some insight into my thought process. Throughout the entire process of building the decor items mentioned above, I was kicking myself LOL…..tasks such as cutting a straight line were challenging. Tasks such as getting the images to stay glued to the foam board or cardboard was challenging, even though I had purchased what was supposed to be heavy duty glue! As I mentioned earlier, I am not a crafter and that not only became crystal clear to me but it’s VERY evident in the finished centerpieces.

The point I am trying to make is that when you break your own rule(s) in this business, you can create a bigger problem for yourself. While I didn’t spend the money to hire professional designers, I lost money in labor hours that it took me to design and build these items myself. THIS is the very reason why I stress the importance of having the budget needed. The right budget not only allows you to focus your attention on other areas of the styling process but it also allows you to achieve the results that are consistent with what you want associated with your brand. 

To deliver an “outside-the-box” party experience that meets my standards, remembering why I created standards and rules is crucial.  All that being said, I am thrilled to report that my client and her guests were blown away by the level of detail they saw. THIS is the most important thing to me! Not only that but I also received great feedback from all who have the opportunity to see the party photos before today. Now you get the same opportunity! 

Enjoy and please feel free to share your thoughts!

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