Destination Weddings at Silicon Valley NACE May Meeting

The other continuing education event I attended last month was held by the Silicon Valley NACE chapter at the Silver Creek Valley Country Club in San Jose. I was really looking forward to this event as there was going to be a panel of wedding industry professionals who were going to talk about destination weddings and high-end celebrations.

The theme of the event was Alice in Wonderland and it was perfectly conceptualized in the main ballroom of Silver Creek Valley Country Club, where we spent the main portion of our time that evening.

Check out the centerpieces!

Dinner at Silver Creek Valley Country Club never disappoints; for salad, we had mixed baby greens, artichokes, tomatoes and carrot curls with balsamic dressing.

For the entree, we had petit filet mignon, roasted shallots with Merlot reduction sauce, garlic herb potato au gratin and fresh seasonal vegetables.

For dessert, we had yummy mini cupcakes from Jen's Cakes.

After dinner, we awaited excitedly to hear from the panel of speakers; planner Sasha Souza of Sasha Souza Events; videographer Andrew Hsu, of Studio MSV; baker Jen Kwapinski, of Jen's Cakes; and photographer Brook Todd, of Alisha + Brook Photographers. They shared valuable information regarding what issues to watch out for in planning and coordinating destination weddings. Do you know that you have to pay customs tax for flowers you bring into certain countries? Do you know what kind of wedding professionals you should hire locally and whom you should hire from where you are located? That is definitely useful information to know beforehand!

I think this event has been very informative and it's nice to see how other wedding professionals work with destination weddings.

Fire Safety, Anyone?

Last Tuesday night, I attended the Silicon Valley NACE meeting at the Stanford Faculty Club in Palo Alto to hear Natti Pierce-Thomson give a presentation on fire and electrical safety in the events industry. She is the President and Senior Lighting Designer of North American Theatre Technology. (You may recall that Natti also provided the lighting at the ACPWC meeting in February.) One of the first ETCP Certified Entertainment Electricians, Natti is also a member of the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association). Who better to teach us on fire and electricity safety than Natti!

She gave plenty of useful tips and information to teach us about how to use extension cords properly, what kind of extension cords to use and not to use in different situations and how to check if a piece of fabric is flammable, among other things. She also showed us the latest in LED lighting technology. Lots of useful information! I also learned that there is a product that is essentially a single-use fire extinguisher about the size of a water bottle. Guess what I'll be adding to my bridal emergency bag from now on!

If you look closely at the centerpiece, you can see that different kind of extension cords have been incorporated and would later be used in Natti's presentation, how clever!

For dinner, we started with an artichoke carpaccio and mâche salad with shaved Parmesan, tomato concassé and balsamic vinaigrette.

The entree was a duet entree consisting of Painted Hills Natural Angus petit filet mignon topped with frizzled leeks and filet of halibut with lemon thyme beurre blanc with white and green asparagus and Gruyère potato strudel.

After the entree, we were treated to a cheese course; various Cowgirl Creamery cheeses with lavender honey, quince paste and herbed flatbread.

Last but not least, the dessert was an Opera cake; layers of almond sponge cake with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache.

All in all, good food, excellent presentation, getting to meet new event professionals and catching up with old ones, what more can one ask for?