Flower Duet Sponsors #CabanaBoss Event

Flower Duet cre­at­ed this flower design to greet guests as they arrived for the event. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

Flower Duet is a mem­ber of a wed­ding and event ven­dor think tank who meets to edu­cate each oth­er and our peers, to net­work with col­leagues and devel­op pro­fes­sion­al relationships.

We call our group the Wed­ding & Event Heroes and we held our 4th Annu­al “Hero” Event called #Caban­a­Boss on May 15, 2017 at Ter­ranea Resort in Ran­cho Palos Verdes, Calif.

Ter­ranea Resort at Cielo Point for our WEHEROES event for 2017. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

Our group, Wed­ding & Event Heroes, believes in shar­ing best-in-class ideas about how to work togeth­er, plan and cre­ate a per­fect event with our ven­dor colleagues.

Yel­low trop­i­cal flo­ral design for our #caban­a­boss cel­e­bra­tion at Ter­ranea Resort in May. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Pho­tog­ra­phy. Flow­ers by Flower Duet.

A Leadership Summit by the Pool

This year’s theme was the #Caban­a­Boss Lead­er­ship Sum­mit where we all shared our expe­ri­ences and exper­tise in regard to being a leader of our own organizations.

As busi­ness own­ers, we have employ­ees and con­trac­tors we must keep moti­vat­ed, edu­cat­ed and enthu­si­as­tic. As lead­ers, we need the same things and we shared how we accom­plish these feats for our­selves and our workers.

VIPS Enter­tain­ment float­ed in the pool ser­e­nad­ing the guests dur­ing the Cielo Pio­nt. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

We were for­tu­nate to hold our event next to the ocean at the Cielo Point Pool. Our live music ven­dor, Alis­tair Tober of The VIPs Enter­tain­ment put his band mem­bers in the pool to float around and per­form won­der­ful live songs dur­ing our net­work­ing and brunch hour.

Avo­ca­do toast costal style at Ter­ranea Resort for our #caban­a­boss event in May. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

We cre­at­ed a sign for the hash­tag #Caban­a­Boss out of Galax leaves to make it an easy way for our guests to blog and post about the day. In addi­tion to the green­ery sign, we made a num­ber of orange and yel­low trop­i­cal-themed flo­rals for the pool­side cock­tail and cof­fee tables.

We attached wood­en let­ters to a frame and then added Galax leaves to cre­ate a botan­i­cal hash­tag! Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography

Floating Flowers

Casey designed a cute way to float flow­ers in the pool using inflat­able drink cozies!

Floats for flow­ers! We cre­at­ed a way to float some demure flo­rals in the pool at Cielo Point (after the band got out!). Pho­to by Kit Wertz. Flow­ers by Flower Duet.

It was a beau­ti­ful spring day at the coast over­look­ing the Pacif­ic Ocean and we were delight­ed to be part of a won­der­ful group of ven­dors pre­sent­ing to a top notch group of wed­ding plan­ners and cater­ing man­agers from Los Ange­les and Orange County.

Guests enjoy eat­ing a scrump­tious brunch pro­vid­ed by Ter­ranea while net­work­ing. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Pho­tog­ra­phy. Flow­ers by Flower Duet.

Gab­by Nor­ton of Cause We Can Events, right, chats with Jack­ie Han­son from Design Vis­age at #Caban­a­Boss. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

Eggs Bene­dict in a easy to eat from mason jar. It was as good as it looks! Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

Casey (at left) and Kit (right) talk to guests at our event for wed­ding and event indus­try plan­ners at Ter­ranea. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

Dur­ing the brunch, our guests dined on deli­cious food pre­pared by Terranea’s excel­lent chef and cater­ing staff. My favorite was a ver­sion of Eggs Bene­dict in a clear class you could eat with a spoon!

Servers were pass­ing a cham­pagne cock­tail and cre­at­ing fresh moz­zarel­la served with heir­loom toma­toes and served with arti­sanal sea salt made from the ocean just below the resort.

For the Lead­er­ship Sum­mit, we held three pan­el dis­cus­sions where we answered ques­tions that are often posed to lead­ers in today’s dig­i­tal age.

Kit speaks about the impor­tance of an up-to-date web­site dur­ing the Brand­ing pan­el at #Caban­a­Boss on May 15, 2017. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

You, The Leader

The first pan­el dis­cus­sion cov­ered what “You, The Leader” needs to keep you moti­vat­ed, guide you on how to moti­vate oth­ers and how to keep the work/life bal­ance as a busi­ness owner.

Amy Berman of Vanil­la Bake Shop, spoke about how Win­ston Churchill’s quotes inspire her.

KC Camp­bell of VOX DJs, spoke about the con­fer­ences he attends to make sure he is exe­cut­ing the best prac­tices for the DJ indus­try and Meg Walk­er of Made by Meg, spoke about how she bal­ances work and home life so she can be an effec­tive leader.

Guests at the Lead­er­ship Sum­mit event on May 15, 2017, at Ter­ranea lis­ten to our panelists.

Branding

I was part of the sec­ond pan­el dis­cus­sion which cov­ered “Brand­ing In The Dig­i­tal Age.” Casey and I found­ed Flower Duet in 1999 as a side busi­ness when we still worked in IT jobs. I have a back­ground in eCom­merce and inter­ac­tive mar­ket­ing with exper­tise in Search. I have a good under­stand­ing of how peo­ple search for infor­ma­tion on the Inter­net and know how to get peo­ple to land on our web­site to find our ser­vices and I helped oth­ers do that for their companies.

I spoke about the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a good web­site for your busi­ness and that over 70% of con­sumers access a web­site from mobile devices. Web­sites need to look great and work well on all types of mobile devices or con­sumers will take their busi­ness some­where else.

Lisa Oler from Smile Lounge Pho­to Booth spoke about the best way to use social media for your busi­ness. She expressed how impor­tant it is to be gen­uine and real when pro­mot­ing your­self as a brand.

Lau­ra Clausen of Dish Wish has a back­ground in brand­ing and talked about the neces­si­ty to evolve your brand. As your com­pa­ny grows, it’s impor­tant to keep adjust­ing your brand to reflect the clients you want to attract for your business.

Vox Djs was on hand to MC the event and pro­vide entry music for each pan­elist. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

The Tribe

The third pan­el cov­ered top­ics on how to keep your work­ers and con­trac­tors hap­py. Jack­ie Han­son of Design Vis­age talked about an annu­al trip her design­ers are treat­ed to as a reward for meet­ing goals in the year.

Jere­my Berman of Vanil­la Bake Shop spoke about how to keep every­one excit­ed to come to work dai­ly and treat peo­ple well and with respect. Leo­ra Mauck of Cop­per Will Paper Stu­dio talked about incen­tives for work­ers that were in the form of gift cards for work that is excep­tion­al to help keep her employ­ees motivated.

Each guest went home with lots of infor­ma­tion on how to be a good leader and a lot of cabana-themed gifts to kick off a suc­cess­ful sum­mer sea­son. Pho­to by Miki & Son­ja Photography.

Learn more about our #WEHEROES mem­bers and their wed­ding & event businesses:

• Jen­nifer Messer­li – Ter­ranea Resort
• Meg Hall – Made by Meg
• Ida Gard­ner – Ida Gard­ner Events
• KC Camp­bell – Vox DJs
• Jack­ie Han­son – Design Visage
• Miki & Son­ja Rakice­vic – Miki & Son­ja Photography
• Casey Schwartz & Kit Wertz – Flower Duet
• Leo­ra Mauck – Cop­per Wil­low Studios
• Lisa Oler – Smile Lounge Pho­to Booth
• Alis­tair Tober – The VIPs Enter­tain­ment Inc.
• Amy and Jere­my Berman – Vanil­la Bake Shop
• Lau­ra Clausen – Dish Wish