All That’s Left


These colorful flowers are the only physical indication of the headaches and are-you-kidding-me moments I’ve survived at work in the last few weeks.

Forty-four of these bright bouquets—well, this is actually two bouquets in one—lined 44 tables surrounded by ten guests each at a luncheon earlier today. It was my company’s biannual Top Women Owned Businesses event; the second event I’ve taken the lead on.

Event planning of this magnitude is like attempting a crossword puzzle in Japanese. I don’t feel like I have the background needed to get it done, but somehow I figure out ‘トースター’means toaster complete the puzzle anyway.

I know that’s not a confident (or logical) perspective, but confidence only goes so far when the majority of your project depends on a catering team, venue staff, floral company and 440 folks you’ve never met before.

We sold this event out weeks ahead of time, which was exciting yet terrifying when it came to dealing with potential registration errors and walk-up guests. I went with my gut on the choice of food (which panned out well), altered the venue to seat extra guests and worked with coworkers who rocked at speech-giving and video production. All in all, everyone was pleased; and that means I’m content.

It’s a lot easier for me to think about the little things that weren’t perfect rather than the event as a whole, but that’s the nature of the game. Anything can, will and does happen on event day; a true Yoda event master is the person who fools everyone into thinking it was a smashing success anyway.

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