Wizard of Oz themed party!

It was just after ten days of my UAL course in Interior Styling that I had the chance to put in practice what I learnt at the course, with an amazing Wizard of Oz themed party!

The party was all organized in details by the amazing Sarah from Toadstool Parties. My job was to design the sweet table and source some props, candies, decorations, jars, trays and plates. I was soooo excited I can't even explain you how much excited I was!

I SIMPLY LOVE children's parties :D

It's just incredible what you can do with all the colors and magic you find in developing a party for a child. You feel a child yourself.

It was a challenging job I must say, as it was my first time styling an entire table for a famous party planner, but in the end everything was perfect and great fun.

I believe there are 3 major aspects to consider if you want to do this job:

1. developing the table's style under the client instructions.

2. work with a great and supportive party/event planner who has your very same visual.

3. time and budget.

1. Developing the table's style under the client instructions:

When I worked in the compliance/legal area, as my previous job, I used to make Power Point presentations to help me and others better understand tasks, rules and objects. So, as this has always been very useful to me, I thought about doing the same thing with styling the table.

I carefully listened to the client's dreams, the color combination she wanted and the Kansas style she was looking for, for her sweet birthday girl.

I then realized I had to follow some steps if I wanted to do everything perfectly and pay attention to the finest detail. Here are the steps I have followed:

a) online research to get inspiration

b) make a drawing of how you want the table to look like.

This is a great thing to show your client. You always have to keep in mind that it is very difficult for a person to visualize the exact same idea you have in mind, so I believe it's perfect to show your client the drawing you made.

c) after you have made the drawing I suggest to make a Power Point presentation with all the props you would realistically like to include in the table and how you think to source it and combine them. Possibly you would like to divide time into categories. For example: jars, candies, plates, cake stands, decorations etc. And in my case, as I am also a cake decorator, I included the visual of the themed cupcakes, cakes in a jar and cookies I thought to make :)

It's ok in my opinion to include pictures of the props you want to buy or rent, so your party planner will know exactly what you are looking for and she/he can see if you have the same idea or not.

It is fundamental that you work closely with the party planner. Having the same visual is absolutely vital. This leads to my second step.

2. Work with a great and supportive party/event planner who has your very same visual:

As I said before it's important to collaborate with a talented party planner. I worked with Sarah from Toadstool Parties and I have to say that she is amazing. We had the same idea about the styling and props needed, and everything went perfectly well.

3. Time and budget.

So, here is the hard part.

Time - you have a limited amount of time to put together and develop all your ideas. It is important you define your priorities. It may also happen that you only have 1 week or 2 weeks to design and style a table because sometimes clients call the party planner only a week or so in advance and you end up having a very short notice order. Organization and time management are key in this situation.

Budget - this is something to discuss with the party planner because it's really up to her/him to decide the amount of money necessary for the styling in order to satisfy the client's dreams.

It's a challenging job as I said before, but it is very rewarding especially when all the party guests are amazed by your work and all the children are happy and satisfied :)

Below are some pictures of my final styling work - main cake and cake pops are not mine, all the other sweets are Penny the Bee - ;)