To Tom from Kate - Part 1 - Big wedding

This is nice - both colors and layout. Nicely un-canceled. I think Kate took a course in architectural lettering. Maybe this will inspire others to work on their lettering. For starters - you can Google *architectural lettering* and there many fun examples.

OK - here's a Tom saves the day story with details. After years of working with the one event planner on big events, I had the opportunity to work with a different event planner on the *mother of all events* - (does anyone use that expression any more? ) Events are relative - this one was spectacular by Iowa standards - which means you hire a ton of stuff out of Chicago - the band, the vintage cars, the light show, the luge ice sculpture, the tent for the afterparty - which included furniture to create a lounge. The after party band was from LA - and you'd recognize the name.

I will preface by saying that I have nothing against people who want to go overboard on weddings because they are providing welcome income to people who like to create memorable events. I started working on the event in November (invitations) and had not really paid attention to the calendar for the following May - when the wedding was scheduled.

It wasn't until January or February that I realized prior to booking the wedding, I had booked myself into an out of town teaching gig on the weekend of the wedding. I had to tell the client that I would be gone - and assure them that I had someone who was even better than me at being on call for the weekend.

Luckily Tom was up for the challenge. He had to bring his nibs and ink and be ready to write out any last minute place cards or escort cards. The bigger part of the job was putting out all the place cards and lining up the escort cards. It seems like there were 300 - 350 guests -- that was a lot of tables.

I had been in the planning meeting where the lighting people (from Chicago) assured the dining room people that the lighting would be done by 10 am. I knew that was not going to happen - but nobody is going to listen to the calligrapher if she casts doubt on the guys from Chicago who swagger around like they know how things go in Iowa. 

I also knew that you can't trust the people who set the tables to put the place cards on the tables - and it's not like they were regular place cards - they were belly bands (a strip of paper) that went around the napkin that was on the plate.

So, I had to get all of the napkins with paper bands done ahead and in Banker's Boxes - that would be labeled so that people who could read cursive - could get the names on the right tables.... it seems like an easy job... but it is way too challenging for some of the people who set tables - some are fine - but you can't be sure that there won't be one rogue who will make a crucial mistake.

And I knew the worst part was going to be protecting those boxes. Why can I see into the future?