Courtney and Shea's Wedding

Last night I attended my first wedding since I have been interning and it was a truly beautiful evening! It was the wedding of an incredibly close family friend who I have known for years. The ceremony and reception were at Malibou Lake Mountain Club in Agoura Hills, CA. Here are some pictures from the magical evening:

My Dream

After spending over an hour looking at wedding planning blogs online, I came to the realization that it is my dream job to own my own wedding planning business one day.I am going to do whatever it takes to make that dream happen. After all, Gail Devers was right when she said, “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”

Reality Check

Yesterday was the best day at Sycamore yet! I was there literally all do so I helped Trena accomplish a lot! We responded to countless emails, filled out lead sheets, wrote contracts, created BEOs, attended a BEO meeting, worked with ACT and Auto Clerk 2, and had an incredible heart to heart talk.

I have always been interested in how Trena got to her position, as wedding coordinator and event sales manager, and I finally asked her. She explained her professional journey and she said that the most important aspect of her path was getting her feet wet in all entities of weddings and events. She began as a banquet server, worked her way up to banquet captain, volunteered to help with weddings and fought off other qualified people to get her current position. For some reason, I thought since I had the internship, that would be enough to hopefully get me a wedding planner job one day. But, this reality check helped me realize I could not have been any farther off. Honestly, I felt discouraged when Trena said that I needed to get a banquet server position because I have no experience in the food industry. But, I see why this is important and I am hoping that my drive, determination, and passion for the industry will shine through when I apply for banquet server positions.

Dance Like No One Is Watching

Now that I have this wedding planning internship, I find myself spending hours online looking up wedding videos to get ideas for people who are having their wedding at Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort.

Here are a few of my personal favorites:








This one I had to include simply because it left me in tears:

Young Love

Tonight, a girl in my sorority got engaged. We did a special ceremony for her and while that was happening I looked around the room. I could not help but think that each of the beautiful ladies standing around me will one day be the wife of a handsome man. Each of these ladies will hopefully live the life that we have all dreamed and hopefully, they will each have their own dream wedding.

Details, Details, Details

Today, I got to go to Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort to help Trena, the amazing event and wedding coordinator, with a little bit of anything and everything. Most of the afternoon, we spent following up on emails and phone calls regarding the upcoming weddings and events. She taught me how to use ACT and AutoCleark 2. ACT is a program that allows you to take notes on each person you are planning an event for and create a to-do-list for the person specifically. It is basically my dream program because I am the queen of post-its and this keeps everything organized and in tip top shape. AutoCleark 2 is a program that is crucial to making reservations for the events. Both of these programs are critical to the event planning world and make the life of a wedding planner much easier.

On another note, the first wedding that I am helping plan is two months away and I could not be more excited! Now that I have helped with several cite tours and detail meetings, I cannot wait to be of assistance at the rehearsal dinner and the actual wedding day!

Never in a million years, would I have guessed that I would be where I am today. I am a third year Communication Studies major at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I am getting an emphasis in event planning, public relations, and organizational communication. I recently was lucky enough to get an internship at Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort with the event and wedding planner. So far, this internship has provided me with more opportunities than I ever imagined. I feel so blessed to have this internship and my hope is that with this blog, I will be able to document all of the weddings that I help plan and see where this journey takes me...