I get invited to industry events all the time, and it is always the events planned for event planners that are over the top and super memorable. This time around, I was floored by The Carlu Decadence Gala, celebrating 10 years since they renovated and rejuvenated their 7th floor space at College Park. They didn’t spare any expense here! My fiance doesn’t always love the hours and details of my job, but he sure loves the fact that I get invited (and get a plus one!) to awesome events like this one. If you’re looking for lavish ideas for your next gala or wedding, look no further.

If you’re looking to wow your guests from the start, have a red carpet with complimentary valet service. A great looking themed entrance also doesn’t hurt!

Make a great first impression with guests by having well dressed staff at the front entrance greeting upon entry. A signature cocktail was also a welcomed treat along with lush decor.

Speaking of lush, every corner of the room was dressed up to the nines. This vase in the Round Room was even wrapped with event graphics.

My favourite space at the Carlu, and signature to its logo, is the iconic Round Room.

Lure guests on to the dance floor with a grand chandelier and energizing DJ booth. Bellosound rocked the house! This dance floor was not empty for long.

Along with an awesome dance floor needs to be great entertainment. At one point it was a 15-piece band, with 4 string players and 6 brass instruments. It rocked my socks, seriously. Everyone was dancing! When the band took a break, four horn players around the room took turns with their solos on top of event-branded pedestals.

When I wasn’t dancing or gawking at the awesome decor, I was eating (a lot!). In the Sky Room was the fish bar from L-Eat Catering. Frozen fish hung from the ceiling, while guests lined up for delicious raw fish dishes.

Daniel et Daniel hosted what they called a Meat Bar, a round station of lamb, steak tartar and other yummy delights. Staff had shirts with the menu items so there was no need to ask “what is this you are serving?” Great idea!

Inside the main room of the Carlu was a conveyor belt station, delivering goods all night long. Guests loved it!

On to desserts, Daniel et Daniel converted their bar into a Donut and Cheese bar. It wasn’t just a regular tim hortons donut bar folks, they had flavours like Bailey’s Irish Cream and Lemoncello. Sooo good.

I don’t usually stay too long at industry events but this one was a really well done event. I had a blast. Congrats to the Carlu again for hosting such a wonderful evening and for 10 successful years!

Rebecca Chan is a Toronto wedding planner and day of wedding coordinator providing sophisticated planning for the modern bride. Whether you need planning assistance or wedding day coordination, Rebecca can help you create your dream wedding day. Contact her today, she'd love to hear from you.

I’ve had a busy couple of weekends attending wedding shows and this week I’ve gathered some great food inspiration from The Wedding Co. Show 2013 just for you! It was much calmer than the Wedluxe Show, so you could actually talk to vendors and see the full booth for what it was worth.

Some of the wedding vendors were at both Wedluxe and Wedding Co. Show so I won’t repeat them here. What I will share here are some ideas for fun and interactive food displays. A great display will get mouths watering and we all know that we eat with our eyes first. As a bonus, I’ve included some drop dead gorgeous wedding gowns!

Food Inspiration from the Wedding Co. Show

The Shangri-La Toronto showcased their creativity with a fun display that turned uber fun when I realized it was a cotton candy tree! It’s such a whimsical idea, love it. If you actually did this at a wedding, you’d have to ensure that the branches were clean before putting the cotton candy on!

Neptuno had their mobile bar of delicious gourmet oysters. They were garnished with custom created condiments like red wine shallot vinaigrette and passion fruit relish. Having an oyster bar with an artistic flavour would make any guest’s night!

Usually candy buffets aren’t too impressive (been there, done that right?) but LOL candy had a display that was anything but boring. Their mini champagne bubblies gave it a nice gourmet touch and the glitter-dipped oreos on a stick looked especially decadent!

Paulette’s is known in town for their fried chicken and donuts, but have you seen a donut cake at a wedding yet? Perfect for a comfort food station or as a cake alternative, these gourmet donuts will make guests real sugar happy.

One of my favourite caterers Daniel et Daniel shows that even breakfast food can be reinvented and served in a new way. Delish maple glazed mini pancakes (bite-size!) and little breakfast sandwiches were new twists to classics.

Gorgeous Ines Di Santo gowns

Yum, I’d love to outfit my wedding with all of these foods, wouldn’t you? Speaking of outfit, as promised here were some outstanding dresses on display from designer Ines Di Santo at the Wedding Co. Show 2013. Such a nice mix of glamour and romance in these dresses!

Thank you to Therese from Artiese for the beautiful photos! Here we are taking some photos for ourselves in the sweet Snapshot Photobooth.

Rebecca Chan is a Toronto wedding planner and day of wedding coordinator providing sophisticated planning for the modern bride. Whether you need planning assistance or wedding day coordination, Rebecca can help you create your dream wedding day. Contact her today, she'd love to hear from you.

I had such a blast at the Wedluxe Show 2013 and in Part 1 of the blog post I shared photos of inspiration for accessorizing your wedding from a slick see-through DJ table to gorgeous hair fascinators. In this Part 2 of the blog post, I’m sharing two things I love – cake and stationary!

I really liked the styles of designer Sarah from Hip Ink. The stationary was colourful and bold, with both custom and signature collection options for couples. This softer invitation featured above would be so perfect for a destination wedding!

Who doesn’t love the luxury stationary from Palettera? Always taking a step beyond the expected, Deborah’s team designs stationary that is anything but ordinary. Imagine receiving this lucite and gold foil piece of artwork as your escort card?? Talk about making a statement.

On to the baked goods! At the Arcadian Launch party, I had the pleasure of tasting (way too many of) the totally delish pastries and cupcakes from Bobbette and Belle. They don’t disappoint here with their artisan pastries at the show, almost too beautiful to eat. I absolutely LOVE their macarons.

Nadia Cobella‘s hand-painted cakes made me stop in my tracks. I could tell right away that a lot of time and love went into them. Just gorgeous!

I loved that Ida from The Cake Museum was not afraid to go beyond the expected whites and pinks of wedding cakes to create this themed collection. There was even a bleeding cake! It goes to show you cakes can be fully custom made, from theme to execution (let your imagine run wild!).

Connie Cupcake had a fabulous 360 display that showcased really romantic floral-inspired wedding cakes. I love the ruffles and soft details of them!

Last but definitely not the least, Cake Opera does not disappoint with this stunning display of artwork. Decadent yet artistic, these cakes are sure to wow the crowd at any wedding. Macaron on top of a mini cupcake? Hello, awesome.

Stay tuned for my highlights from the upcoming Wedding Co. Show at the Carlu. This show is all about the hip and urban bride, so I cannot wait to share inspiration to you my hip and urban readers!

Rebecca Chan is a Toronto wedding planner and day of wedding coordinator providing sophisticated planning for the modern bride. Whether you need planning assistance or wedding day coordination, Rebecca can help you create your dream wedding day. Contact her today, she'd love to hear from you.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Wedluxe Show 2013 as media. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet new vendors and show you, my readers, some wedding inspiration with some WOW factor. In case you missed it, I’ve put together this Wedluxe Show Part 1 of 2 blog post, just for you.

The annual Wedluxe Show features some of the industry’s most luxurious and coveted vendors. There were some high-end and high quality vendors that I’ve worked with in the past and then there were some super high-end vendors (one florist I spoke to starts her fees at $200,000…!?). There was definitely eye candy out the wazoo! It was quite the experience seeing it all in one place, so I’ve broken this post down into two parts. This first part will feature some ways to accessorize your wedding from vendors that stood out and made an impression. The second post will focus on invitations and decadent cakes.

Wedluxe made a great first impression with the floral canopy from the newly formed Sterling-Kjargaard Flora, a partnership of Todd Kjargaard’s ‘Jackie O’ and Gisele Sterling’s ‘Nous Design Group’. The Wedluxe booth also made quite a statement with a gorgeous floral tree, set in the middle of the room.

The Oh So Coco Swag Suite allowed guests to pick out their complimentary gifts. My picks included a beautiful Palettera card, OPI nail polish and a delicious Two Enjoy cookie favour.

I bumped into my friends at Fete Boutique who created this stunning peacock floral sculpture. Gorgeous right?? She’s a florist with some great artistic flavour!

Another floral table setting that I loved was this colourful centerpiece with the soft gradient from Dizennio Floral. This would be beautiful for a wedding with long banquet tables.

Elsa Corsi’s collection of jewellery was stunning, I especially loved the bracelets! Both well-made (vintage quality) and sparkling with character (Swarovski encrusted), perfect for a bride looking for high quality bling.

I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely Blair Nadeau and previewing her new collection of fascinators. Aren’t they lovely? They would make quite a statement and would make for fabulous wedding photos!

Rounding up these highlights of ways to accessorize your wedding is one way to give some wow factor to your dance floor. My friends at Impact DJ showcased their new see-through light up DJ table. Because it is see-through, guests can see the DJ’s every move from the dance floor. It’s so slick!

That’s it for this Part 1. Stay tuned for the second part to this post about luxury invitations and jaw-dropping cakes!

Rebecca Chan is a Toronto wedding planner and day of wedding coordinator providing sophisticated planning for the modern bride. Whether you need planning assistance or wedding day coordination, Rebecca can help you create your dream wedding day. Contact her today, she'd love to hear from you.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the Stay Foolish party by Andrew Richards Designs Events (one of the perks of being in the event biz!). Some of the city’s best caterers created fun summer fare and the two-story event space was transformed into a summer escape.

As I mentioned in my tweet from the night, I love going to event industry parties; you’re almost always guaranteed a GREAT time! The food was beautifully presented (and tasty!) and there was a great band (shoutout to The Digs!). Besides the fact that it felt like a hot humid summer in the building (fitting right?), I had a blast!

Greeted at the door with mini root beer floats from L-EAT Catering.

Encore treated guests to a perogies station with condiments of your choosing, delish!

e11even Restaurant had some beautiful displays for their big food station. They also gave out retro sunglasses to guests to go with the summer theme, so fun!

More fun food presentation at the Marigolds & Onions station with pogos and cake pops.

Can’t have a summer themed event without some good ol’ lemonade!

My apologies that the photos aren’t the best! I didn’t have a good camera on me that day. Check out ARD Events on Facebook for more photos!

Rebecca Chan is a Toronto wedding planner and day of wedding coordinator providing sophisticated planning for the modern bride. Whether you need planning assistance or wedding day coordination, Rebecca can help you create your dream wedding day. Contact her today, she'd love to hear from you.