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Madison, Milwaukee Wedding Planner

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Vendors We Love

Vendors We Love: Hampton Inn + Suites Madison Downtown

March 24, 2021 By Sarah Davidson

Last week I partnered with Destination Madison to take part in one of their Madison Minications. This campaign was launched as a way for locals to explore and take advantage of the great hotels our area has to offer and is currently running through April 12, 2021. With Lila turning four this month, we had been searching for an idea to celebrate that got us out of the house but felt safe, and this overnight hotel stay was the perfect blend of both!

While there are many Minication options, The Hampton Inn + Suites Downtown Madison was ideal for us for a few reasons:

  1. We wanted something easy and family friendly. Just having a pool and Lila getting her own bed on the pullout couch would’ve been enough to celebrate, but the downtown parking, hot breakfast, and location ready for exploration really made this for us. Throw in the $30 Food Fight Restaurant gift card and bingo scavenger hunt included as a part of the Minication package and we had an action packed 24 hours!
  2. I refer sooooooo many couples to this hotel for their wedding room blocks! I’ve always been comfortable doing so because of its good reputation and feedback from my couples on their positive experience. However, it makes me feel 1000% percent more excited about it now that I’ve personally gone through a stay there and can speak to my own experience.

Our arrival and check-in process was extremely easy, from parking the car to a smooth and safe check-in at the front desk. As soon as you stepped foot on the property you could tell that they embraced their Madison location and proximity to campus, with tons of local-focused artwork and accents around, including one of the Buckys on Parade (Pucky)! Izzy and Luis at the front desk were extremely kind and even had special birthday treats ready for Lila, which she loved!

We stayed in a King Studio Suite, which included a microwave, mini-fridge, and pullout sofa, on the seventh floor with views of campus. The Hampton has several room options available depending on your needs, and we were extremely happy with how clean and cozy our space was. As you can see below, Lila claimed her space pretty quick! For weddings, the different options and price points would make things easy for anyone on your guest list to find something that works for them.

After unpacking it was time to head to the pool! We were having so much fun I wasn’t able to get great pictures, but this area is perfect for both kids and adults alike. The hot tub has a beautiful waterfall feature and the pool is large with plenty of space for splashing around. The temperature was perfect and we were able to burn a bunch of energy before heading out to dinner.

The Minication package came with a $30 gift card to any Food Fight Restaurant. We opted to spend this on breakfast for dinner at Bassett Street Brunch Club, directly connected to the hotel. While mom and dad enjoyed a bloody mary and spiked horchata (respectively) to toast four years of parenthood, Lila went for the kids menu french toast with a HUGE chocolate milk. Needless to say, we were all pretty satisfied with our choices.

When we returned to the hotel, Luis from the front desk kindly obliged when I asked if they wouldn’t mind showing me their meeting space, which is easily accessible off the lobby. I could tell this would be the perfect space for a wedding party to rent for a hair/makeup getting ready room. That’s a biggie that I didn’t know was an option for this trip, but will now certainly be sharing with everyone!

We ended the night relaxing in our room with a good movie and some snacks. It was the earliest I went to bed all week and felt so good! #momlife

I’m a hot breakfast type of person, which is ALWAYS what gets me excited to stay at a Hampton. They offer FREE hot breakfast to all their guests! When we woke up the next morning I immediately hit up the coffee station upon entering the breakfast area and then we staked out a table to start the morning off right. There was something for everyone, with eggs, sausage, and bagels for mom and dad and Lucky Charms and chocolate muffins for the birthday girl. When we wrapped I sent the other two up to the room to prep for another swim session while I took a minute of peace near the fireplace with my coffee. For breakfast I could tell they had several team members assigned to make sure everything stayed safe and clean, from team members serving instead of self-serve, to regularly wiping down common area touchpoints.

After getting in one last swim, the final thing that we did was the Bingo Scavenger hunt included as a part of the Madison Minication. This was such a fun family activity to complete, sending us all around the hotel to make sure we didn’t miss any unique detail of this place. Definitely don’t miss this part of the Minication package because major prizes are at stake!

I want to thank Destination Madison for the opportunity to take this trip and The Hampton Inn + Suites Madison Downtown for such wonderful hospitality. If you’re a couple hosting your wedding in downtown Madison, we at HUE by Sarah Davidson highly endorse this property as a safe, modern, and comfortable location to host your guests. If you’re into the idea of a Madison Minication and want to figure out which one is right for you, check out this post.

Until next time!
Sarah

Chief Strategist and Creative Director of HUE by Sarah Davidson, Sarah is a sought after event industry consultant, planner, and strategist based in Madison, WI. Follow her work on Instagram at @huebysd.

Filed Under: Practical Planning, Sincerely Sarah, Vendors We Love Tagged With: consulting, dinner, event planning, events, guests, madison, menu, milwaukee, small business, small business owner, vacation, vendor, wedding, wedding advice, wedding planning, weddings, wisconsin, wisconsin wedding, wisconsin weddings

Real HUE Events: HUE Brand Relaunch Party

February 17, 2021 By Sarah Davidson

Today we’re going back to a MUCH simpler time. It was just over a year ago, and we were young, naïve, and gathering in large groups (with buffet food – my stars!) It was our rebrand launch and five-year anniversary party!

From the day they opened, I knew that I would someday host a personal event at DLUX. If you haven’t been able to tell from our identical websites, they’re quite on-brand for me and I will always be in favor of a boozy brunch. As soon as I had a celebration opportunity they were the first call, along with my request for Egg Innovations event sponsorship (thanks Dad!) Rounded out with DJ Geoffrey from Celebrations Entertainment and Paul Gero’s talent behind the lens, I couldn’t have asked for a better morning.

I’ll always look back at this day as a career highlight, being able to gather all my friends who are with me in the business of gathering. As we drank champagne from my custom HUE flutes provided by ProAdSpec, we all got to enjoy being the guest for once, instead of the help. I looked at the room and felt extremely lucky about all the relationships I’ve been able to build through my work and how far things had come since I planned my very first wedding back in 2014.

Oh what a year it’s been!

Filed Under: Real Events By HUE, Sincerely Sarah, Vendors We Love

We Can Do This Better, Together

January 6, 2021 By Sarah Davidson

Earlier this week, the Wisconsin State Journal and The Cap Times each shared extremely well-written stories about what the Dane County event industry has been facing these past nine months, since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. We are grateful for this coverage. In writing these articles, I was asked to share my thoughts and observations on the situation, as well as an overview of our local wedding and events industry. There is so much to tell and obviously not every detail could be included, so today I wanted to share with you my full original response to these requests. I am so fiercely proud and deeply invested in our industry, and we need as many people as possible to understand what we are facing right now in order to maintain hope as we enter 2021. See below for the narrative.

Photo: Dutcher Photography

Small but mighty, vibrant but understated. The Madison and Dane County wedding and event industry is composed of many unique venues and vendors, capable of pulling off high-end events week after week, year after year. We take pride in our ability to create one-of-a-kind gathering experiences, and love working with event hosts to bring their vision to life. Having these two values taken away from us for these past nine months, the two main functions our entire industry is based upon has been extremely devastating.

Thanks to Covid and local messaging, the word “wedding” has now almost become a bit of a taboo in our county. People are hesitant to mention anything about planning to have a wedding or attend one, out of fear of being shamed for even considering such a thing. Data snapshots generalize how many cases have come from “weddings” without any further details such as location or circumstances. What was once one of the most joyful sectors of our local hospitality industry feels extremely heavy right now. And knowing what I do about our event community and what keeps us all in this difficult business, this truly is one of the hardest parts.

Photo: Thrive Photography + Films

Dane County has over 100 venues that host events and over 500 wedding and event vendors in total, made up of photographers, planners, florists, DJs, caterers, and dozens of other categories, that all team up hundreds of times together during normal years to deliver start-to-finish unique event experiences. Many of these vendors have made this their full-time career while just as many, if not more, offer their service as a passion project, in addition to still working a day job. A common thread for most though tends to be “stumbling into” the industry in one way or another. They weren’t necessarily seeking it, but once found, they’ve never wanted to leave. It can be exhausting, thankless, physically, and emotionally demanding, but the high of bringing people together has an energy that cannot be beaten.

From May-October, our local wedding season is in full swing. The reasons why someone wants to get married in Madison are endless, but most of them come down to the hosts’ connection to our beautiful city. We have everything they want, and they can’t wait to show us off to their guests. Many of our venues book up for the season and the average guest count is between 150-250 people. These people are not only here to attend these weddings, but in turn stay in our hotels, eat at our restaurants, take in our sights, and experience the city. While weddings still take place in our colder months as well, our offseason is filled with holiday parties and other local celebrations. We are ready to cater to any needs, any time of the year.

And of course, the same thing could be said for the many other different types of events that are hosted in our city. People fall in love with Madison and want to share it with others, so they chose us to host their shows, conferences, and sporting events here year after year.

Except this past year, and if something is not done quickly, possibly for years to come.

Photo: Tim Fitch Photography

Events take time to plan. The current lack of guidance on what a reopening plan will be for the events industry is already impacting us well into 2021 and will continue to do so, as we see things regularly drop off our schedules week after week. New orders being released with just 24 hours notice on a seemingly ad hoc timeline does not work for someone trying to plan any sort of event, let alone a wedding. These plans require communicating with guests, ordering perishables, and coordinating with multiple vendors. These factors have understandably led some couples to already make the decision to postpone their 2021 wedding, with that feeling like a more favorable option at the moment than a state of constant limbo. We vendors of course understand the position they’re in and do our best to accommodate because it feels like the right thing to do for everyone. But we also take a bigger hit each and every time this happens. With each postponement, there is both lost revenue from the originally anticipated event date, as well as the lost opportunity of new business that could’ve come on the new date. For many of the smaller, independent vendors, each and every booking can go a long way to make or break their business and personal goals.

Photo: K. Rosales Photography

Weddings are the main type of event that has still been trying to make things work through this, because they are so personal. All corporate type events originally on the books for venues, many held at the same location year after year, have essentially all been cancelled for the foreseeable future until things seem safe. It’s understandable why, but this again is all lost revenue that will never be recovered. And those planning large scale events from a distance are certainly considering right now if Madison is even a viable option for 2022 and beyond, given the state of uncertainty around how we will be allowed to run events well into the future.

I don’t say all this to gain sympathy. What’s done is done, but we must do something right now to stop this from getting much worse.

Photo: Audre Rae Photography

We are asking for the opportunity to work together with our local officials, to define a clear reopening plan for the events industry, to put into effect when the time is right. Safety is the number one priority and we know that large scale events won’t be realistic for some time. But we must start strategizing together today to define what our industry is capable of. We can have conversations of what appropriate metrics could be realistic to aim for, now that we know so much more than we did in July, when the original Forward Dane plan was released. We can have conversations about science-backed measures that are seeing success around the country and how we can adopt them locally. We can have conversations about the expected path moving forward, now that a vaccine exists. We must start these conversations now.

Doing this together would allow us to develop a plan that directly addresses public safety, while letting our industry begin to serve again. Instead of being caught off guard with every new order that is released, we could be better equipped to advise event hosts on what their event could look like a few months down the road. This would allow them to feel more confidence both in us and in their leaders. It would allow us hope to slowly come back. We in the world of mass gatherings can be a part of the solution, not the problem, if only given the opportunity.

Photo: Heather Cook Elliott

A secondary ask of these conversations would be for a further breakdown of the data that exists. Right now, “weddings” is the generalized term that is blamed for a number of local Covid cases. However, we need more details. Did that wedding occur at a commercial facility? Did it occur in someone’s backyard? Did it occur inside our county per our guidelines? Or outside the county, out of our control? Did it involve professional, licensed vendors? We ask all these questions because we believe there should also be a distinction made between mass gatherings at private residences versus commercial facilities. Commercial facilities can require a number of safety guidelines in place for their event, while those hosting events at private residences are less likely to take these measures. Commercial facilities have greater square footage and better HVAC systems at minimum, and we should be working to guide people towards those spaces for their gatherings, not away from them.

Photo: The Still Life Photo

Finally, more aid is needed. All of hospitality is suffering greatly, but the world of private events is being left in the dust. After seeing financial relief distributed to restaurants, hotels, theaters, and community spaces, our sector is the one remaining that seems to not have been seen. Venues that function specifically to host private events still have huge holding costs each month. Vendors that can travel, such as photographers or planners, have been forced to put themselves in unsafe situations this year and work weddings with loose restrictions, simply because they need to survive. No specific distribution has come to the private events industry, one that was the first to shut down and will likely be one of the final to reopen fully.

I share this all because our tight-knit event community, one that works year round to keep our city a vibrant destination, is suffering immensely. There is no perfect answer to any of these circumstances of the past nine months, but we know that we can do this better, together. Please give us the chance.

Filed Under: Lessons Learned, Practical Planning, Sincerely Sarah, Vendors We Love Tagged With: consulting, madison weddings, wedding planning, wisconsin weddings

Italian Inspired Styled Shoot: Harvest Moon Pond – Poynette, WI

October 5, 2020 By Sarah Davidson

I love creating impactful moments and bringing people together soooooo much. Like, SO much.

Well, when Covid-19 hit the USA in March of 2020 it temporarily put a damper on things like that. Personally, I went through a rough few months (as did many in the hospitality industry), stuck in this mindset that I just wasn’t going to be doing any events for a very, very long time. There was nothing that could be done, that we all just had to live through this, and also try to figure out how to survive until it was over.

By the time summer rolled around though and we realized this wasn’t ending anytime soon, I needed to shake myself out of it. It took a lot of watching and being inspired by industry friends seizing the moment, a lot of conversations with my business coach, and a lot of holding up the mirror to get through my head trash that nothing could be done. But finally I was able to get to a point like:

Loving this 2020 release from Ale Asylum

Right around that time is when I received my first message from Stephanie, one of the new owners of Harvest Moon Pond, a gorgeous venue in Poynette with a beautiful history. Somehow I had yet to have been to her space so she invited me out for a tour, along with Jason, Owner of Chance Productions, to get a lay of the land and brainstorm on ways that we could all work together. In this meeting we hatched the plan to collaborate on a styled shoot, meant to inspire in the current times, while showcasing parts of the venue that haven’t gotten as much love as the should. And voilà! Here we are.

While I enjoy a big, glamorous wedding as much as the next planner, I equally love creating a low-key yet personalized celebration. This sentiment served as the overall goal for this shoot, that a wedding doesn’t have to be cheapened by adding the term “casual” in front of it. Instead it offers an opportunity to define a very specific experience that a couple wants their guests to have.

  • Sal’s Tomato Pies.. enough said.

To pull this together, I would only (as I always do) trust the best. With the venue and rentals already on board, the next key members were those who could capture the entire project’s ambiance and the creative work of all vendors flawlessly. Enter Tim Fitch (photographer) and Paul Gero (videographer), who I trust over and over again to capture the essence of HUE – our approach, our style, and the end result we want. And they deliver every. single. time.

Once the vision is set, it’s time to talk details. My approach in this is to leave the finer things to the experts, giving each vendor a general scope what what I want the end result to feel like and then letting them run with it. As per usual with this particular dream team, they ran hard and took things to a level far beyond what was asked of them. For instance, can we just soak in these daffodil*parker florals for a minute?

  • Carnations are back people!

When I asked Kayla from DP to participate, she said “We’ve done so much with whites and greens, it would be awesome to incorporate more color into the palette! I’ve personally been really into rust, taupe, cream, beige, brown and pops of color that lean late summer.” With the shoot occurring in August, that was more than okay with me. We understand that casual couples prefer to lean into their surroundings, embracing the moment and everything that comes along with it, so floral and colors natural to the season in Wisconsin made perfect sense.

Delicate and personalized details have been the heart and soul of A LA CRATE Rentals for many years now, and there is no way the look could’ve pulled together as seamlessly as it did without key pieces from their collection. To some, the addition of something simple like a rug or vintage plates might not seem like that big of a deal. However it’s taken me years to learn that in the world of creating memorable experiences, these touches are everything.

These touches also include paper goods, which set the stage and put your guests in the proper mindset before they’ve even arrived. Kathy, Owner of Sugar Pear Design had a lot of fun for me on this one, designing an invitation suite poking fun at the time of Covid and leaning heavily into our Italian inspiration. You know, I love being a little extra now and then!

Geoffrey, the Owner of Celebrations Entertainment is another friendor of mine that feeds my “being extra” habit, which you can see from this particular shoot with the inclusion of his silent disco setup. Hosting an outdoor event and want to rock to the wee hours? Make sure to check these out for maximum party potential with minimum risk of noise complaints!

And finally, we could not have done this all without our amazing models! Carrie and Noah. From our first connection, to their trip to Moments to Cherish to be outfitted with Arlene, to being present on shoot day, they understood our vibe and were totally willing to go with the flow, enjoying these moments we had all created and helping our whole team forget about the pandemic for a little bit.

Thank you to all involved! Until next time!

The Dream Team:
Design, Planning + Coordination: HUE by Sarah Davidson
Venue: Harvest Moon Pond
Photography: Tim Fitch Photography
Videography: Gero Pictures
Arch + Rentals: Chance Productions
Vintage Rentals: A LA CRATE Rentals
Floral: daffodil*parker
Stationery: Sugar Pear Design
Catering: Salvatore’s Tomato Pies
Silent Disco: Celebrations Entertainment
Attire: Moments to Cherish Bridals
Models: Carrie Brick + Noah Hockett

Filed Under: Real Events By HUE, Vendors We Love Tagged With: backyard wedding, casual wedding, italian, microwedding, outdoor wedding, pizza, silent disco, weddings, wisconsin wedding, wisconsin weddings

Why HUE?

April 3, 2020 By Sarah Davidson

We know that there are a million wedding planners out there that you could work with, so why choose us?

No wedding we do looks the same

We’ve planned weddings indoors, outdoors, at theaters, summer camps, museums, backyards, hotels, barns, and probably almost anywhere else you can think of. Every wedding is a personalized experience for our clients from start to finish, and our services will fit exactly what you envisioned it to be.

Photo: DJDahl Photo

We live for logistics

It takes a lot of effort to make something look effortless, and that’s the kind of stuff we live for. We focus on all the steps that need to be taken to provide a smooth and beautiful end result so that when the wow moment comes, all you need to do is take it in.

Photo: Anda Marie Photography

We enjoy people, and people enjoy us

Check out our reviews and ask your other vendors their opinion of us. Personal relationships are the single most important thing to us in the world and we take every measure to maintain those to the fullest. We aim to make planning a wedding a thoroughly enjoyable experience for all involved, and one of our favorite parts of the job is connecting clients with their vendor dream team.

We are experienced

Our team has held a variety of positions in their careers including as planners, coordinators, venue managers, caterers, and florists. We’ve all been working in the wedding industry for nearly a decade. The only real way to gain true experience and knowledge in events is by being a part of them. Ask us about past situations we’ve transformed from big deal to no problem in a matter of minutes. From tornado warnings to forgetting the rings, we’ve seen it all.

Photo: Sage Trails

And finally

“That’s not what you normally do“.. is what we do

It’s your wedding. We love new traditions, ditching the old ones, out there design, tacos for dinner, casual but classy, and look forward to making your vision a reality.

Photo: The Still Life Photography

Ready to work together? Contact us today to get started!

Filed Under: Sincerely Sarah, Vendors We Love Tagged With: madison weddings, wedding planning, wisconsin weddings

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