What’s proper Valentine’s Day or Galentine’s Day etiquette? Do you plan something big or keep it small? Is Galentine’s Day just for the single ladies? Read on to hear our take on it and meet some awesome small businesses you can connect with to make the day special. Galentine’s Day is officially celebrated on February 13. Let’s plan something fun. This Galentine’s Day grab your closest girlfriends, your “Day One’s” and your “Ride or Die” chicks to show each other how much you appreciate the love and support throughout the years. It’s always fun to snap pics with some cool props. Check out @girlygifts07 for some props this Galentine’s Day. We recommend these three main ingredients for a romantic Valentine’s Day: chocolate, romantic scents, and alcohol. Why chocolate? Chocolate is derived from the Cacao plant and contains theobromine, an alkaloid related to caffeine but with distinguishable different effects. One such effect is on the serotonin receptors, and by this mechanism it induces sexual arousal. Then add some romantic scents. The scent of lavender is an aphrodisiac for men. The scent of vanilla is a scent that seems to get women most excited. We all know that alcohol is a must and a plus! It is known to be a mood maker but do you know how much is needed? Only you will know. Try experimenting with this Cupid Cranberry Lemonade Cocktail from @maine_spirits. We say you should always drink responsibly. Now for a fun element, try something different by signing up for a truffle making class where you get to eat what you make. Check out @chocproject for a romantic experience. Don’t leave out the kiddos.Make something special for the kiddos to share with their classmates. If you find yourself wanting to take things up a notch this Valentine’s Day for the kiddos, do something custom made and personalized. You can use candy or crayons and attach a note saying how special they are. This will make you a winner this year. Photo credit to @krosaliving. When you are done treating everyone else like a rockstar, focus on self love and do something special for YOU. Go ahead and show yourself some love. You spend every day caring for and doing for others. Take some time to focus on your. Treat yourself to something special. Send yourself some chocolates or a beautiful bouquet of flowers. You deserve it and you should go all out. Get that thing at the top of your list.
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JOIN OUR NEW FACEBOOK GROUP “FESTIVELY FESTIVELY FRIENDORS & EVENT BIZ GROUP”
Join our 7-Day Challenge to Optimize Your Event Biz! Get access to our 7 day challenge series of emails, videos and downloadable worksheets to help you optimize your event business. We’ll go deep and cover ways to optimize your offers, prices, inventory, marketing, and more. And join our new Facebook group “Festively Friendors & Event Biz Group” where we’ll be hosting live interviews and event discussions every Tuesday. During these challenging times, we are heartbroken for our community of event professionals. Our industry has come to a complete halt and we are all wondering when things will get back to normal. So what can you do? What should you be focusing on? Is it OK to be selling stuff? To help answer these questions and keep us focused on moving forward, we have created a 7-day challenge for event pros to optimize your event businesses. We have always been too busy to do so many things, like take classes, focus on strategy, etc. Now we’ve been given this precious gift of time and we want to help you use it to your advantage. Each day for seven days, we’ll share helpful tips, templates, and resources to optimize your business. We’ll go deep and cover ways to optimize your offers, prices, inventory, marketing, and more. And each day, we will bring in amazing partners such as event planner Loriann Serna of Wife of the Party, creator of Momtreprenuer Planner Laurie Castillo, owners of Gourmeletas Amy and Tomas Carballo, founder of Amalfi Decor Maria Papageorge, business coach Wendy Almara, Leslie Hicks from Majestic Inglewood Party Rentals, and CEO of Acento Marketing Donnie Broxon to share their tips, advice, and find out what they are doing cope. What’s Next? Click here to get access to our 7 day challenge series of emails, videos and worksheets to help you optimize your event business. We’ll go deep and cover ways to optimize your offers, prices, inventory, marketing, and more. *Important* In order to have quality conversations with our partners, and support you better, can we please ask you to join our Facebook group? This is also where we will be posting video recordings and are encouraging collaborations. Click here to join the group. We are here to be a resource, a partner, and a friend. We are excited to help you optimize your business and be ready for all that’s to come. All our best,Patty & Iris
A STEP-BY-STEP SELF ASSESSMENT TO OPTIMIZE YOUR BUSINESS
Let’s get you started with optimizing your event biz. The first thing to do is Take Time to Reflect and Self-Assess by looking inward in order to outwardly show your strength and resilience. We will share with you the importance of taking time to reflect, self-assess in order to optimize your business. We’ve done the same and we happily share our own self-assessment in this video. To get you started, check out this worksheet, it’s an exercise inclusive of questions that will help you identify what’s currently working well in your business, and where you may be falling short.Take a step back and think about these to yourself: These are just some of the questions you’ll be answering and all of the questions will help you get started optimizing your business and help you form your action plan. Self assessing is part of a 7-day challenge Festively created just for you and each day we invited industry experts to chat live with us about each topic. We first spoke with Wendy Amara. See the full conversation on the Festively YouTube and be sure to join our Facebook group page. Wendy is a highly accomplished transformational strategy coach, speaker, trainer, and best selling author. She has coached thousands of individuals over the past 15 years into achieving powerful goals for their lives. Her results oriented, no holding back approach, opens up new possibilities for her clients and has them stay accountable to producing extraordinary results. She is also the mom of 3 kids, including twins and has built her own business, all while working from home. You can find her on Instagram @WendyAmara. Wendy shared so much wisdom and inspiration during our conversation. Wendy stressed the importance of keeping alive our dreams, desires, and goals when we’re going through challenging times. We should be able to tap into those dreams, allow ourselves to mourn the 2020 we hoped for, step out of chaos, and begin to get into solution mode. We were in the middle of launching Festively, an online marketplace to find event essentials when COVID-19 impacted us all. Since then we’re seeing so many of our friends and colleagues in the event industry hurting. The 7-day challenge is our way of pivoting and bringing the industry some support. We know we will all get though this together. To see all 7 days of optimizing your event biz. check us out on YouTube.
HOW TO PLAN THE PERFECT 2021 VALENTINE’S DATE NIGHT
This year Festively has partnered with iconic whiskey brand Uncle Nearest to present ‘Helping you plan the perfect 2021 Valentine’s Date Night’, an exclusive digital series on @SoFestively‘s Instagram page. We’ll feature experts in florals, decor, entertaining, and cocktails to share their expertise in planning a special experience at home for one of our favorite holidays – Valentine’s Day! Learn from Guest Experts Join us every day from February 2-8, 2021 for ‘Helping you plan the perfect 2021 Valentine’s Date Night’ week on our @SoFestively Instagram for exclusive sessions filled with recipes, tips, and techniques. New sessions are posted every day by 12:00 p.m. PST. Tuesday, February 2, 2021, Live at 7pm MAKE A SPARKLING VALENTINE’S DAY COCKTAIL with Matt Carlson of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey We’ll kick things off by sharing details about this fun partnership, learn how to make the “Lady Eve” cocktail, plus join us live for tips on how to enjoy Whiskey from a pro. And since February is also Black History Month, we are honored to be partnering with Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, who was inspired by the first known African-American master distiller, Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green. The brand is wholly owned by Uncle Nearest Inc, an all-minority-led company. Wednesday, February 3, 2021 SET AN INTIMATE DINNER TABLE WITH FLORALS with Kathy of Madre Florals Learn how to create an intimate table setting to enjoy a romantic meal together with your honey. Thursday, February 4, 2021 TIPS FOR DATING YOUR PARTNER with Brenda & Cruz of Sparked Moments How to set a beautiful space, and encourage dialog and intimacy. Friday, February 5, 2021 HOW TO MAKE A DRUNKEN STRAWBERRIES DESSERT PLATTER with Kaiy of Stems How to create a memorable and delicious appetizer for two. Monday, February 8, 2021, Live at 7pm VALENTINES DAY DO’S & DON’TS with Patty & Iris of Festively We’ll wrap up the week by sharing our do’s and don’ts for having a wonderful Valentine’s day with those you love. Follow along with the fun this week! Order a cocktail kit featuring Uncle Nearest 1884, Sparkling Wine, Passion Fruit Liqueur, & Orange Bitters. Click here to order delivery from our distribution partner Fancy Free liquor store in Burbank. Cheers! We could not have done this without amazing partners. Huge thank you to Uncle Nearest, Madre Florals, Sparked Moments, and Stems for their passion and talented expertise. One duo we want to give a special shoutout to is the husband and wife photography & film dream team Evelyn & Chien of Mid Tone Studio. The photos and videos of Madre Florals and Sparked Moments are amazingly beautiful, thank you! Join us every day from February 2-8, 2021 for ‘Helping you plan the perfect 2021 Valentine’s Date Night’ week on our @SoFestively Instagram page. Find exclusive sessions with experts in florals, decor, entertaining, and cocktails to help you plan a very special Valentine’s Day!
WE’RE ALL SUNSHINE & RAINBOWS FOR ST. PATRICK’S DAY
Rainbow Charcuterie Platter Starting with this rainbow charcuterie platter. Who’s a lucky friend you’d share this with? For this one, we used: white chocolate pretzels fresh mozzarella cheese a brie wheel with a four-leaf clover cut out. We filled the clover with honey and a little green dye blueberries red grapes blackberries fig & olive crisps from Trader Joes kiwi cucumber mint broccoli social snacker crackers from Trader Joes yellow bell peppers cheddar cheese cut into cubes carrots cherry tomatoes salami strawberries red bell pepper and for the treasure at the end of the rainbow, “mondeas†chocolate gold coin candies (found these Vallarta Supermarkets ??Then do your happy dance because these pancakes will be a hit. Watch Iris making them here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by ?Festively.com | Events | Custom Gifts | Inspo (@sofestively) Rainbow Pancakes ✨This will be so much fun for the kiddos. Iris tried a new recipe for St. Patrick’s Day and after three tries, she swears they were delicious. ?St. Patrick’s Day is one of those holidays that offers a lot of opportunities to have fun and get creative. When Iris found this recipe she fell in love with it and was determined to get it right. (Even though it took her 3 tries) The recipe is below and it came out sooo delicious. The boys loved it too! ?Rainbow Pancake Recipe 1 cup flour 2 tbsp. granulated sugar 2 tsp. baking power 1 tsp. salt 1 egg beaten 1 cup milk 2 tbsp. Vegetable oil (or butter) Mix dry ingredients then add wet ingredients. Pour into separate bowl then add food coloring Cook in a nonstick pan on low heat ??Then do your happy dance because these pancakes will be a hit. Watch Iris making them here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by ?Festively.com | Events | Custom Gifts | Inspo (@sofestively) Rainbow sangria After the rain comes the rainbow sangria! ?? This drink is gorgeous in a pitcher, but since we want to share and still give everyone their space, this is perfect way to divvy up the drinks. The great thing is that you can make these in advance and not take up a ton of space in your fridge! Bring one over to a friend, neighbor, sister, or even your mom ? Sit in the backyard and talk about the good ol days…cause they’ll be back again soon! ? Ingredients: 1 “bottle†of Pinot Grigio (or 1/3 of your Costco wine box) 1/2 cup club soda 1/4 cup triple sec 1 cup chopped strawberries, pineapple, mango, kiwi, oranges, nectarines, blueberries & blackberries Check out the video of Patty making this delicious drink here! View this post on Instagram A post shared by ?Festively.com | Events | Custom Gifts | Inspo (@sofestively)
DO’S AND DON’TS OF GATHERINGS FOR EASTER – SPRING 2021
The world is opening up again just in time for Easter. While we’re excited to be gathering again, not everyone is comfortable getting together, elbow to elbow like we once did. It’s no wonder that in addition to declining virus numbers in Los Angeles, we’ve seen a much-improved flu season! We’ve learned so much and we just can’t go back to exactly how things were. Here are some do’s and don’ts to help us have a safe and beautiful Easter for all. Do keep it small When you invite folks over, don’t be surprised if the first question is, ‘Who else is coming?’ People want to know you’re being a responsible host and not having a gathering too big, too fast. The plus side of this is that you get to set an intimate lunch or dinner table! You can decorate one beautiful table with florals, nicer tableware, and also have a group conversation where everyone feels involved. Don’t skip the traditions Ok, this is really a do…do dye eggs, do do an egg hunt, do go to Easter services (online or in person, whichever you feel most comfortable doing). We’ve held out so long, this is not the year to hold back. We’ve got some retroactive celebrating to do! Do try to host outdoors Being outdoors gives you the best air circulation, plain and simple. To make things more comfortable, think about having pop-up tents or umbrellas out for shade from the sun. Or if the weather is cool, have throw blankets washed and ready to put out for guests to use to stay warm. Indoors is still an option but try outdoors first. Plus this gives you a great view of the Easter egg hunt! Don’t make a giant punch bowl cocktail Instead, fill that punch bowl with ice and put in cans of rose, sparkling wine, and other individual drinks. Add some flowers to the bowl and it will look gorgeous! You can still have a drink station, but keep it simple. No need to go all out with the Michelada bar this time. Keep a simple Miche mix available to add to a good quality beer, and you’re all set. Do make a pretty sanitation station While hand sanitizer is a must, it doesn’t mean you have to get it from the neighborhood gas station. Splurge on some nice smelling hand sanitizer. Put it on a bed of fake grass with colored Easter eggs around it. Add some fun Easter decor and flowers next to a tray with gloves and disposable masks. It can still look pretty and functional. Don’t share serving utensils If possible, have one person serving food. Or if you are doing a buffet, try to pre-slice food like ham or lasagna so it’s easy to serve. Order or create some individual charcuterie cones for an appetizer. Have a box of food-serving gloves handy that folks use if they feel more comfortable. For treats, opt for cupcakes or other treats that can be handled individually. Cake pops, confetti rice krispy treats, and candy apples make beautiful and delicious treat options. Don’t shame vaccine-hesitant folks, but do encourage vaccine story sharing We all know folks who are on the fence about taking the vaccine. We’re finding that the best way to have open, frank, and honest conversations about it is through peer-to-peer talks. We are a little biased and want everyone to get vaccinated, but at the very least, talking about it helps give everyone a chance to share their perspective. Overall, we recommend easing back into celebrations. We’re all a little rusty and there’s no need to overdo it. We will all need to rethink the way that we always did things, but don’t let that get in the way of enjoying a little normalcy with family and friends. We hope you have a beautiful Easter!