Gilding the Lilies

update: Oh DARN IT ALL. She just checked her calendar and she’s out of town that weekend. WAHHHHHH. But just cause she can’t do my wedding doesn’t mean she can’t do yours! Read on.

I just had a fantastic meeting with my friend Katy Sanford that started out as her doing me a favor about some work stuff and turned into a wonderful way we are going to help each other out, wedding wise.

Who’s Katy? Well, she used to be a member of this really fun local girl band called the Jolenes. That’s her below (the hot redhead):

Katy’s other job (besides being groovalicious) was to book events in this space called Beast House. Holly introduced me to her when Katy needed someone to organize a poetry open mic. Over the course of our time together we did that open mic, a playwright slam and a fingerpainting party. It was all creative, community based stuff (and hugely creatively fulfilling to organize).

I have a finger painting from one of those events hanging on my board above my desk.

Katy has just about the best sense of style ever- a combo of rocker edge and sultry Bridget Bardot glamour. She got married last year and did this very seventies “Love Boat” themed rocker wedding…very crafty (they made a bunch of paper poppies to decorate the boat they got married on), very stylish, very much something to aspire to.

We caught up with each other recently because I need somebody with good bar connections to help me get posters for Storm Large’s show into clubs around town. I found out that she’s not doing the band anymore, the Beast House space is no more and she’s feeling pretty uninspired creatively at the moment.

So we were talking, and it turns out that recently she’s been trying to get more work in her other area of expertise, namely makeup for photo shoots, weddings etc. Her work ranges from super arty/glam to rocker to super subtle, and she has a kit stocked with every product known to man. So I told her, “Hey Katy. You’ve given me so much great work, how about I throw you some work your way?”

So now she’s going to be our “stylist” for the wedding and take care of gilding all our lovely lady lilies…generally making all our brides women look absolutely gorgeous. Maybe like this:

…or, you know, maybe not quite so over the top. But you get the idea.

As we kept talking, Katy mentioned that she’d been thinking of creating a side business in planning “rock n’ roll” weddings for people. Which would be perfect for her. Her job sends her in and out of rock venues all the time, she’s got a lot of event planning experience, knows tons of bands, is really familiar with a lot of non-traditional venues, plus she’s got relationships with a really good cross section of local indie designers – the kind of people you’d love to use but you have no idea where to find them – from Elizabeth Dye at the English Department, to screen printers, djs, accessories makers and etc.

And think about it: wouldn’t you rather work with a wedding planner who looks like this:

than like this?

So, if you know someone who’s engaged right now and looking for some help with rocker/pirate/glam wedding makeup, or wants to put together a whole rock n’ roll wedding (and just doesn’t know where to start), have them drop a line to xoxokaty@hotmail.com. She’s got the hook up.

And I can’t wait to see what gorgeous plan she’ll create for the girls to look their best.