2015 New Year's Eve Reflections

It's that time again...one year has ended and a new year is beginning! 2015 was yet another amazing year and saw Stylish Occasions grow again thanks to all of our couples, vendors, and my assistants and associate planners. We helped to coordinate and plan over 30 weddings this past year. 2016 is going to be well beyond that as we already have 37 weddings booked and are getting new contacts daily!

Katie continued to coordinate weddings for us in 2015 (her fourth year!) and we promoted Casey from assistant to associate coordinator. Her first year doing this for us she already coordinated quite a few weddings for us! Both Katie and Casey are quickly booking up for 2016 also, and even into 2017!

In 2015 we saw a lot of private residence weddings. While these are often more difficult to plan and coordinate, we also love them because of how personal they are.

We also saw a lot of bands at weddings instead of DJs in 2015. One wedding we coordinated had FIVE (yes you read that right) different bands/musicians! (This same wedding we had the couple hop in their canoe and we released 80+ lanterns into the water...it's was gorgeous!)

We saw unique guest "books" in 2015 and I'm sure will continue to in 2016. We had couples have their guests sign a bowling pin, song lyrics, a globe, and more!

We worked with many vendors we love in 2015 and worked with some new ones that we can't wait to continue to work with. There is so much talent in the Central PA area!

Some trends for 2016 we are seeing are hanging flowers...as in hanging above the dance floor, hanging flower walls behind the sweetheart table, flowers hanging from chandeliers, and more!

Like 2015, a lot of our couples are sticking with a neutral color palette, however they are adding in pops of color in the way of flowers or linens.

We are seeing a lot of natural fibers such as lace in our upcoming weddings. We are still seeing golds, silvers, and copper mixed in.

We are continuing to receive a lot of requests for farmhouse tables or rectangular tables with linens rather than the standard round tables. And our couples are loving table runners made of greenery or flowers rather than standard centerpieces.

Once again we won The Knot Best Of for Wedding Planners (our fourth year in a row which puts us in their Hall of Fame) and Wedding Wire's Couples' Choice Award (for the sixth year in a row)! Thank you to all of our past couples for the great reviews which have led to this!

In 2016 some of my business goals are to network more (I've already gone to two networking events and it's only mid January...hopefully I can keep this up!), donate a % of my business income to charity (if you have suggested charities let me know), continue to grow my business, and continue to grow my wedding planning team with quality people.

Personally, I plan to spend more quality time with my family, volunteer more (I'm a wish granter with Make-A-Wish but didn't volunteer nearly as much as I would have liked to in 2015), get back into archery lessons, attend more of my book club meetings (and read the books!), and just try to be a well rounded person and a good role model for my daughter as well as for my interns!

I hope you all have a fantastic 2016. We look forward to working with all our couples and vendors! Our first wedding of the year is coming up very quickly...February 20!

Now, please enjoy some pictures from some of our 2015 weddings...