Sparks Game with My Flower Guy

Last night I had the best time at the Sparks basketball game cheering for our Los Angeles WNBA team, eating ice cream and hanging out with Doyle. At least it was the best time until they lost the game in overtime. It was a heartbreaker! Doyle with "My Flower Guy", my friend, florist and fellow special event professional, is a season ticket holder with center-court seats right behind the owners. During one of the breaks, the Sparks management team presented three beautiful purple & gold flower arrangements (compliments of My Flower Guy) to honorees who give back to the city of Los Angeles and their communities. It was very cool. Even cooler is that we shared our cheering section with comedian Wanda Sykes. She was equally disappointed about the loss. Thanks, Doyle for a great date at The Staples Center!

Simply Mumtaz & Karen Bass, Speaker of the California State Assembly

Last week we planned a wonderful reception to welcome the new Speaker of the California State Assembly, Karen Bass. She was awesome! An inspirational speaker and a gracious guest. Two of her key issues are the environment and small business in California. As a small business ourselves and a company who believes in Green initiatives and tries to do our part in improving the environment, we really valued meeting her and managing an event in her honor.

Become a Certified Wedding Planner

I am excited to announce that I will be teaching the “Become a Certified Wedding Planner” course at Glendale Community College starting on Tuesday, July 8th! It is going to be a dynamic, 10-week course for all levels of wedding planners. I will introduce cool wedding trends, feature knowledgeable and exciting guest speakers and offer insights into the wedding industry based on my real weddings.

The course is offered in partnership with The Wedding Planning Institute (WPI) and is a comprehensive program covering everything an aspiring wedding planner needs to know to launch a professional wedding planning business.

For more seasoned planners, this will be is a great course to review your business practices, learn new ways to improve your marketing and land that “perfect bride”. The most important aspect is earning your Certification. Being certified sets you apart from other planners (it seems like 2 new planners show up in LA every day!) and gives you a professional edge. Certification shows your commitment to the industry and indicates to clients that you are a true wedding professional.

Being a Certified Wedding Planner also gives you the confidence to sell your services and know that you are a qualified planner worthy of being trusted with a bride’s most important day. Most of us start out coordinating our cousins wedding or working in Catering at a hotel. Being able to balance the interests of your bride while respecting your vendors, understanding the complex emotions that arise, keeping cool under the unique pressures, being a designer, counselor and mediator and being good at it all takes skill, preparation and a lot of planning before the wedding day. This course will teach you the tools to be your best and offer your brides a service they will forever appreciate!

The course covers many areas, such as budgeting, project management, vendors & contracts, signature wedding design, public relations, sales & marketing, how to expand your business, operations management and much more. Registration is available online at Glendale Community College or you may contact Glendale Community College by phone at (818) 240-1000 ext. 5015.

All registrants that e-mail me before July 8th at karli@simplymumtaz.com and mention this blog posting will receive a really cool gift that will help with your wedding planning business. Please e-mail me with any questions and I hope to see you in class!

Karli Tanner, Special Events & Weddings Director, Simply Mumtaz Events

Cool Green Photos from Global Green Millennium Awards

Hey there... So we got the photos. Check them out. Our highlight was the Green Carpet and the Centerpieces. The centerpieces were made with Manzanita Branches, California Crystals, Submersable LEDs - all of which we will re-use and the orchids that were not taken were going into the mulch bin. So, pretty cool. The Green Carpet, although not "Green" (I know, I have to get my hands on some truly Green carpet!!) was a big hit. I've also attached a photo of the silent auction that we help display... Doesn't this look like such a Greeeeen time!
AND, we have to give props to the Fairmont Brand... they've really taken Green in and have created an "eco-meet" program. We will try and encourage you to bring them more Green business! Photos Courtesy of Rachel Rausch! Check her out too!

Joella & Ed Begley, Jr!

Oops, I almost forgot to post the photo of Ed and I at the Green event we helped produced this past Saturday! Pretty cool!

So much to say!!

Hey everyone.. so we hope this message finds you well. In this blog we will finish blogging about our experience at The Green Event Summit, yummy carmel apples, and bringing Green to a local downtown association.


So, here we go... The Green Event Summit was great! I will absolutely be attending again next year barring we don't have a million dollar event at the same time. It was really well put together, I feel a few educational sessions could have been more advanced, but overall I give it an A. The overall consensus is, planner seem to be looking for a Green certification and we are all looking for green vendors that we can trust. Since we are also founding publishers of the California Green Special Events & Meetings Resource Directory, I got to talk that up a bit. The directory has a three leaf rating system where vendors (and planners) must at least qualify for one leaf to be listed. You should check it out, the website launched last week Thursday. But, anyways, I got to venture out Thursday night before I had to head to the airport directly after the conference concluded. So here are some pics I took.


OH and if you are in the Montgomery Street area near the Palace Hotel and are looking for a great steak at a bar - go to Bobs located on the corner clock of the Omni. It was about a 5 block walk, but well worth it! And, on the way back, I bumped into a guy riding a bike and couldn't help but stop him to take a picture of his bike "license plate"... It just matched - San Francisco, the street our hotel was located was lined with Gay Pride Flags, this man on the street corner and I'm there attending a Green conference. Some could say the bastian of liberalism. :)

So, moving on... We will post more about this once we get the photos in, but we helped produced the Global Green's 12th Annual Millennium Awards and had to take a photo of Karli's favorite, candy apples... but, with a bamboo stick!


And, yesterday we brought the first elements of Green to one of our clients - at their monthly meeting all of our event signage, directional, sponsor, podium, and banner were made from recycled materials! Everything from 30 to 100% recycled paper. Then we even had the hotel put out Paper, Plastic and Glass recycle bins. I was concerned to see how our business attendees would take to it and was hoping that at the end of the day we would see items in the bins! And, I did. I think this also makes a statement, that the organization is looking to conserve and recycle when possible. Every little bit counts!


Ok, ya'll - post later!

Joella attends The Green Event Summit in San Fran

Hey everybody. Hope this finds you well! It's been a crazy week... PCMA and Green Event Summit for me and HSMAI for Karli and Gaby. It's just been hetic. The Green Event Summit has been great. All the sessions I attended today were up to par, except for one. But, I'll start at the beginning. Simply Mumtaz is here because we want to continue our education and always stay abreast of the newest in the Green Special Events & Meetings industry for our Eco-Chic services. So, I flew up last night (we purchased our carbon offset - http://www.terrapass.com/), took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit?), and checked into the Palace Hotel on Montgomery Street. It only cost me a whopping $5.35 to get here. The cool thing is that you get a sticker to brag about or should I say help encourage others and raise awareness about purchasing offsets.



It's a very BIG place. I don't think I've even walked the whole property yet. They are running two whole conferences, the Green Summit has at least 400 people and the other looks like its about another for 400. And, we have some room to spare, but not much. Anyways, the main atrium is gorgeous. Take a look.




So, we started the day with a presentation about the LIVE Earth concerts. It was a truly an inspiring session... it's amazing how people can dream up a concept and actually bring it to fruition. Then, I attended another session regarding Green Marketing, very cool. But, the best thing I learned from that was the June 4th launch of PLANET GREEN a new channel on the Discovery Network. I can't wait to get home and check it out. Maybe we can pitch them to cover Green event planners! Anyways, we had lunch - probably one of the best chicken lunches I've had in awhile. Kudos to the kitchen! The best session of the day was "Green Venues"! It was presented from three perspectives, Planner, the EPA, and Venues. I took a lot of notes and will absolutely be recommending some of these activities to our clients and preferred venues /suppliers.


Then I found two really good products that I'm stoked about... 1) Cardboard Furniture... in particular chairs. I was really scared to sit on it because I'm not the smallest girl around, but it was really sturdy. I felt safe. Then, I felt cool. I'm in love. Gotta have these for the right client! I think there are a few vendors that offer them... but here is a photo. http://www.cardboarddesign.com/ and http://www.gogreendisplays.com/.



2) Then I bumped into another vendor that was very genuine... Scott McKye from BioTech Badge System. It's http://www.kleertech.com/. Green Name Badges / Lanyards and soon Ribbons.


Ok, ya'll I'm gonna sign off for today. It's been great and I gotta get out and walk around before it gets late. Gotta see the Golden Gate bridge while I'm here. Jumping back on the plane tomorrow night.

Simply Mumtaz attends PCMA Leadership Conference in L.A.

It was a pleasure to attend the PCMA Leadership conference this week in Los Angeles. The conference was held at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. It seems they are the hotel to be this week. Anyways, I was only able to attend one day of the 2 1/2 day conference. Business comes first. But, it was fantastic! One of my morning sessions was "Nonverbal Communication: The Hidden Message" with Bill Acheson, Nonverbal Communication Expert and Communication Instructor, University of Pittsburgh. I so super recommend this. Wow! What we give away without even speaking! It's a science.... The other session that was top notch was "No Box Thinking" givn by Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon, Simmer Branding Studio. I will say that when my Simply Mumtaz team comes togeher, I will absolutely download some terrific information.

Millennium Biltmore's Passport to Asia!

So, yesterday was a super crazy day. While Gabriela was attending the BizBash Education Sessions, Karli and I were running a lunch meeting for a client at the Westin Bonaventure where our good friend Yvonne Chang is the Director of Catering. Once we finished up at the Bonaventure we packed up and headed down to the L.A. Convention Center to walk the BizBash Trade Show floor. The very first sign we see is for EroticaLA! Yeah, Karli and I looked at each other and thought ???? .... I thought we were attending BizBash. We kept walking and a few minutes later we were greeted by a BizBash host. We entered the tradeshow floor with only an hour to walk until we had to enter the awards show. We were very excited to see so many familiar faces. We had a great time catching up. Then we hit the awards show... hmm, let's just say the awards were great, but the VO was embarrassing.

BUT, after the show we attended a reception for clients at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. It was great! They did a smashing job putting it together. The Lion Dance was awesome! Loved it. We got to touch base with Valerie Lehman and got to hear some good news about our best man - Rodney Smith. The gorgeous hotel is 85 this year! Pretty cool.

Please check out some photos below from our Biltmore reception. We'll have Gabriela post about her time at the Education Sessions at BizBash as well as our PopNoggins "Crazy" video.

Here it is! Our write up in Special Events Magazine!

Hey everyone.. so I finally got my hands on the print issue of Special Events Magazine. We are dominantly featured in their May 2008 issue. Written by Lisa Hurley, "Big Green Game Plan" details our Eco-Chic Division's "Greening" Map Plan and features on of our table tops! It's pretty cool. Check it out.

Thanks Lisa! This is great!

Eat, Drink & Get Married

Tuesday I had a wonderful meeting with one of my favorite couples, Yari & Edgar at The Omni Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Laura is our wonderful Catering Manager who is helping create a totally customized menu for their July wedding reception. The food on the tasting menu was excellent! On Friday we had part 2 of the tasting when we met with Chef Jaime Martin del Campo at La Casita Restaurant (recently nominated for a James Beard Award). More exceptional cuisine! From the appetizers, to the starter course to the entrees, Yari & Edgar’s reception is going to have a fabulous menu full of flavor, style and savory surprises. They took engagement photos with photographer extraordinaire Michael Norwood back in March. The images are so beautiful, I just had to share.