Whew!

The past few months have been a blur to us!  We finished off 2010 with a beautiful wedding in Gadsden.  Katie and Ryan Franks we had a blast working with you.  Special thanks to Taylor Haynie Photography for sharing these photos with us!  If you have not looked at her work you can look her up online or through our facebook place.  She is amazing and I highly recomend her for your special day!
January was supposed to be our break but that didn't happen, we did the Southern Bridal Show at the BJCC.  February has been FULL of bridal appointments!  We are so thankful to have them and we are excited about this year.  We have already lined up several weddings, rehearsal dinners, and corporate parties along with some smaller showers mixed in.  Next weekend is the Birmingham Civette's Gala, please check our facebook page for more info on this and to purchase tickets you can go through our FB page to link to their website.  One of the event designers on staff, Brianne Phillips, is a member and is handling most of the decor for the event.  We are excited to be a part of an event for such a worthy cause.
The end of this month we will be headed to Las Vegas for a trade show.  We are hoping to come back with some freash insides and more product to use when doing events.  We will keep you updated as the month goes on!
God Bless,

Mallory

January News

What a busy start to 2011!  We have had such an amazing start to this year.  Our first event was the Southern Bridal Show at the BJCC last weekend.  We had a blast setting up and networking with all the other vendors on Saturday.  There were over 940 brides that came through.  Needless to say we had a great response and are getting so excited about the upcoming weddings this year!  We still have some dates available so please do not hesitate to call or email us and schedule a consult.
Our website is finally up!  Please check it out in your spare time http://www.mallorywilkins.com/
We have also been taking orders for upholstered headboards as well.  The ones we have completed are at Gadsden Lighting Showroom right now.  While you are there you can see our benches and farm tables too.  I will be posting more of these items in the shopping section of the website as soon as I can. 
We want to thank everyone who helped us with the Bridal show. Steven you did an amazing job on our custom furniture pieces, Dottie thanks a million for helping me with the flowers (they were AMAZING) and thanks to everyone who helped us set up and tear everything down.  We obviously did something right since we won the Best Booth Award! 
Please continue to check in on us and refer us to your friends.  We are still doing interiors, faux painting, linens, drapes, etc.  Call us!

Shopping around

Today I had the pleasure of meeting people from all across many different lines of work.  I started the day off by heading downtown to the office of Meredith Davidson who is a good college friend of mine.  She works for the Birmingham Business Alliance.  She so graciously set aside for me 10 copies of the Birmingham Magazine that our feature story ran in this month.  It has been exciting to see this business venture as it is unfolding.  I pinch myself and say "is this really happening?"  and it is!!
After leaving her office we ran around to several more stops looking at fabrics, trim, wallpaper and the list goes on.  I have to keep my contacts up to date and all of my resources so when you clip out that oh so fabulous picture of a custom  upholstered sofa in chocolate Belgium linen with damask print throw pillows and reclaimed lumber coffee table I will know where to get it from.
I get cracked up because so many people think that the life of someone in the design field is glamorous.  I always laugh about it when I have been in the refrigerator box of the wholesale florist for an hour digging out fresh greenery or out in the workshop at 1:00am with stain all over my clothes and my hands.  Well today was the worst stunt I have pulled yet.  I left wearing my tall black 3" heel boots with one of my favorite dresses and my long black coat from Anthropologie (which is one of my wardrobe favorites.)  If you follow the blog you know that we have been working on some custom furniture.  We have a couple of pieces finished, we are just waiting on a few more things to be finished up before we release everything.  We decided that we wanted to incorporate something more into the designs.  Steven loves wood, and I love the thought of recycling and we came up with the idea to take our design concepts and build them out of reclaimed lumber.  This thought of giving new life to something that would have otherwise been sent to a land field inspired us to go and check out some lumber first hand.  We go today and spend an hour just talking to the owner and walking through a huge warehouse of materials from textile mills to shipping yards from all over the country.  Needless to say walking through a dirt floor facility with those boots on wasn't the best idea.  We also met the three warehouse dogs who loved me because when I left there my favorite coat was covered with dirt from their sweet little paws.  They couldn't resist me I guess :)
If anyone has any custom furniture ideas that they would be interested in just shoot us an email or call us.  We love custom projects and are willing to do pretty much anything you can dream up!

2011

Happy New Year to you all!  To be honest we were excited to file away 2010.  We have been so busy with things for 2011 that we couldn't wait for it to get here!  We are so happy to announce our add which will be hitting shelves this week in the Birmingham Bridal Magazine.  We have a spread with photos and a story all about us! YEA!  Please be sure and pick up your copy, we will post an online version as soon as we can.

The next big thing we have been prepping for is the Birmingham Bridal Show at the BJCC.  We are so excited and honored to be a part of the industry here in Birmingham and we can not wait to show off our services to the many brides from all over the South East that will be there on January 16th.  We have a coupon that we attached for anyone interested in coming to the show.  There will be plenty to see, every "who's who" vendor will be there this year and we are looking forward to getting the chance to mingle with them all.  As my mentor Pam Richardson says, "Competition is healthy, it keeps us all grounded...besides there is more than enough business to go around."  I have encouraged several of our upcoming brides to attend the show just to give them more ideas for color palettes, fabric, tablescapes, flowers...everything! 

The next big thing for this year is our custom furniture line!  We are so excited to offer some amazing designs at very affordable prices.  We have several pieces produced that have now been moved into painting.  I am so anxious to get them back to see how they turned out.  We will have a site up soon where you can shop online. We will also offer these items for sale at Gadsden Lighting Showroom and are working on some other locations in Birmingham as well. 

We have also got our domain name so now you can simply tell your friends and family to type in http://www.mallorywilkins.com/ and they will be taken straight here to the blog for the time being.  (We will have our website up and running soon.)

Stay tuned more updates soon!  Please continue to let your friends and family know about our services.
Thank you and Happy New Year to you all!

Our services

Hello friends!
Thank you so much for following our blog and fan page! We have been working so hard to keep everyone up to speed on what all we have going on but things are moving so fast it is hard to have time to update! We had an amazing December. Thank you to everyone who used our services. We worked hard but had a great time doing it. We are still expanding our business. We have some amazing contacts and because of that we are turning into a one stop shop be it for your wedding/event or your home.
We are still working on our packages and deciding on our fees. I just wanted to remind everyone of what all we can do.
For weddings and events we offer everything from rentals, set up, tear down, design, lighting and full production of your event (someone running your entire event from start to finish) not to mention all the custom stuff that we can do which really sets us apart from your average "wedding planner."
As far as interiors go we have two on staff interior designers both with the education and experience to create the most exclusive designs. We do remodel jobs (from concept to finished product)... we can even keep your subs in line AND provide a builder for you so you really don't have to do ANYTHING but watch your dream come to life! We can help you decide on paint colors, finishes, appliances, upholstery, everything! We can do all your custom build outs, custom closets, we have access to great shutters and blinds, lighting, custom drapes, upholstered headboards,  and bedding. Whew! Thats alot you say? Yes it is, so don't make the mistake of hiring someone that can't offer all of this to you. Call us today with any questions at 205-365-4483 or shoot us an email at mallorywilkins.ei@gmail.com
God Bless you all and please continue to share our page with your friends!
Merry CHRISTmas,

Custom Drapes and Events

December has been so wonderful for us and we are so thankful to those of you who have continued to show your support by choosing us to do your events.  Its tough enough in this economy to find amazing people to do work for and you just continue to call us and we are so blessed by it! 

Last week we were able to set up for two events; one a baby shower and the second was a bridal brunch.  The shower was more hands off, we just provided and set up the decor and flowers and our lovely client ; the beautiful Mandi Clark (and friends), provided the food.  She wanted the shower to reflect her home and style and also give that spark of holiday flair and elegance for the mother to be.  We came in and brought linens, custom chair ties, we even switched out light bulbs and used live garland and crystal to enhance the character of her already fabulous chandelier.  The flowers were all done by Mallory Wilkins Events & Interiors, she wanted all ivory and we chose a blend of hydrangeas, football mums, some bells of Ireland for contrast and a few of our favorites to make the perfect blend all tied together with a touch of ivory ribbon around the vase. 

She had a large open floor plan with one room leading itself into another and her furniture and color scheme were all in place she just needed something to bring it all together.  She called me with the idea of hanging custom drapes in the cased opening leading from the den into the dining room.  I met with her to talk about the design and to measure, look at fabric and discuss what her ideas were.  We ended up choosing a 100% dupioni silk in a champagne color.  When we were designing them we had to consider the back side since it was a cased opening you would be able to see the drapes from both sides which meant bringing the silk around to the back.  The hardware we went with was a burnished bronze with subtle hints of gold which was the perfect contrast to the drapes.  We were able to make them for her and get them hung before the shower at her home. 

The second event we did was for our bride Katie Guyton.  She and her mother Laura wanted a whimsical Christmas theme.  With the wedding just around the corner they wanted us to handle the brunch so they could relax and just enjoy it.  The food was provided by the Gadsden Country Club, cake was by The Cupboard and all decor, linens, and flowers were provided by us.  We set up everything and we came back and took everything down for them.  We brought in custom place cards to make it very personal and made the bride her own book for the "charm cake" (which we just love having at any function where you are honoring your bridesmaids, there are others ways to do this besides a cake if you wanted to do something different....but you can never go wrong with cake :)

We are now moving on to the main event, their wedding which is this Saturday. All of our crew will be in attendance for this event and we are thrilled to be a part of her big day!

Please email us with any questions @ mallorywilkinsei@gmail.com or call us 205.365.4483 or check us out on Facebook!

What's in a videographer?

Well I know that we have fallen behind on updates and I am so sorry for that.  Lucky my excuse is because we have been very busy and we are so thankful for that.  Please continue supporting us and spreading the word about our services. 
Now on to the title of this post....whats in a videographer?  Well my answer to that is EVERYTHING.  When your special day has come and gone the only thing your going to have left to remember it by are your pictures and your video.  Now there are so many options available and each person you meet is going to have a different style.  We have worked with Josh and Mandy Frantz on several events and we highly recommend their work.  Here is a highlight video of Maegan & Eric's wedding just to give you a first hand look at some of our work and a sample of what to expect from I Do Flix.  We were so thankful to get the chance to work with them again and we hope to do many more events with them in the future.  Thank you so much for providing us with this video link! 
Eric ♥ Maegan from I Do Flix on Vimeo.

God bless,