Fall 2016
President Endowed Scholar Ceremony
September 2, 2016
The President's Endowed Scholar Ceremony was held to award Texas A&M students their scholarships. This theme for this event was celebrating things that have happened in the past at A&M and what makes Texas A&M so great. The displays on the table were artifacts and picture from Texas A&M's past.
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This was the first event I assisted with at A&M. For this event I helped set up and strike. For set up I met Mr. Mckinley at Reed Arena. I first wiped off all the vases because we didn't want to condensation on the vase to get the table cloth wet where we would be putting the arrangements. After that I assisted Mr. McKinley in arranging the designs in between the displays that were already set up. Once we had those placed it was time to put up the designs that were going up on top of the displays. This was a little stressful because the things that were going to be below the designs were artifacts so it was important not to get any water on them. Unfortunately, Mr. Mckinley went to place one of the designs and water spilled out all over the nice white table cloth, so myself and other students grabbed towels and tried to dry it quickly, hoping to take some of the off white color out of the part you could tell water was spilled on. Luckily, it ended up not being super noticeable. I learned it is important to bring plenty of towels when setting up for an event since we had to wipe everything off before setting it. I also learned it is important to dump a good majority of the water from the arrangements before placing them up high so you don't have to worry about water spilling out and you can just pour some more water in from a smaller vase once the arrangement is placed.
Distinguished Alumni Gala
October 7, 2016
The Distinguished Alumni Gala is a formal award ceremony and dinner held every year that honors Former Texas A&M students on their achievements and how they have given back to the University. This Gala bring together former and current students, along with others who are associated with Texas A&M.
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For this event I assisted in making some of the 104 arrangements needed as centerpieces for the dinner. This event taught me very many things about working in the event industry. We faced many problems leading up to this event and faced even more when trying to strike this event. The first problem was the client kept adding tables so the number or centerpieces kept changing. This caused problems because there were so many that had to be made and it just seemed like it was never ending, plus each centerpiece took at least 20 minutes to make, probably longer just because of how much went into it and making sure that the mechanics were covered. Setting up for the event wasn't too terrible except it was difficult trying to work around the caterers because they were trying to set up the tables while we were trying to place arrangements so that was hectic. The biggest problem was when it was time to strike. The client told us a time but people were still sitting at the tables so we had to wait even longer before we could get out of there. Then again we were having to work around the caterers and other guests who were still hanging out. But the good thing was some of the current students that were in attendance and still there helped us carry things to the van. Once everything was back to the lab I helped deconstruct arrangements and put things away. This event was really cool because of how fancy the decor and arrangements were, but it was definitely stressful. I learned you can't rely on events to always be over when the client originally says that they're going to be over and that if they do run late as a florist you can charge them extra for it if you want to, but you have to put it in your contract.