Spice Up Your Event With Modern Dishes

Think back to when you were a child attending a wedding. There was dancing, there was excitement and laughter, and you may have been let down by the boring food. Cold briskets with bland vegetables that you have to sit down and properly eat were the worst, but you powered through knowing that the cake would come soon. Unfortunately, there was a plot twist because the fondant cake was also boring and unsatisfying!

Don’t let the food bring your wedding party down! Spice up your menus with modern twists that won’t weigh your guests down.

Comfort Food

No one knows how to eat and feel warm inside like Southerners which is why their comfort food is trending. Avoid basic roasts and serve up some fried chicken instead. It’s a comfort foot that can be quickly enjoyed by hand.

Also, put on a modern twist on a classic favorite, meatloaf. You can have your meatloaf stuffed with parmesan cheese and spinach for a delightful surprise inside, wrap it in bacon, or serve it on a sandwich.

Many types of meat are being served with updated sauces and glazes with hints of southern traditions. For example, salmon pairs great with a peach and pecan glaze, steak pairs well with spicy avocado sauces, and chicken goes great with an almond sauce. The creative possibilities to spice up the meats are endless.

Don’t forget southern sides! Nothing makes a person feel warm inside like hot, made from scratch macaroni and cheese. Plus, fried okra is always great to have around. No one knows asparagus better than southerners so check out their herb crusted and garlic recipes.

Everyone loves pizza and pasta, so consider serving up those dishes to please everyone on your guest list.

Keep it Light

People are healthy these days and don’t want to be weighed down, so serve them up a few clean and simple options.

A salad bar is always a good way to keep health conscious guests happy and snacking. They can serve themselves a variety of fresh and crisp veggies with an array of salad dressings to choose from.

However, isn’t salad slightly boring? Jazz things up with a fruit bar instead. Offer multiple varieties of cheese, nuts, and fruits to get the grazers happily nibbling on healthy items.

Also, you can stick with lighter meats like fish and chicken. Red meat often makes people feel sleepy and too full to function.

Keep it Moving

While being served plated food is nice and elegant, it’s also a little stale. Keep your party lively and fresh by getting people out of their seats!

People won’t mind getting up to serve themselves when you have exciting craft your own food stations. Taco and fajita stations are on fire right now. Guests can go up and request personalized entrees or serve themselves with their custom ingredients.

Baked potato bars, burger bars, and oyster bars are also tons of fun.

However, one of the most shocking food bars are the ones with breakfast for dinner! How exciting, people can have made to order pancakes, omelets, and waffles with personalized ingredients and toppings.

Miniaturize it

Guests don’t wanna be weighed down by huge meals anymore. How can they dance if they’re super full or bloated? Plus, big meals take a long time to eat, so consider making your food mini so people can quickly pick up a few items and eat them in no time.

Trending miniature foods include miniature tacos, mini burgers, mini mac and cheese bites, mini roasts on a bun, and even miniature bowls of ramen. Each of these items are fun to eat and can have personalized toppings.

Food Truck it

If you missed the food truck craze where have you been?! Food trucks have become increasingly popular and are popping up all over the city! You can have a few drive up to your venue and serve their local, creative dishes to your guests.

Each guest can pick which food truck they want to visit for delicious food creations from Korean BBQ to southern delicacies on a stick. They will really give your guests a fun memory from your event.

Stay Salty

You know what really kills a cake or nice cocktail? Too much sugar! Pair your drinks with something salty and delicious.

French fries are always a popular menu item. You can serve them cut straight, in curls, or even in a waffle shape. They can be placed in easy to grab containers like mason jars and enjoyed. You can even include healthier sweet potato fries! Regular ‘ole potato chips also pair really well with sweet beverages.

Pretzels and popcorn are salty treats with endless possibilities because they pair with excellent toppings like cheese, jalapenos, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry sauce, powdered sugar, and more!

Update Your Dessert

Big, fondant cakes live in the past. Don’t stay stuck there with them! New desserts are taking the world by storm, like miniature pies ranging from apple to pumpkin. There’s a pie for every season.

Also, who doesn’t go nuts for donuts?! You can set a variety of donuts up for a beautiful, yet mouthwatering dessert display.

Throw your guests a curve ball with desserts that bring back childhood memories, like cookies and milk, s'mores, or ice cream sandwiches.

Don’t forget about custom sweets to pick up on-the-go like cake pops or hand-frosted sugar cookies.

Are you Hungry now?

We are too! We didn’t mean to get your mouth watering, but we wanted to make sure we could help you jazz up your event with delicious, hot and trendy food. Learn more event tips at Inspherio.com.

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Easily Build Your Event With Inspherio

There is one word to describe the event industry and that word is ‘chaos’. Even the most professional wedding planners can have something go wrong, or get so busy that key details fall through the cracks.

Don’t get caught up in a hectic frenzy, while trying to manage guest lists, pay vendors, keep up with the event activities, and more. Instead, stay on top of your event and easily manage every aspect of it with Inspherio.

What’s Inspherio?

Inspherio is the business management solution for all professionals in the event industry. From wedding planners, DJs, photographers, and more, Inspherio is the perfect assistant that simplifies managing your event. It’s full of innovative features for online payments, event progress, online
marketing, contracts, and more.

Building Your Event

Before planning an event it’s important to know what your clients want, which is why Inspherio makes it easy to learn about what your clients want by having them fill out the Know Your Event form. They can log into Inspherio and answer questions about what time of day the event is, the venue location, if anyone is a vegetarian, and more. You can also customize the know your event form by adding your own questions.

Then you can create contracts for your clients to sign online. The information from the know your event form will auto-fill on your contract, so you won’t have to enter in all of the information yourself. You can create custom payment plans with your contract, and your clients can log in to securely sign the contract online, and make payments.

Invoices for your event will be automatically created based off of the payment plan created with your custom contract. You’ll receive reminders for invoices that haven’t been sent out, and for outstanding payments. You can also create invoices for lost or damaged rental equipment.

Make sure your event runs smoothly with an itinerary that you can check on location right from your smartphone. The itinerary has pre-made templates that you can customize for your event, and you can share it with your staff, vendors, and clients to make sure everyone is on the same page as far as knowing when and where to show up. The itineraries can also be easily printed or mailed.

Are events even possible without guests?! Prepare an organized guest list with your client online, and even send out invitations directly from your Inspherio account. As more guests RSVP you’ll know how many people to expect, and how many guests to bill your client for. Plus, you can pull up the guest list from the Inspherio app no matter where you are to quickly make any changes that your client needs.

Events are expensive, easily keep track of expenses with Inspherio to avoid letting them get out of hand. Record each expense in relation to different events, keep up with which of your employees incurred expenses, and keep track of when you reimburse those employees for those expenses right from the palm of your hand.

Make sure that you have the right inventory to cover an event, and add these items to your contracts. Once an item is added to an event it can be checked out and can be checked back in later. These items will be added to your load list so you can make sure you have everything when preparing for the event. Also, when you return items to your inventory you can add notes about any damages and the condition of your items.

Manage your contacts. Keep track of your staff by adding them to events and assigning them tasks, and keep up with the payroll to make sure they get paid for their hours. Also, organize different vendors into groups related to different events and easily pull up their contact information in a matter of seconds.

Give Inspherio a Try

Enjoy a complimentary 30-day free trial to take advantage of Inspherio’s intuitive features that will help you plan and manage your event with features for managing guest lists, keeping track of vendors, keeping note of your inventory and it’s condition, email marketing, and more.

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Winter Wedding Trends

Now that the fall wedding season is winding down and we are saying goodbye to the fall trends with pumpkin centerpieces and warm shades of red and orange, it’s time to make way for the up and coming winter 2016 trends.

Winter Wonderland Style

First let’s check out the new dress trends that involve hints of vintage, rustic, victorian style. Many brides are choosing dresses with long sleeves for a graceful royal look, like Kate Middleton’s dress, and for warmth.

Shoulder straps are coming back, along with open back dresses and deep Vs in the front for a modern twist on classic dresses. Also, were starting to see more and more sheer dresses with sheer lace and crocheted cloth to give brides an elegant textured look, while showing off modest amounts of their legs.

Bridesmaids can be found in cream and pale colored dresses. Pale teal, greens, and purples are popular, as well as creamy shades of pastel pinks and oranges. Vibrant shades of jewel and velvet accessories that add pops of color to winter wonderlands are also trending.

Plus, to stay warm brides and bridesmaids are wearing faux fur coats. Usually the bride wears a white coat and their bridesmaids wear brown, but shades of grey and black are popular too.

We can’t forget to mention something blue! Shimmering shades of blue can be found everywhere. For example, winter brides are wearing blue eye shadow, and bridesmaids have blue ribbons around their waists and bouquets. Even grooms are wearing blue jackets and ties. Blue is simply the color you can’t go wrong with this season.

Flowers for bouquets are going back to the basics, with simple white flowers with vibrant green stems. It’s also popular to have a few winter berries in the bouquets, along with a vertical, trailing shape.

Winter Wanderlust Decor

Sometimes less is more, which is why more and more weddings have uncovered wooden tables and chairs, for a natural woodsy look. They’re also sticking to natural color schemes for seating, with furniture that’s gray or black.

As far as cloth goes textured, crochet linens are in, but they don’t have to cover the entire table because a simple table runner will give the space the pop of color that it needs. To do something different check out metallic and shimmering table cloths in shades of gold and silver that will add to the winter magic of your wedding.

Big, blooming, centerpieces may be an accessory of the past because more and more wedding planners are arranging simple displays with succulents and sprigs of lavender or wild flowers.

Also, natural items from the winter landscape like pinecones and evergreen needles are being used as decorations. Pinecones can accent centerpieces and be used as card holders for seating arrangements. Evergreen leaves and branches can be crafted into wreaths, added to centerpieces, or used to garnish drinks. The creative possibilities are endless.

To create a romantic, elegant feel your lighting need to be simple, twinkling and warm. Single bulbs on a string or rows of white lights can create a snowy effect. You can also use chandeliers with small light bulbs and crystals hanging down for a dazzling winter affect.

Winter Wedding Refreshments

Weddings are meant to celebrate the love of two individuals who have found one another, but let’s face it, the food is exciting too, especially because wedding food is becoming more and more creative and hands on.

Not only are self-serving food stands popular, but now rolling food trays are in. Members of the waiting staff can push carts of food to different tables and guests can customize their own order. For example, at your wedding, you could serve customizable tacos or salads.

Plus, cake and dessert options are seemingly endless. Simple buttercream frosting is coming back and fondant is on its way out. Instead of lots of frosting roses, cakes are being topped evergreen branches and pinecones. Some people aren’t even serving cake, they provide macaroons, iced cookies, chocolate covered cranberries and fruit, and more instead.

Magical winter cocktails aren’t complete without sugar rimmed glasses and vibrant colors. Consider serving tequila cocktails with simple syrup, peach cocktails with a blush pink glow, or vibrant punch. You could also have a hands on, serve yourself bar where people can make there own mimosas or punch, garnished with a variety of different fruit to choose from.

One of the fastest growing trends is to have a hot cocoa and coffee bar set up, so your guests can cozy up with a warm beverage. Make sure that your cocoa bar has bursts of holiday flair with candy canes and marshmallows that can be added to drinks.

Need a Little Help Planning Your Event?

Now that you’re up to date with the hottest winter wedding trends use Inspherio to help you plan and manage your events. Inspherio is the management solution designed for event industry professionals with innovative features to keep track of vendors, online payments, day of event tasks, and more. Use your complimentary 30-day free trial to see how Inspherio can help you save time while managing and growing your business.

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The Perfect Tracks for a Father Daughter Dance

Whether it be a wedding, a sweet sixteen, or a quinceañera, daddies and daughters come together and take on the world step-by-step. Choosing the proper song for this rite of passage can be a bit tricky because you want to ensure that you’re giving off the right tone. Do you want to be sweet and cute? Or do you want to break it down on the dance floor?

First, consider the relationship you have with your dad. Are you constantly laughing? Do you share a more serious bond?

Or better yet, check out these eight classic songs to describe your father-daughter relationship:  

1. “Cinderella” by Steven Curtis Chapman. This song is perfect no matter what age the daughter may be. Each of the verses takes you through a young girl’s life from playing dress up at age three to the prom to walking down the aisle. This tune is perfect for a slow waltz and may bring the guests to tears.
2. “Father and Daughter” by Paul Simon. You may recognize the cover of this song from The Wild Thornberry’s Movie. We were moved to tears as Nigel put his daughter, Eliza on a plane to England without him. The words ring true to this classic father daughter dance number and make for a great slow song.
3. “Shout” by the Isley Brothers. “You make me wanna shout…” This song is perfect for a father daughter song with a lighter tone because sometimes girls make their dads want to shout.
4. “Butterfly Kisses” by Bob Carlisle. “Butterfly kisses and bedtime prayers…” the line depicts the true depth of the bond between daddy and his littler girl. Guaranteed to make your Nana sob.
5. “Roam” by the B52’s. A song that you’ve heard in your own dad’s car on repeat thousands of times, and secretly know every word to. This song brings on some disco and will get everybody up and moving.
6. “Brown-Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. Daddy’s little brown-eyed girl is all grown up and ready to start a new part of her life, but is Daddy ready to let her go?
7. “My Girl” by  the Monkees. Dad’s can claim their little girls as theirs forever and always, so why not celebrate with the go to song?
8. “Vienna” by Billy Joel. “Slow down you crazy child…” We all know that’s probably how our parents have always felt. Watching daddy’s little girl stroll down the aisle with him arm in arm makes the memories roll in and he relates quite fondly with Steve Martin in the movie Father of the Bride.

Are you ready to hit the dance floor with these crazy father daughter beats? I sure am! Bring your boogie shoes to the reception!

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