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Our Substack, The Art of Celebration, is where we share what nearly two decades in events has taught us about gathering well. Explore thoughtful perspectives on hospitality, design, destinations, and the details that turn an event into an experience worth remembering.
The Question No One Asks Before Booking a Venue
Most clients find a venue and then build an event around it.
They fall in love with a space, the light in the afternoon, the exposed beams, the courtyard. They picture their event inside it, and the picture feels right, and they sign on the dotted line.
I understand how and why this happens. Venues are often the most tangible part of the planning process. You can walk into a room and feel it in a way you can’t feel a timeline or a vendor contract. But this is also how events can end up slightly wrong in ways that are hard to diagnose.
The question clients almost never ask before booking a venue is: what does this space require of an event?
Why Lighting Is the First Thing I Fight For in Any Budget
What I'm Actually Looking For When I Walk Through a Venue
There is a conversation I have on almost every project.
The client has a budget. The budget is real, and it has edges. We’re making decisions about where to spend and where to pull back. And at some point, we get to lighting.
This is when I stop being agreeable.
Lighting is the single highest-leverage design decision in any event. It affects everything else: how the room reads, how the florals look, how people’s faces look, how the food photographs, how the whole evening feels. A room with exceptional production value and bad lighting will underperform. A modest room with considered lighting can feel extraordinary…
Most clients think a site visit is about checking boxes.
Capacity. Layout. Load-in access. Natural light. These things matter, and I look at all of them. But the reason I insist on walking a space in person, before anything is signed, is not about the checklist.
It’s about how the room feels when it’s empty. That’s the thing no photo shows you. You can see a venue on Instagram or a website and understand it visually. What you can’t understand until you’re standing in it is the quality of the air, the scale of the ceiling relative to the floor, the way sound behaves, the direction the natural light is moving.
The Art of Celebration
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“A table communicates everything. How many people are expected to feel like they belong to something together.
How formal or informal the evening wants to be. Whether the energy is meant to flow or settle. Whether this is a celebration of arrival or an invitation to stay.”
Katherine H. Brown | Why I Always Start with The Table on Substack