Cart EmptyEvents and weddings and more, oh my!
If you have to pull a big event together, but don’t know where to start, an event planner may be just the savior you need. If you feel overwhelmed at the prospect of planning a whole wedding, a wedding planner takes the weight of worry off your shoulders. And on the day of the event, you can relax and enjoy yourself knowing that someone is watching every detail.
Event and wedding planning is more than picking the location, the band and the food. It’s more than managing the guest list and the budget. It’s even more than dealing with the mothers, mothers-in-law or mothers-to-be. Ultimately, what an event planner does is provide better options and peace of mind.
A Helping Hand
Enter Candace Hightower, the founder and creative designer of Mingle Events and Rentals. If you are planning an event anywhere in Western North Carolina, Tennessee or beyond, Candace can make your dreams a reality. She’s made a career of her passion for planning and her stylishly creative eye.
Officially in business for five years, Candace started Mingle because her friends kept asking her for help planning weddings and big events. She kept coming up with pitch-perfect themes. She even started providing the props to make the events come together.
“Everything I offer is from my extended family — something my family owns, something I’ve collected or a family heirloom I’ve inherited. I adore all things old, chipped, tufted and dainty,” she says.
Those props include vintage furniture, china, decorations, doors and windows, even automobiles. While she considers the rentals she offers as a bonus to her business, it is also what sets her planning work apart from the rest. Vintage, it seems, never goes out of style.
All Kinds of Events
Event planning covers a wide range of occasions, too many to mention here:
- Wedding ceremonies and receptions
- Bridal showers and portrait sessions
- Engagement parties and photo sessions
- Family, children and senior portraits
- Birthday and anniversary parties
- Themed parties
- Vintage photo shoots
- Corporate events
- Holiday parties and photo sessions
- Prom photos
- Baby showers
- And much more
No matter what type of event you want to hold, Candace can improve it. After listening to your needs and desires, she plans themed scenes and vintage looks.
She creates the background — whether for a party or a photo shoot — and orchestrates it like a director of a movie.
Relationships Matter
Networking has been the lifeblood of her business. Candace has been event planning for so long that she’s developed personal relationships with fellow professionals in the area. She also knows the best locations. She has a cool collection of furniture and decorations. Photographers contact her first when they want to set up extra special photo shoots.
In fact, besides weddings, some of her most popular events are the holiday mini-sessions she hosts for families and couples. Using her vintage props, she creates several distinctive scenes and then books time with professional photographers.
“I can set up several vintage scenes at one time to give people a choice. I’ll put an antique sofa in a field. I’ll place a Christmas tree in an old-fashioned room.
I’ll dress a barn for a party. Whatever they want, as little or as much as they need,” Candace says.
Her scenes provide exceptional backdrops for the photographers to take keepsake photos of the whole family, just the kids or the happy couple. Each client gets time enough for winning photos using one or more of the themes. The mini-sessions make the process more affordable and beneficial for everyone, including the photographers. Everyone wins, which is just the way Candace likes it.