The French Bee Flips — The French Bee

In over 20 years of business, I have never had to flip a wedding. I think I would like to go another 20 years before flipping another one. Although it was not as bad as I imagined it.

In Beaufort, NC, there is a wonderful museum, called the Harvey J. Smith Watercraft museum. It is a great old warehouse on the waterfront in historical Beaufort. Volunteers gather here, to build boats, one would have found native to Beaufort before the turn of the century. Before you ask, yes it is dusty and yes, there are a lot of things you would usually see at a wedding. But that is what makes it awesome!!!!! The volunteers take almost a full week getting the space cleared out to enable a wedding to take place here.

There were 110 guest attending this 4 o’clock wedding. So as wedding planners, we of course had the chairs set and musicians ready for Kaylee, the bride to walk down the aisle. No Problem! BUT THEN, as the happy couple and all their guest went out onto the deck to listen to the steel drum band and drink Ranch Waters, and bourbon smashes, the wedding planners and vendors had 1 hour to totally transform the room to be ready for a plated dinner for 110. So not only did the tables have to be brought in, the caters had to set the tables, the floral designers had to get flowers on the tables and all the candles and lights as well.

Dinner table ready for guest at the Harvey Smith watercraft museum

We had to shimmy around each other, dance around surf boards and untangle fairy lights. We did it, though and we did it in an hour.

you ask how did we make it happen. We had choreographed getting the chairs and tables organized and getting the garlands on the tables. We do our own in house florals at The French Bee, so we had that all figured out. It went as smoothly as possible.

What would be do different? I think if we can communicated better with the cater and found out their plan, it may have been easier to work around each other. We could have asked them to start at one end and we could have started at the other. I guess we would have still met in the middle and had to dance around each other after all.

All in all, we were thrilled on the outcome and the clients were even more so. Congratulations to Kaylee and Mike, may your marriage be as smooth as your wedding flip was