17 December 2021

The Personal Touch

As an event planner, personal touches have always been important when planning and running events, but as I reflect on the past year, I have definitely seen an emergence in a more bespoke event.

This is for many reasons, but I feel the main one being that people wanted their first event after we re-emerged from lockdown to be super special and wanted more onus and care into making it personal for them. There is a deep desire for people to host events that are unique to them and that say something about their personality or brand, and for attendees to come away having been immersed in a truly memorable experience.

Creating a personal event doesn’t have to cost the earth – it is often the little touches that have the biggest impact. Elements such as giving the event a scent is hugely powerful, without being obvious, and is a great way to subliminally impact your guests through their senses. We recently created a bespoke scented candle with a supplier to be given to guests in their swag bags on a retreat we organised.

Another way is creating unique elements such as place cards. I recently held an event where we worked with a local calligrapher and many guests took their place cards home with them as they were so beautiful. Using local creatives to help style your event adds an extra layer of creativity and a fabulous talking point with your guests. Keepsakes are a lovely thing to offer, so it has been wonderful getting creative with these and enlisting some wonderful suppliers to create bespoke takeaways in line with the look and feel of my clients’ events.

Taking the time to know your guests can work wonders too and that is not just their dietary requirements I mean here. It is good to know whether they drink alcohol or not, and if not, create them a unique non-alcoholic option. It is good to know what their overall aim of the event is – is it networking, a celebration or a launch, for example? Can the seating plan be curated to ensure people are sat next to select people that they will connect and spark with? Taking this extra care in the planning phase can pay off in dividends with guests always remembering where they met ‘that’ person or had ‘that’ conversation.

Personal touches are demanded more than ever, and rightly so. Here at Lucy Claire Events, we love rising to this challenge working with venues, suppliers and externals from our little black book to ensure that all guests walk away having experienced something special. We have always prided ourselves on working in partnership with the person or company hosting the event, and really getting to know them and their objectives for the occasion. There has been a big focus on giving back and saying thank you with many businesses wanting to go above and beyond to thank staff and clients. When an event is quite personable like this and the attendees all know each other, that does allow us to get even more personable as we can create games, quizzes or challenges specifically for their tastes and relationships.

So, if you have an event brewing for 2022 and would like that sprinkle of personal touches, please do get in touch to organise a chat over a coffee, as we have so many ideas to share with you!