It’s Monday and the week of Valentine’s Day, a day of love and celebration!
When thinking about celebrating, one person comes to mind… Debi Lilly, celebrity wedding planner and founder of A Perfect Event. I love any excuse to throw a party and Debi does too!
Between her entrepreneurial spirit and love for parties, she’s the perfect women to get your Monday started off on the right note.
Check out my these gorgeous photos from Debi’s latest shoot with AveryHouse and my interview with Debi below!
Tell us a little about yourself and how you got started in the event industry and eventually started your own business
I’m a girl who loves to celebrate everything, everyday.
Any reason at all – every possible occasion.
I’ve loved party planning my entire life – I threw major Christmas Cookie Bakes and Housewarming parties for friends if they moved around the corner into a new house as a young girl.
I graduated from business school and immediately launched A Perfect Event – throwing my roommates weddings and community events and anything I could get my hands on immediately.
Every “yes I’d love to work with you” step you take helps build your new, young, business – and believe it or not after many years of hustling every possible door I could open led to throwing a beyond beautiful baby shower for Oprah Winfrey. When she walked in and saw all the pretty details, she immediately asked to get the camera crew right over to film it – and it was a baby shower show a few weeks later.
What is your favorite part about having your own company?
Everything.
On one hand the total freedom to create and design and move ourselves into so many different directions.
And most of all, I am so proud to create jobs. To provide health insurance, a pretty office full of inspiration to spend our days, working hard with a smile to make special occasions happier.
I love that every day is a new project – every party is a new adventure and creative challenge – that we get to begin, design, and finish over a few weeks or months. That is very rewarding.
You have 2 kids, a husband and attend more events than days in a year, how do you balance it all?
I was given great advice: don’t try to balance – because it’s a teeter totter – some days more work – some days more family. I know that I give them both my all at the end of each day. I’m so grateful to have such a full heart.
What is your most memorable wedding you planned and what made it so memorable?
Well, my own of course pops to mind first. My parents didn’t have a formal wedding, so it was really beautiful to sit back and let my mom plan her dream day – I do this for a living so I get to do this daily. She has such incredible taste – she even chose my dress. Second, the energy that surrounds bringing together all of your favorite people in the world to celebrate for one weekend only is so powerful. I cried like a baby as we drove away from our friends and family, and off to France for our honeymoon…
But I must also share a teeny, tiny, intimate wedding in the garden behind Notre Dame in Paris, with a stunning sunset dinner on the roof of Centre Pompidou, and an after party at Moulin Rouge until the wee hours. My daughter was babysitting, and at 2am she called and said “Where are you? Do you know what time it is? Get home right now!” It was hilarious.
What is your best advice to 20-something girls looking to get into the event industry?
It is crazy hard work.
Wiggle your way in, part time evenings and weekends if you need to, and get busy learning the business. We hire part time staff all the time – we always need help. All of our full time staff we promote from part timers within A Perfect Event.
For a woman who plans some of the city’s most stunning events, what do you have planned for this Valentine’s day weekend?
My sweet, entrepreneurial daughter has BIG 13 year teeny bop party plans – she’s invited 40+ 7th graders to our house to celebrate, and she’s styling up pretty pink candy bars, asian potsticker/dumpling bars a la her favorite Shanghai Terrace, and so much more! I’m in so much trouble.