By Noah Parks

A lot of people have weddings with months of planning, websites, family interventions, and high drama that suits reality tv.  I went another route that was much more scaled down and humane.  It was immediate family, not too much planning and only a little drama about whether to post on social media or not (we did!).  It went, as weddings always do, exactly how it was supposed to go.  Now that brings us to the outliers.  The weddings that might be at a drive thru or done on a boat in international waters: the unorthodox wedding.  This is a unique wedding that lacks all the precision and care that HMG+ is wont to give.

When HMG+ is running a wedding there’s a lot of planning and intentional crafting that creates a memorable experience.  There’s a meeting with the bride and groom, an event planner, the vendors and careful consideration of the Banquet Event Order that lays out in black and white what materials that the Captain will be working with.  It also helps them analyze who they’ll need to successfully staff the event.  In granular detail the entire event is methodically planned and prepared for.  The right amount of people passing hors d’oeuvres and clearing is a detail that a guest will  never think of when they’re enjoying the event, however the HMG+ team will be meticulously monitoring the floor to manage it.  Even more important is ensuring that your sanitation area is prepared to receive different types of plates and silverware.  We aren’t a restaurant, often events take place in unique settings with rented materials.  The HMG+ team is the hospitality staffing solution because we have tried and true systems that ensure everything gets back to the vendors and rental companies with a bow on it.  We also spend a lot of time checking, then double checking that the space is as we found it.  

This is all in service of a perfectly planned and executed event.  That is to say my friend did not have this wedding.  I got an email in May that my friend had in fact ALREADY gotten married on paper.  A big surprise as this is the type of guy that seemed terminally single.  So, once that surprise faded I read that he would be having a “Love Celebration” at a State Park overlooking the Mississippi River in Wisconsin.  Not exactly a destination wedding that anyone dreams of however, it geographically connects to our Midwest roots. So, we’re flying to Wisconsin and driving to a State Park, to sleep in a bunk bed.  This nostalgia, combined with the potluck wedding meal, badminton tournament, karaoke, and silent disco all conspired to create a memorable event.  Not in spite of a lack of planning, but because of the very familiar sense of community we laughed and loved until the early hours.

We all are going to have the joy of memorable events in our lives.  Whether they’re well executed, graceful events with the professional poise that HMG+ provides or an impromptu trip to camp to celebrate with an unorthodox wedding, bringing people together creates stories we’ll tell for years to come.  It’s important to tell these stories to our friends and family.  We should always share how coming together made memories.  Most of those stories will help teach the next generation how they can also come together.  I got ideas for how to have my own wedding in the backyard because of those kinds of stories.  If you want to make some of your own memories with HMG+, I recommend joining our team to peek behind the veil of a well oiled memory making machine!