Journal

Notes from the studio

Eight pieces on how the studio actually works: timelines, venues, guest lists, budgets and the day itself. Every article opens in place — no separate pages to lose your position in.

Planning

Event-day preparation, hour by hour

5 Feb 2026 · 6 min read

Start with the fixed points: ceremony, dinner service, speeches, send-off. Everything else arranges itself around them.

Add supplier arrival and departure times to the same sheet. Half of all day-of confusion comes from a florist and a lighting crew arriving at the same loading door.

Build in a buffer either side of the ceremony. Guests arrive late, families take longer than anyone predicts, and a fifteen-minute cushion absorbs both without visible panic.

Distribute the run sheet to every supplier three days ahead and again on the morning. In Gather, the timeline is designed to print cleanly and to read on a phone held one-handed.

8 of 8 articles

Planning
A planning timeline that survives contact with reality
Most timelines fail because they are written backwards from the day instead of forwards from the first decision.
4 Jun 2026 · 6 min read
Venues
Choosing a venue: the five questions that matter
Capacity, weather plan, kitchen, access and sound. Almost every venue regret traces back to one of these.
21 May 2026 · 5 min read
Guests
The guest list is the budget
Every other line item is downstream of one number. Fix the guest count early and the rest stops moving.
8 May 2026 · 4 min read
Budget
Budgeting without the spreadsheet anxiety
Committed and paid are different numbers, and confusing them is the most common way a budget quietly fails.
19 Apr 2026 · 7 min read
Design
Floral design that stays in season
The cheapest way to make flowers look expensive is to use the ones already growing that month.
2 Apr 2026 · 5 min read
Photography
How to work with a photographer
A shot list is a symptom. What a photographer actually needs is time and a schedule that admits where the light is.
14 Mar 2026 · 5 min read
Hosting
The art of hosting on the day itself
By the morning of the event, your job is no longer planning. It is being present, which requires having delegated.
26 Feb 2026 · 4 min read
Planning
Event-day preparation, hour by hour
The run sheet is the only document that matters on the day, and it should fit on one page.
5 Feb 2026 · 6 min read

Notes from the studio

Event-day preparation, hour by hour

Articles