I was in speech in debate in high school. I tell my kids they gave us trophies for talking, which was fantastic, by the way. One of the first things you learn about boring your audience is to start your talk with dictionary definitions. It’s communication 101.
I’m going to do it anyway.
There are a couple of definitions for the word “orchestrate” that I like. One definition from Oxford Languages says, “to arrange or direct the elements of (a situation) to produce a desired effect, especially surreptitiously.” Another definition is from Merriam-Webster and says to orchestrate is “to arrange or combine so as to achieve a desired or maximum effect.”
In the fall of 2020, several of my business-owner friends in the local event and hospitality industries were confronted with a new landscape that included Health Department rules dictating event headcounts, venue rules requiring vs suggesting masks, scared brides, confused festival-goers, and more. Vendors from florists to bakers, djs to limo drivers, videographers to jewelers were all trying to figure out how to encourage gathering but how to do that safely… and in a way that still best executed these gatherings in a way that showcased the craft and talents of said vendors!
The beauty of Orchestrated Events: A Vendor Collective is that it took a local group of these talented individuals and created a talented whole. These singular vendors with their products and services joined together to create this symphony of products and services…this collection of goods…this collaboration of personalities and materials… that is a completely unique business model in our Northwest Indiana wedding industry.
On a greater, more spiritual level, we believe that the body is always more than the sum of its parts; the completed opus is always more than the oboe section. There’s a pretty popular holy book that states that, “the body was put together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body but that its parts should have equal concern over each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”
We believe that so much here. Our vendor team comes together in unity by working on these fun little projects together, and during a time where there seems to be little unity everywhere else… we get to create it here. We create it for our clients, and I really think we create it for each other. For ourselves.
We are about to celebrate our first anniversary here at Orchestrated Events; October 1 is our birthday. We opened with 8 vendor members and now we have more than twice that may. If you ask each vendor how many events they’ve done and add them all together, we’re into the thousands. That’s collaboration! That’s unity.
And when I, the owner, reflect on it all? I realize that since my career in this industry began in 2003… it’s all. Been very. Orchestrated.