Wedded bliss

After a troubling experience organizing her own wedding, nuptial guru Kate Miller decided to dive into the business of wedding planning with Kate Miller Events. She’s quickly become one of the most sought-after designers in the area due to her charming personality, pinpoint attention to detail, electronic knowhow and ability to execute a couple’s ideas into white-laced reality.

What’s the chicest wedding trend right now?

I am absolutely loving brooch bouquets. It’s something that lasts forever and past the wedding. Or, each individual pin and brooch can later be used and worn at a later time. I’m a fan of being able to use something more than once.

Also, instead of just flowers people are adding all kinds of things such as dried botanicals, buttons, velvet leaves and flowers, feathers, succulents, and so on. Air plants are also very hot right now.

Why did you decide to get into wedding planning?

I never knew that I would be interested in wedding planning. It didn’t seem like something I would be into. Looking at my professional history and my hobbies, though, it makes sense. It seemed I sort of had all the skill sets necessary. The critical thing was my experience with a bad wedding planner.

Picking a planner is a personal decision, and you have to click well. I think my planner would have been fine for someone else who wasn’t as OCD about organization as I am. I’m very meticulous; she wasn’t, and so we didn’t click well. Plus, she wasn’t tech savvy and actually encouraged me not to Google information I wanted, which, you know, I’m pretty tech-oriented; I’m unabashedly and admittedly a total geek.

What do you do differently than that wedding planner?

We offer all clients online planning tools to help us and the clients stay organized. It’s quite useful, since some of our clients are out of the state or country. Plus, it allows us to do work outside of normal business hours.

We also don’t have standard packages, since each wedding is different. Each is bespoke in that the couples—both gay and straight—are paying for only the services they want. It stretches the dollar that way.

How have you expanded since it was just you working out of home?

It was just me at first, but now there are others. I think it is important to have extra hands at a wedding. Now, I have three planners on my team and an intern.

As of June 2011, I quit my job working as a technical specialist for a company working on business intelligence and started planning full time. We opened an office at 18th and Q [streets] just a few months ago.

How would you describe your aesthetic?

It varies so much, since we design for our clients. I love modern and vintage myself. One of the elements I feel transcends our designs is a touch of whimsy. We produce events with whimsical aspects—about a year ago we did an Alice in Wonderland design to conceptualize a new product. Instead of the classic, bright tea-party design, we did the Tim Burton Alice with black lace and bold colors. We also did a wedding in vintage fashion that had hints of the couple’s love of baseball by using gingham and some strong patterns.

What’s unique about the Sacramento wedding scene?

We are so close to so many locations and elements in this city that we can draw on the country aesthetic, do a city wedding and pull in modern, local wines and Napa styles. We have tons of venues in the area that can reflect an individual’s personality, like Tuscan-style courtyards, old barns and [vintage-styled] hotels like The Citizen. Unlike a city like Chicago, where you can only do a city wedding, Sacramento has plenty of options.

What was one of the most unique weddings you’ve planned?

One was a modern Mediterranean theme based on our clients’ experiences in Spain, Morocco and Italy. We had an authentic Moroccan tent for the photo booth and created an escort card display that incorporated the favors into a Moroccan market where guests could get rosemary olive oil, Mediterranean Sea salts, Moroccan mint tea and so on.

What was also so awesome was that we could please the wishes and wants of the bride’s parents who wanted it in a hotel ballroom, yet we were still able meet the aesthetic of the couple: textural linens, paper lanterns, Italian-style chargers and beautiful amber uplighting. Everything from the menu to the paper products was designed around that theme.

How do you calm people down on the big day? Surely, there have been cold feet and meltdowns.

Here’s how I calm people down on the wedding day: We preplan months before. That way, the bride is calm. We make sure to have a certain level of trust, so that they are confident that we will execute the event plan and deal with any problems as and if they come up.

Cake or dessert bar?

Dessert bar. I like to try new things, and for me, I get to try so many flavors and not just one.