Tag Archives: Lakeside

Hooks – Salgado: A lakeside wedding followed by a sit down dinner for 80 people

My husband and I have a small lake house on Lake Island Ford, a beautiful ski size lake in Odessa, Florida. It is a rather old Florida style property with a wild yard that looks green with little watering as our weeds are greener and more prolific than our grass. Our little house and yard clean up quite nice and with low lights and candles anything can be magical.

My husband has been friends with the Hooks family for years and when their daughter Monica and her fiance Michael asked to have their wedding in our backyard, no was not even an option. Planning any kind of event outdoors can be a risky venture. You learn to have back up plans that can range all the way from plan A to plans E and F and then some. Having been in the event planning industry for years, I have learned that the months October and November are relatively safe planning months for outdoor events in the Tampa Bay area. Monica and Michael were on a limited budget and she had done her research diligently and knew exactly the look and feel she wanted for her wedding. Like most brides, she wanted a low cost wedding that looked like a million bucks and so she brought all of her magazines and pictures of weddings, centerpieces and flowers that she had been cutting out and perusing for months and we put our heads together to plan the most incredible outdoor wedding extravaganza for an even more incredible low cost.

I had just come back from planning, decorating, cooking and attending my friend Woody Garcia’s 60 birthday party in Silva North Carolina, a sit down dinner for 40, family style, and decided that Continue reading →