If you’re planning a wedding, chances are good that your big day will happen in the fall. According to The Knot’s 2016 Real Weddings Study, 3 out of 10 newlywed couples had their weddings in either September or October last year.

Every wedding is different, but often fall wedding decor has a habit of looking the same. Want to make your autumn nuptials stand out from the pumpkin patch? Take a look at a few suggestions we’ve put together for hosting an autumnal wedding unlike any other.

Commune with nature first, then escape inside for photos

No wedding is complete without plenty of photography, and foliage in early autumn provides the perfect backdrop for stunning scenic snapshots. Cold weather, however, isn’t perfect for bridesmaids’ bare shoulders. Even though wedding planners will almost certainly want pictures taken outside before the wedding, they should prepare a backup plan for later in the day when it’s too chilly and dark to venture outdoors for selfies.

Why not create an indoor photo booth with a custom backdrop instead? You can personalize it with your own graphics, text and colors to match your theme, throw in a few funny costumes and let the night speak for itself through film and pixels. By the time you return from your honeymoon, you’ll have more amazing pictures of than you’ll know what to do with.

Ditch the traditional autumn color scheme for something autumn-adjacent

A fall wedding doesn’t have to be all reds and browns and pumpkin spice everything. With careful planning, you can select a color scheme that makes you feel more like a newlywed and less like a scarecrow.

Three words: Consider your purples. Deep plum, mauve, amethyst, orchid – Martha Stewart Living said any of these paired with the right combination of accents colors will draw on natural autumn hues without looking too overdone. Not a fan of purples? Try peach, taupe or mossy hunter green as a base instead and work from there.

Did somebody say Halloween wedding?

No. That would be crazy. A Halloween wedding. That’s – that’s crazy, right?

Crazy like a werewolf maybe.

Should you wish to channel your inner Gomez and Morticia Addams and throw a Halloween-themed ceremony, be sure to book a location that will cater to goth-chic aesthetic: old Victorian hotels, overgrown greenhouses, haunted libraries … you get the idea. Candles are an easy and inexpensive way to bring out even more spookiness, but you will need a lot of them to keep everything well lit and safe for guests in flowy evening attire.

One final tip: A Halloween wedding must, above all else, nail dessert. So pass on the bite-sized candy bars of trick-or-treats past for decadent dark chocolate pastries and other sinfully rich delights adults will love. Your guests will also love a Halloween-themed drink like a Pomegranate-and-Tequila cocktail or sparkling apple cider.

Whatever you decide to do for your upcoming wedding, reach out to Sign Art Etc today for the banners and backdrops you’ll need to decorate your one-of-a-kind celebration.

We can easily throw an amazing and inexpensive company holiday party all by ourselves. Everyone in the office will come. We don’t need an event planner.

Famous last words.

Bad parties are not only a threat to good taste but to year-end cheer as well. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 3 out of 10 businesses do not throw holiday parties at all – and that number is on the rise.

When these shindigs fail to attract staff or adhere to budgets, the Powers That Be will shrink next year’s spend, limiting options and perpetuating the cycle of yuletide woe. What’s the solution? Hire an event planner.

Blowouts on a budget

Has this ever happened to you? You throw a party and it turned out OK. Just OK. But even though the decorations are slapdash, the food is just above palatable and the beer is domestic, you still somehow managed to overshoot your budget by several hundred dollars. How?

Because you don’t have the expertise and the connections an event planner does, that’s how. Planners thrive on building professional relationships with vendors and negotiating prices. Many have personal experience working in catering, entertainment and the like. These people know how to turn your wildest, most elaborate ideas into party possibilities at a reasonable price point or confined to a prescribed budget.

Hit the favorites, skip the cliches

Once December rolls around, businesses everywhere will break out the same tired holiday supplies as last year: cardboard snowflakes ruined by years of tape, a stack of leftover snowman-shaped plastic plates and tinsel scraps. Yawn.

Instead, trust an event planner. They know what’s hot, what’s not, what will draw a crowd and what will look best in the background of all your employees’ holiday selfies.

Branding branding branding

Speaking of photos, in the age of social media and smartphone cameras, every office party is an opportunity to show off how your business lets its hair down – professionally, of course.

Whether your company decides to gift attendees with holiday-themed branded swag or customize a step-and-repeat banner checkered in its logo, the party planner will handle all the logistics. All you have to do is have a good time, post your pics on your company website or social media accounts, then sit back and enjoy the publicity.

Face it: You don’t have time to plan

Perhaps this goes without saying, but unless your business is event planning – in which case, why are you reading this? – you shouldn’t pay your employees to call caterers, fill goodie bags and compose karaoke playlists. Their clients probably won’t cut them slack for bad service because they were too busy surfing Pinterest boards for gingerbread-flavored cocktail recipes.

So ask yourself: Is the cost of hiring an event planner comparable to the cost of lost productivity? Pricing options vary among planners; some charge hourly, some charge according to a percentage of the total expense and others will settle for flat fees. If you build a budget in advance, accounting for the planner’s fee, and ask them to stick to it, your business can avoid creeping costs that parties so easily incur and make out better financially than if you’d asked staff to pitch in.

Usher in 2018 with style – this year, don’t forget to incorporate professional help into your holiday party budget. Check out our video below for more information.