Steem Away

We recently completed an event for Stanley Steemer's Award Dinner.
Our fabulous Project Manager, Michael Bova, pulled together a beautiful and elegant evening of jewel tones and rich fabrics.
Thanks to all of our gurus who tied chairs bows, arranged flowers and assisted in making the event a smashing affair.

Business2Business

ZenGenius recently became a member of the Columbus Chamber. For less than a month now we've been navigating their site and learning of all these wonderful networking opportunities offered to their members. You know us we love to go out and mingle.
After an introduction meeting with one of the chamber organizers we learned of an opportunity to attend what would be our first official Chamber Expo.

Held Tuesday the 23 at Nationwide Arena was the Chambers' Business2Business Expo.
Set up on what should have been the ice, we had two larger than life tables, one featuring our event planning and the other displaying a bit of ZG visual merchandising.

In less than a few hours Joe Baer, yes he created and installed the tablescape all by himself, had created another ZG masterpiece.

With Twizzlers at our side and our mannequins packing glue guns, we enlightened our new Chamber friends with the wonder of ZenGenius.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and introduced themselves. We look forward to attending more events like the Business2Business Expo in the future. Next time we'll give you all a heads up so you know when and where to find us.

PS-Tracy, our florist extraordinaire had created two amazing arrangements, which weren't around when we snapped these shots. They were displayed behind the black and white, round ZG graphics and they offered a great sense of height and scale to the middle of the tables.

They can still be found in the office for the next week or so, if you wish to stop in and see her handy work.

Erin and Danny sittin’ in a tree…

Last weekend, I went to the most amazing wedding and reception. It was not amazing due to copious amounts of calla lilies carried by bridesmaids, shiny pin tuck satin linens with perfectly placed complicated centerpieces, or a wedding cake that looked like a creation from The Ace of Cakes. Nor did the bride don a fabulous Vera Wang dress.

Their event had all of the beauty and attention to detail that one would expect on this special day with none of the pretense and over-spending that can come with such occasions. This was a true reminder that a wonderful wedding and reception does not have to break the bank.

Some of the most memorable details included:

The Programs: Printed on brown recycled paper that reflected the aesthetic style and eco-sensibilities of the couple.

The Ceremony: The couple had two friends sing and play guitar to a beautiful original song. Another friend officiated the ceremony. Both were meaningful and cost effective.

The Dress: The bride wore a stunning 1940’s style silver duchesse satin gown embellished with white feathers at the bottom of the dress. Think: modern flapper dress with gorgeous details.

The Bouquets: My favorite thing: Bunches of ORIGAMI PAPER FLOWERS were carried by the bride and her bridesmaids. Perfect example of thinking outside of the box. As a floral designer, I know exactly how expensive flowers can be. I thought this was the coolest idea. Made from recycled magazine pages, they were also eco-chic.

The Centerpiece & Favors: In the reception room, the first thing we saw were piñatas of all types as centerpieces on the tables. We had Godzilla. The table next to us had a monkey. After dinner, the couple told us to bust open the piñatas on the floor to find the party favors. To our utter delight, we found dozens of stick-on mustaches and thick caterpillar-like eyebrows inside. You could not hear the person next to you over the laughter of everyone in the room. We exchanged mustaches, changing from The Frenchman, to The Handlebar, to The Professor. With memories like those, who needs a take-home favor?

The Linens: Rather than splurging on satin or custom linens, they chose to use the basic white cotton linens that the venue provided, and rented colored napkins from a linen company. This is a great way to have an impact without blowing the budget.

The Cake: Carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting were chosen over a wedding cake for a cost savings and a cute modern departure from tradition.

The entire event was as lovely, authentic, and original as the couple themselves. They found the balance between making sure that their guests had a great time while also respecting their own bank account. A great way to start off a life together, I think! I will upload some photos here when I get them.

Consider some of these alternative ‘out of the box’ ideas and others for your next event and remember that ZenGenius can help with events of ANY budget- from $500 to $500,000. Call us to set up a consultation for a brainstorm for your event!

Evening of Hope Pictures

Two of the lovely event Co-Chairs, Brooke O'Neill and Sarah Windels Ziegler
Ice station inspired by the event invitation

The crudite and appetizers station

The entertainment tent from S&G Tent Rental with dynamic lighting my LIVE! Tech.

Evening of Hope at Easton Town Center

For the sixth year, ZenGenius had the pleasure of assisting Nationwide Children’s Hospital Foundation in producing “Evening of Hope” benefiting the Center for Child and Family Advocacy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

The Center for Child and Family Advocacy (CCFA) is a unique and first-of-it’s-kind organization that is serving as a National model. CCFA serves kids and families that have experienced sexual abuse. CCFA is a one-stop-shop for treatment, counseling, investigation and prosecution of sexual and violent crimes against children. It's the first, but CCFA partners everyday with organizations around the country to set up similar programs. It's truly a jewel in Columbus's crown. We are honored to support their critical works!

“Evening of Hope” is held at Bon Vie at Easton Town Center. We work with S&G Tent Rental to install a one-of-a-kind 3,000 sq. ft. modular tent on the patio and street in front of the restaurant. LIVE! Technologies provides A/V services and excellent sound for the band. This year, we were entertained by the body-moving sounds of Conspiracy, who truly rocked the house (tent)!

Guests dined on awesome nibbles from Bon Vie, including a beautiful raw bar by Paul Ahrens of Precise Ice. Please stay tuned for another update with pictures from the event. Again, we would like to thank everyone that makes this evening such a rousing success including event co-chairs, Rachel and Scott Friedman, Brooke and Brendan O’Neill, and Sarah Windels Ziegler. Without their efforts to promote the event, “Evening of Hope” would not be such a hit!

“Evening of Hope” is produced in conjunction with Abigail and Leslie Wexner with the generous support of Premier Sponsor Grange Insurance and Presenting Sponsors Easton Community Foundation and Bravo Development, Inc. With the support of Time Warner Cable.

Happy Earth Day

Zen Genius celebrates Earth day 365 days a year.
We try our best to live a green lifestyle at our office by recycling our paper, ink cartridges and magazines. You can find us emailing each other often to cut down on paper consumption. We scheme up creative ways to keep items out of land fills. For instance, we recently found ourselves sitting on thousands of used votive holders with wax still crusted inside them. Instead of throwing them all away we asked our gurus to step forward and help us clean them. Now we have gleaming votives for years and years to come.
We are also proud to have completed our application for Columbus GreenSpot, a local effort encouraging individuals and companies to create a more sustainable city.
This month we even had one of our visual gurus, Tim Levan, create a green scape at the front window in our office building. Repurposing items found in our storage space Tim truelly turned trash into treasure.
They are little steps but it's the little things that count! What little steps are you taking?

Are we having fun yet?

Of course we are having fun! That's one of our favorite things about our unique and passionate team at ZenGenius. We enjoy having fun, bonding and growing together as a team.

One of the unique ways we work to improve our team synergy and purpose is by working with a Business Coach. We choose Victoria Vetere from Enlightened Life Coaching to work with us throughout the year to focus on improving communication, collaboration and defining and focusing on our goals. This has been a new experience for us all and a great chance to grow.

Victoria lead us through a workshop at the creative SPARK space in Downtown Columbus. What a wonderful space to explore our goals and have fun at the same time. Yes, this is work.

We took some time to focus our intentions, define our goals and express our individual and team goals. In the end we came out with a clearly focused set of objectives that everyone believed in.

We also had a chance to feed our faces and load up on all of the snacks and candy we wanted.

Working with Victoria has been a great experience. Not only has it been fun but it has also been a great reminder to balance our lives and remember we are here for a purpose. Remembering
to balance our work and travel with moments to allow the inspiration to find us as well.
Our clients often tell us we bring a sense of calm and reassurance to all of our projects.
That's certainly a wonderful compliment and our goal is to help our clients sleep better at night knowing that we are here to help and can accomplish miracles. We are a creative rock!