Looking for a superstar team to plan and design your wedding? Say hello to DUO events. Erica and Katie, DUO’s creative directors, develop and direct the creative process of your big day. Essentially, they are the event designer, stylist, florist and planner… all rolled into one. Together, Erica (a qualified interior designer) and Kate (a qualified florist) have 30 years of experience, and you can see their talents in the gorgeous examples of their work below. Today, we’re chatting with Erica about the DUO process, the importance of event styling, and how they like to work with bridal couples.

When was DUO events born?
August 2013 and counting!

Where are you based?
Perth, Western Australia

Who’s on your team?
We have two directors (Katie & I) and then a crew of casual staff who work with us at events as freelance florists, on the day stylists and event assistants. We also consider our preferred wedding vendors a part of our team as they are a direct reflection of our brand when at weddings.

What services do you provide couples?
DUO is a full service design studio, so we offer the following services:

  • Event Design
  • Event Planning
  • Event Management
  • Floral Design & Installation
  • Onsite Management

How early should couples book you in for their wedding?
Ideally 12 months out, any earlier and there is too much room for thoughts to change! So we generally allow a 12-month window and that really comes down to the fact that key suppliers can be booked 12 months in advance so we have to get in quick! We do like the tight timeframe wedding though; some of our best weddings have been planned in less than three months!

What’s the best part of your job?
For both of us it is seeing the event design come to life. We love that the end product looks exactly like what is on paper and in visuals, and the event looks exactly as the client expected. I love seeing the florals come to life, as Katie doesn’t plan florals with exact detail, she just knows what flowers are in the floral pantry and she brings it to life on the day, so that is always a cool part of the process. Sometimes I turn around and be like, ‘Whoa, didn’t think that was going to look so epic, lol!’

And the most challenging?
Our biggest challenge is messaging! We find that some prospective clients understandably do not know the wedding process or where to even start, I mean who does unless you actually do weddings for a living! So getting clients to understand the value in a full service design studio and what we deliver can be quite difficult, especially when they can’t value the service because they don’t understand the process. So we do spend a lot of our time educating our clients on the extensive services we offer and how those services we will help them navigate the whole wedding process and why that is worth it.

Secondly, our biggest challenge is to educate clients on what a wedding actually costs! Instagram (whilst an amazing resource) gives clients a false sense of scale versus cost.

Do you find it easier if couples come to you with heaps of ideas for their big day or when they just hand over the reins to you?
You get the best out of creative people when you give them artistic freedom to do their thing! Some of our best weddings have been a result of a client giving us one word, one colour or one thought and a whole heap of trust that we will deliver! Having said that we do ask couples to bring along imagery that best describes their lifestyle, fashion and living ideals as that imagery assists us to understand what they love.

What’s are the most important aspects of wedding styling?
The event design – without a clear design direction it all falls apart. A strong event design means there is an overarching aesthetic that all elements have to align with. As an example we start with clients key design words like: modern, elegant, warm and then we build the wedding design from those words. We select or design furniture, florals, graphics, tableware and feature pieces always circling back to the key words, its almost like a cross check at every stage of the design process to keep the design authentic to the couple and keep us accountable for the choices we are making.

What has been on trend lately?
Simple tablescapes, it’s really big right now! It’s all about a well-designed table with striking plates, cutlery and linen napkins pared with interesting menu graphics. Feature florals in bud vases are replacing big statement florals down the centre of the table and candles are either pillars or tapers over tea light votives. The good thing about this aesthetic is you can go really neutral and play with tones or you can go bright and bold with colour, it works both ways!

And what kinds of set ups never go out of style?
Long table dining will never go out of fashion neither a neutral palette and metallic cutlery, it wins most times. Couples still like that crisp white and lush greenery look and we still see blush & pinks as a colour way in most weddings.

What are your favourite flowers to work with?
Katie would say she is most happy when she gets to work with a tonal colour palette, for example all tones of browns/taupes. Katie’s work is fairly detailed in terms of how many varieties of blooms she puts into an installation, so she likes to be able to layer her colours and textures to create a stunning floral piece that has depth.

As far as blooms go, she loves large headed roses, garden roses, phalaenopsis orchids, anthuriums, cymbidium orchids, sweet peas, poppies, peonies and well the list could go on forever! She loves working with natives especially native foliage and berries! We are also very happy with the new preserved range that is available now, more so because the range of colours and variety is so epic and really has allowed florists to take their florals to a whole new level.
What colours, textures, flowers and ideas would you like to see embraced in 2020?
We really love the new deep browns, lattes, and taupes at the moment; they are out of this world beautiful! We also love the rusts, burnt oranges and of course we can never go past black. In terms of textures the preserved range will be massive through 2020/2021, there’s unlimited textural foliage to choose from and the range is easy to work with as there is a commonalty with the softness and delicate nature of preserved blooms and foliage.

There is a new range of phalaenopsis orchids that are sprayed and they are so stunning! From latte to mauve, to pastel pink – these are a statement bloom and we would love couples to embrace these so we get to design with them.

Most memorable wedding you’ve worked on?
Gah! That’s a hard one because we have worked on so many amazing weddings. Our pop-up weddings are probably most memorable because we are physically building them from the ground up and it’s an amazing amount of hard work. We also believe lighting makes or breaks a space, last season we had a wedding that had a really modern and bespoke lighting design and this season one that had a 2km fairy lighting tunnel over the long table dining.

Favourite venues to work with?
We love Guildhall in Fremantle, it’s a refurbished heritage building and the team are lovely to work with. We are excited about one of the newest warehouse venues in Perth, Assembly Yard in South Fremantle. That venue is going to be amazing to work in! Our favourite hotel venue at the moment is The Ritz Carlton Perth; it’s a pretty stunning hotel.

Do you have a limit to how many weddings you take on per week or month?
We only take on one wedding a weekend because of our full service model as we are doing the whole shebang! Katie and I like to be present for the wedding as clients are hiring us not our staff, so it’s important we oversee the wedding from concept to completion. We are happy to fill every weekend with a wedding!

What’s a typical wedding day involve for you?
Our mornings generally start at 5am or earlier! First up we finish packing vans with all the fresh flowers and pre made florals, and then we wrap and pack bridal bouquets. Katie heads off to deliver bridal party flowers while I go to the venue to start unpacking vans and meeting suppliers.

A lot of our prep work is completed prior the wedding day, so the actual day is all about setting and styling only. We set all furniture in place, steam linen, set place settings and tablescapes, place florals, and build floral installations. We install graphics, place menus, guest gifts and set all the ancillary areas like lounge precincts, pop up bars etc. and meet all the other wedding vendors.

We then get ready for the bridal party and get the bride down the aisle. Once we’ve completed that we make sure the MC feels comfortable with their role, the couple have drinks and have settled into the reception party! And then we bump it all out when the wedding is over and guests have gone to bed!

Thanks Erica for chatting with us about all the incredible services that DUO events offers! Your meticulous planning, considered designs and dedication to your clients is spectacular. To find out more about DUO events, head to their website or check them out on the Polka Dot Directory.

Photography by Ridhwaan Moolla