Oh faithful readers, how art thou?

Us girls have been on a blogging hiatus this summer. I know, I know, we’ve been practicing bad blogging etiquette BUT in our defense, it’s been a busy summer and that’s a GREAT thing.

Anyway, we’re officially back and will send out a fresh new post soon. So look out for it and send us some feedback. The summer was a great one and we hope yours was too. Happy reading.

- Your friends at The Boutique Group

Photo credit: Sharon M Leon via Flickr

One of the biggest challenges for small businesses is marketing your company so that people know who you are and what you can do for them. Hell, it’s an uphill battle, even. Albeit a dirty job, somebody’s got to do it and per clause number five in our partnership agreement, that somebody is me.

Thankfully, Blair and I decided to conquer the rebranding efforts first before delving into the marketing aspect of the business.  Once we launched our new brand, I immediately researched every FREE online marketing opportunity that I could get my little hands on. Free marketing is all the rage, so we definitely needed to jump on that bandwagon.

Next up on the docket was the “not so free, incredibly inflated ad space prices, that aren’t worth the cheese in my macaroni” (just sayin). Unfortunately our hands are tied, so in order for us to compete we have to comply with the “industry standards”. If you haven’t realized it by now, I am a total frugal fanny (Argh! I can’t believe I just used frugal and fanny in the same sentence. Moving on). Luckily for us, the wedding market is huge so we had a ton of options.

In addition to our online marketing endeavors, I reached out to several vendors and small businesses to create partnerships that could benefit us all. There are so many great companies that we’ve worked with and featured on our website via the blog or as our preferred vendors. It has not only given us the opportunity to expand our network but it also shed some light on a lot of wonderful businesses for the world to see. That’s the easy part.

Enter, Charlatans and Shenanigans.

The tricky part is finding new vendors to work with without compromising the quality of the event or our company. We feel very strongly about knowing the vendors that we refer our clients to because if they are anything less then amazing that’s a reflection on us and threatens our credibility.

Being a small business ourselves, we know that a lot of companies rely on websites that offer free marketing as well as forums to showcase services. Quiet as it’s kept, we’ve landed several clients from scoping these websites ourselves, but one very important thing to keep in mind is that these free mediums can attract a lot of, for a lack of better word, foolywang.

In case you didn’t know…

So you will come across quite a few charlatans offering sub par service or products, disguised as professional businesses. These are wannabes that are too lazy to take the time to officially start a legit and reputable business. Just because you have a low budget doesn’t mean these people are your only option (The Boutique Group is a testament to low cost, exceptional service, just sayin’).

People are always coming up with “brand new, inventive” ideas and looking for help to execute them, which is fine if it’s a good and well thought out idea. If I come across an intriguing partnership opportunity, after investigating I usually take at least one meeting to see if it’s worth getting involved with.  You never know if something will work if you don’t try.

The real challenge is weighing the opportunities against our own goals as a company. Very often you will stumble upon amazing opportunities that aren’t always aligned with your bottom line and you just have to pass. Then there are those opportunities that come around and they are just crazy and you’re left wondering to yourself, “am I being punked”?

You wouldn’t believe some of the shenanigans that we’ve come across. Rude, unprofessional, unreliable, and delusional are the words that come to mind, when I think about some of the people that we’ve had the pleasure to meet. I had someone seriously pitch me the idea of getting into the wedding planning for dogs business. That’s right, this person wanted to partner with us to plan weddings for dogs. Need I say more?

So as my journey into the world of marketing continues, I’ll definitely be sure to keep these lessons in mind, as should you. Just remember, at some point the triumphs will outweigh the woes (hopefully).

Happy Marketing!

Photo Credits:

Chris Heiler (Flickr), Neil Krug (Flickr), Eugene Zemlyanskiy (Flickr), Geckoam (Flickr)

Where as I am a die-hard cynic and personally, I love to bask in my cynicism.  It makes me feel like I’m going against the grain, a rebel going rogue. However in business, cynicism is what kills the cat. So to my point (yes, there’s a point to my roundabout ramblings), I think this time my discouragement has purpose.

Sara and I have been kicking butt since the start of the year. I mean we came in like gangbusters, new partnership, new brand, and new marketing strategy.

We were armed, prepared and ready to conquer the planning world and make it our bitch. And then the unthinkable happened. Nothing!

I was instantly transformed to circa 1998 in my high school bedroom, sitting by the phone. However this time I’m not waiting for the proverbial ” boy” to call, I’m waiting for new clients to call. All the fear, insecurity and self-doubt found its way back into my pretty little head and began to consume me.

“Why aren’t they calling”? “Maybe its the website”. “What if our prices are too high, maybe they are too low” “Should I have gone with the other brochure design instead”?

These were the questions that were haunting me, making me doubt everything. Then lightening struck and my moment of clarity arrived and my self-loathing vanished.

I realized something so simple and so true. If you do the work, business will come. That’s it. There’s no timetable or loopholes, so it is what it is. There could be hundreds of reasons why the phone isn’t ringing as much, but the truth of the matter is we are a great company that offers a stellar service and most of all, we’ve done the work. That’s what I know for sure.

More clients will come eventually and I can’t stress myself out watching the clock and sitting by the phone. What we can do is have a little faith and continue doing what we’ve already been doing, which is mastering our art and being the best that we can possibly be. Everyone has a season and maybe ours hasn’t arrived yet; maybe there’s more work to be done. Trust, that the “waiting game” will suck but this too shall pass and before you know it your season will have arrived.

Photos Credits: Bottled_Void (Flickr),Justin Brockie (Flickr) & Sarah Buckley (Flickr)

To toast the arrival of the glorious spring season and what we like to call “spring awakening”, Sara and I decided to celebrate with FOOD!  We recently caught up with chef extraordinaire, Patricia Clark who we absolutely love working with because her food is as delightful and inspiring as she is.

Patricia is the owner and executive chef of the events catering company, Patricia Clark Cuisine. She has a classic French cooking degree from the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts program and incorporates traditional cooking techniques with a fresh, healthy and modern style. Patricia has catered parties across the US as well as in several major Euorpean cities, the French Indies, Mexico and North Africa.

To show her some love as fellow business woman, we not only picked her brain about all things food, but also got some great recipes to share with you so you’ll be inspired to cook something  amazing for your spring awakening. Here’s what Patricia had to say.

How did your love affair with food begin?

My love affair with cooking probably began with my first bite of lemon meringue pie! My Grandmother, a lovely woman never seen without red lipstick, made a truly wonderful version! I loved our family occasions that centered around whatever she, or my father were making. It was always a pleasure to see smiling faces crowded around a table complimenting each other. I learned very early that food is love.

How does living in NYC inspire your cooking?

NYC allows me to create truly fusion style menus. Here, fresh and local means ingredients from all cuisines. I can buy shiso leaves and champagne grapes from long island, duck from the Hudson valley, Chinese eggplant from New Jersey, blueberries from the Berkshires. Each of my menus highlight the international world we live in every day.

What is the best thing you’ve ever eaten and where?

The singular best thing I have ever eaten was homemade paparadelli in with shaved truffles and truffle broth in Umbria. Second to that would be the lemon, escolar, shiso roll at Fuji sushi in San Francisco.

What is in your fridge right now?

Small amounts of all kinds of ingredients from various recent menus: hoisin, manchego, white truffle, saffron buttercream frosting, pine nuts, balsamic thyme butter, champagne…

What advice would you give to a young chef trying to break into the business?

Work for as many different people as you can and develop a very thick skin. You will screw up. You will get yelled at. You will be exhausted. You will create your own style, and you will eventually wow everyone you have ever known.

What do you know for sure about cooking?

The only thing I know for sure is that I will forever be a student of the craft. I will always be reading, experimenting and trying new ingredients and techniques because cooking encompasses many different worlds….I know I want to live among as many of those worlds as I can as long I’m still breathing!

So check out these delicioso recipes and get the cookin’! And of course, let us know when dinner is ready (kidding).

Ricotta and Grilled Apricot Crostini

serves 6-12

Ingredients:

1 medium baguette

8 ounces whole milk ricotta

4-6 medium ripe apricots

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar

12 leaves fresh mint

Method:

1. Turn on your grill to medium heat. * You may also use a grill pan.

2. Wash and pat dry each apricot. Slice each apricot in half, remove the seed. Sprinkle the 1 Tablespoon of olive oil of the halved apricots.

3. Slice the baguette into ½” thick slices. Brush the slices with the 2 Tablespoons of olive oil.

4. Once the grill (or pan) is hot. Lay each slice of baguette down for about 30 seconds, then gently flip each over with tongs. Let the flip side cook for an additional 30 seconds then remove all from the heat and set aside.

5. Lay your oiled apricot halves, flesh side down onto the grill (or grill pan). Allow to cook up to 1 minute, then immediately remove form heat and set aside.

6. Lay each baguette slice flat and spread with ricotta cheese until all the slices are covered.

7. Lay 1 grilled apricot half onto the ricotta.

8. Drizzle the apricots with balsamic vinegar and finish by sprinkling with the salt.

9. Garnish each slice with a fresh mint leaf and serve.

Herb Crusted Roast Pork

with warm cherries and citrus tapenade

serves 12-15

Ingredients:

½ cup all purpose flour

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tablespoon minced parsley

2 Tablespoon minced fresh rosemary

1 Tablespoon minced thyme

2 tbsp paprika

1/4 Cup grainy Dijon Mustard

1 Tbsp Soy Sauce

6-7-pound boneless pork loin roast

****

1 lb cherries, pitted

½ cup dry white wine

1 Tablespoon butter

****

1 orange, segmented and zested

Kalamata Olives (4oz pitted)

Gaeta or Nicoise Olives (4 oz, pitted if possible)

Manzanilla or Cerignola (4oz, pitted if possible)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375*

2. Pat the pork loin with flour. Heat a roasting pan over medium heat and sear each side of the pork loin until you get a natural crust.

3. Combine all additional ingredients and rub entirely over the pork loin. Place the pork in an oven roasting pan and loosely cover with foil.

4. Roast in the oven 1 hour. Baste the pork with pan juices and remove the foil. Meanwhile, pit cherries, and combine in a small bowl the orange segments, orange zest and all 3 kinds of olives chopped. Set aside.

5. Remove the pork loin and set aside tented with foil.

6. Place the roasting pan back on top of the stove and add the white wine, butter, and cherries. Cook the mixture over a medium flame until the liquid reduces by half and the cherries soften.

8. Transfer the pork to a cutting board and slice into 2-3” thick portions. Arrange the pork onto the serving platter.

9. Pour the cherry pan sauce over the slices, top each slice with a spoonful of tapenade and serve immediately.

Peach Amaretti Tiramisu

serves 8-12

Ingredients:

2 boxes savoiardi

2 cups amaretto

12 peaches, pitted and quartered

marscarpone (1 small tub)

whipping cream (1 pint)

½ cup sugar

Method:

1. Whip the cream until firm peaks form. Scrape from the bowl and set aside.

2. In the whipping bowl, add the marscarpone and whip until it is softened and airy.

3. Add the whipped cream in approximately ¼ cup increments continuously whipping to keep the light structure. Continue whipping until you have incorporated all the cream and marscarpone. Set aside.

4. Gather 1 deep sided serving dish, 1 clean dish towel and 1 mixing bowl.

5. Place the mixing bowl over the dish towel. Pour the amaretto into a small bowl.

6. Open the packages of savoiardi, but keep each portion separated. You will use one for the base and 2 for the middle layer.

7. Brush each savoiardi into the amaretto and lay flat into the base of the serving dish. Once you have arranged the entire base layer, lay half the cut peaches on top, then smooth 1/2 of the cream mixture on top.

8. Create a 2nd layer of the brushed savoiardi, then covering with the remaining cream and sliced peaches.

9. Place the serving dish in the refrigerator 1 hour or up to over night.

* Optional garnish includes candied orange slices, chopped candied almond bark, dried orange zest, or a few sprigs of fresh mint.

For more information about Patricia Clark Cuisine, visit her website at www.patriciaclarkcatering.com

Happy Spring and Bon Appetit!

Photo Credits -

Jonny Hunter, Flickr

Sifu Renka, Flickr

Cookbookman17, Flickr

SteffanyF!, Flickr

Now that you all know our story, Sara and I figured that we should give you “the skinny” on what to expect from this blog. Let me just start out by saying, if you are looking for yet another “go to” guide for your wedding, then this isn’t the blog for you. Sorry brides!

We are “fly by the seat of your pants” kind of girls (well one of us is anyway), and you never can tell what will inspire us, so our posts will be different every week. But there will definitely be something for everyone.

Overall this is a just backstage pass to our lives in the event business. So take this ride with us, and have a look-see into our world.

Next stop, crazy town!

Sara and I have been spending the last two months re-branding the biz. Now that we are in the home stretch, we are looking for “out of the box” ways to build our clientele. Yea, yea, social networking is the key to life, I know, I know. And we are already doing that, (hell I’m actually blogging, who would have thought?) But we need something inventive and maybe even a little crazy. And no, I don’t mean Times Square Naked Cowboy crazy.  I said “a little crazy” not certifiably crazy!

Talk to us people. What’s the craziest thing a business has done to get your attention and most importantly get your business in this struggling economy?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Photo Credits -

Velvettangerine, Flickr

Kables, Flickr

When Blair approached me about being a partner, I was thrilled and scared at the same time. As awesome as the opportunity sounded, being someone’s business partner is a lot of work and responsibility, especially for a new company. On top of that, I have a demanding job that already leaves a lot to be desired with my personal life. I am only 27, but I have to start thinking about marriage and babies at some point right? So although my first thought was “yay”, my second thought was “there goes my personal life”.  So me being my cool, calm and collected self, I thought, there’s got to be a way to juggle all of this, people do it everyday. So after deliberating with my family, friends and lots of  thought, I said “what the hell, I can totally do this”. If I suck and Blair ends up giving me the boot (ouch), then at least I tried.

So now two months into our partnership, I can honestly say that this balancing thing, is not that easy. In fact, its extremely difficult, BUT I’ve been handling it. I just need to make some tweaks here and there.  So here what’s been going on. I was under the impression that I could work on projects, while at my other job. Not so much. You see there’s’ a thing called billable hours and that wasn’t going over to well with my colleagues (what was I thinking?). So then I figured that I could leave work everyday on time and work on the business in the evenings at home. That didn’t work either. Let’s be realistic here, who wants to come home and do more work after a gruesome workday? That would also mean me cutting out after work dates and gym time (that certainly will not do).

So this is what I came up with – just prioritize, genius! Here I am trying to be superwoman, and juggling all these balls in the air and failing miserably and turns out that all my tasks weren’t super urgent. If I just devoted one hour per day during the week and a couple of hours on the weekend, I could totally pull my weight.

It also helped that Blair & I implemented a new plan to have a conference call every Friday to check in and catch up. I also discovered that I need to leave my house in order to get some real work done, because getting caught up in the latest “Real Housewives” drama was way too tempting. The other thing I had to remind my self is that Blair is fully aware that I can only contribute to this partnership part time, so I’ve been putting all this undue pressure on myself, all because I am a total psycho (sometimes).

Anyway, I don’t have it all figured out and I’m sure there will be some more hiccups along the way, but so far I think I’ve found my stride (and discovered a cold brew, here and there helps tremendously) and I’m loving it.

Photo Credits -

Andrew Malone, Flickr

Shutter Monkey, Flickr

Let me start off by introducing myself. I’m Blair, and I invented fondue. Kidding. I actually started my company, The Boutique Group, two years ago while a stay at home mom, up to my eyeballs in poo, and one brownie away from leaping off the GW (means George Washington Bridge in NYC speak). I was totally losing myself to mommy hood and needed an outlet to express my independent and creative self. While my roots are in reality television production (100 greatest kid stars.. yea that was me), I could no longer deal with the 16-hour days, the crappy pay and the excessive partying. Well, the partying was actually pretty great. But to my point, that life wasn’t aligned with my new life – wife, mother and also the fact that I wasn’t really that great at working for other people anyway. So, I decided to combine my love of television production and parties and voila`, The Boutique Group was born.

When starting this company, I had a vision of providing a great service that accommodates everyone’s needs and budget. I have a love of food (Mac n Cheese is my world), design, flowers and all things festive. So I took what I knew, what I thought I knew and my unemployment check and set out to achieve my dreams.  I took a chance and it’s actually working out, sort of.

Anyway, a year after landing a couple of events here and there, not making any real money and barely surviving, I took a freelance corporate planning gig. There, I met this amazingly talented girl from Boston, that I call Sara. We were an instant hit from the start and besides the fact that she is a Red Sox fan, hates all things girly and pink, and likes Tracey Chapmen; we had great chemistry and worked well together.

So me being short on event staff for a wedding and not having any money to pay someone other then in free booze from the open bar (ok, I’m really kidding this time, I totally don’t do that, only sometimes), I recruited her to work the event with me and we’ve been working together ever since.

Now two years later and two kids later, my husband hasn’t left me yet, I still haven’t lost a pound (gained some actually but who’s counting?) and my business is still standing. Thank God for that. I can also now happily announce that Sara has officially joined The Boutique Group as my partner.  We are now two fearless females (I know, I know. This title is so over used, but it’s true) on a mission to build this small start-up company into a well-established fruitful business.

We’re building on the foundation that I already set in place and reinventing ourselves with a new logo, new website and new brand. And although there is A LOT of competition out there (these days everyone is a event planner), we are going to do it differently, and do it better (way better)!

So look out world, The Boutique Group is here to stay!