Seedlip teamed up with celebrity event planner Mindy Weiss to show people how to host a Seedlip Soirée to keep spirits high this January and support their ambitions of renewal at the start of the new year.

Mindy shared along a few helpful tips when preparing for a Seedlip Soiree:

• Thoughtful Decor: Make the tablespace a compliment to the menu or the theme of the menu by using some of the botanicals in Seedlip in the flower arrangements you dress the table with.
• Elevated Offerings: Using a variety of glassware helps to elevate the look of a Seedlip Soiree. Play with various sizes and styles of stemware and ice shapes to give each serve its own look and feel.
• Personalization: For any host always on the move, get prepped before the party by pre batching i.e. a punch or creating a cocktail station that makes it simple for guests to create a great tasting Seedlip cocktail. Encourage guests to use a variety of garnishes to inspire their creations through personalized and elevated Seedlip cocktails.
• Socialization at the Core: A Seedlip Soiree is a great time to bring people together to entice guests to taste more out of life. Think through who is coming to any event and then include seating place cards to strategically seat select individuals near each other and inspire the best conversations and connections.
• Be An Intentional Host: Always prepare your toast in advance. Be thoughtful when you are toasting to an occasion and have a clear, inspiring message that will encourage positive and thoughtful moments at the Seedlip Soiree.
• Mindful Party Curation: When curating your decor and party favors for your soiree, support your local shops as a way to give back to your community, seek out products made from recycled or are recyclable materials and reuse what you have at home to alleviate waste post party.

Photo Credit: Mindy Weiss

Seedlip Soiree Sweepstakes Info + CTA for consumers

• • From Tuesday, January 3rd through Friday, January 13th, Mindy and Seedlip are offering people across the nation the chance to win a Seedlip Soirée through an Instagram sweepstakes campaign.
  • To enter, tag your Seedlip Soirée VIPs for a chance to win an anything but drab January bash.
  • The winner will be announced on Monday, January 16th, and will receive a grand prize of a 30-minute consultation with Mindy, a $5,000 cash prize to fund an at home event, and a suite of Seedlip products to serve at their Seedlip Soiree.
  • For more details, go to https://seedlipdrinks.com/en-us/journal/seedlip-x-mindy-weiss-sweepstakes/

Mindy Weiss Interview Transcript

The Knockturnal: It’s really nice to interview you. I am actually a fellow event and wedding planner myself.

Mindy Weiss: Oh. So you feel me? You know…you know the truth!

The Knockturnal: I know the truth…everything that can hit the fan will hit the fan. I get all of that. I dabble with it on the side, so I don’t do it full-time like you do. But I had so many questions in my head. And one of the questions that I have is…how do you do it? When it comes to trying to figure out what is going to be successful [for] an event. I know wedding planners and event planners all have their way…for you, what does that usually entail, from point A to point B?

Mindy Weiss: Well, when everyone comes in, it’s interesting. Every year, they tend to come in with the same that everyone’s attracted to or they’re looking, they’re hoping, for. But what I try to do is, you know, be very open to everything everybody brings in and then kind of hone it down to one topic. ‘Cause, as you probably experienced, when they come in with all their pictures, they have so many different ideas that in no way would ever work together.

So my first thing is always trying to personalize your event, right? So that your guests can walk in and know exactly whose event they are at. I’m very conscious of that. So first, I really try to personalize it. Really talk to them and say, you know, what are your favorite colors? What are you hoping for your guest to feel or listen to? Whether it’s through your vows, which are the first thing typically of personalization when they walk into your ceremony or the music. And then, when they go into your cocktail hour, your drinks – I did think that the personalized drinks were gonna go away, but they never have.

I think the bar is the most important thing right now. It’s usually the number two conversation after they tell me the story of their engagement. We have to have plenty of bars, no waiting, no lines. So then we come up with our personalized drinks, which is becoming a guest experience.

Yeah. And I joined up with Seedlip for the Seedlip Soiree, ’cause it attracted me, it made it look unique besides being a beautiful bottle. And I am very particular, if we’re gonna put something on the bar, it can’t just be some glasses, you know what I mean? It has to be beautiful, because I do get asked to do a lot of, you know, spokesperson stuff and I can’t do it all if I can’t speak to it. Yeah. So the big guest experience, if it’s at the bar, would be about these new mocktails.

And one of them has some spices in it. One had rosemary in it…a great way to incorporate it all to get people’s attention, to get them to try something new. And I’m sure you know that custom menus on the bar are quite helpful in people experiencing something new, something to leave talking about, and yet something that’s still appropriate on the bar.

The Knockturnal: Your Seedlip partnership, have you started doing events with Seedlip? Or have you been planning any events that have been using Seedlip as a brand?

Mindy Weiss: Yes. Actually, when they approached me, I knew it because my son owns a bar. I always have them to bounce things off of. So I’d only had it at that point, at one event. So I, I looked at it and thought, Ooh, that’s cool. And kind of just said, great. And now that I’m immersed in it, you know, I’ve been suggesting it, I typically don’t drink. So to have something that is non-alcoholic and can be added to either, you know, fruit…drinks or alcohol really opens up such great possibilities.

The Knockturnal: Can you speak more to that? Like, if you were to make yourself a Seedlip mocktail, what is your go-to? Like what do you like from Seedlip and how do you make it your own?

Mindy Weiss: I tend to go towards orange, any sort of orange drinks, so that…the one that has like rosemary and all that in it, mixed with an orange juice. Now I try at my parties to do fresh juices and you know, again, that a lot of the venues will not do that because of the expense that’s involved, but I’m a pusher. Yeah. And not only does the fresh juices make a difference, but they look so pretty in glass containers, you know, they add color. So it’s easy to take the Seedlip and add it, you know, as an option because now we’re, we’re doing a lot of options on mocktails and cocktails. Yeah. but you do have to mix it in with something.

The experience of watching great bartenders making drinks…part of the guest experience, which when I go into a hotel and I say, hi guys, you know, they come in an hour before to set up their bar. I was just wondering if you can make me a drink and show you how you do it. And they’re giving me a look like, are you kidding me? You know? But I try to be as friendly as possible, make sure they add all, because it’s not just about the drink, it’s about all the little accoutrements you add to it, you know, to make it beautiful..and make it purposeful and make it talkable and all that.

The Knockturnal: Right. And that’s one of the like biggest jobs of an event and wedding planner is to make a centerpiece, an item, a piece of decor…something that people can talk about. Exactly. And so

Mindy Weiss: Between all the media and the Instagram and everything, it’s not just thinking about the client anymore. You’re thinking about, okay, what if someone’s taking a picture of this, how would I feel? You know, so with my team, I’m always saying, yeah, if you don’t go around and straighten those napkins, someone’s gonna get a picture with a crooked napkin and watch the only comment you’re gonna get, “Oh, you didn’t take time to straighten out your napkin”. I said, we need to hear all those voices in our heads.

The Knockturnal: Exactly! When it comes to some of the events that you have planned in the past, you know, being somebody who can plan events for celebrities…How did you get into that area and how did you develop contacts? With people in Hollywood?

Mindy Weiss: Well, because I live in LA. I think that has a lot to do with it. But two, one of the first celebrities was Brook Shields. I remember Brooke came in with her big container…and just sat on the floor and she said, “I’ve been pulling pictures forever”, you know, and showing me things and once you get over the, you know, it’s cool excitement. I’m not jaded, I get excited every time, you know, but I find that it is a community that trusts people who have worked in the community. In with my athletes and stuff, the fact that I’ve come and budget or I’ve respected the client and I was easy to work with. I find that it’s really the managers and people, not just the celebrity that feel everybody feels taken care of. So I felt like it was a domino effect, you know? And, and I felt really, really blessed because it does, that’s how you actually get, you know, people talking about you and getting more business.

The Knockturnal: I was actually looking on your website at a couple of the videos you had of some of the weddings you did recently. There was one I think that might have been in Italy. And that was very beautiful, very peacefully be done.

Mindy Weiss: Love, love, love that client. Do you know I did her graduation from college. That’s how our relationship started.  And I am very blessed to have a lot of what I call Legacy clients right now. At the beginning, I started doing tons of bar mitzvahs in my community. Now and then I went just to pretty much weddings and celebrations and that kind of went away. Now my couples that I’ve married, you know, 15 years ago now have bar mitzvahs. So now, they’re coming back.

And of course they’ve all reminded me that I said way back then I’m quitting soon. I’m gonna, and you see, I’m still here.

The Knockturnal: It’s not something you can easily give up, you know…

Mindy Weiss: It’s hard.

The Knockturnal: Cause it’s just so much fun. You know, I use Pinterest as a nice inspiration board sometimes. What is one of your favorite themes when it comes to trying to do a wedding or an event? What’s one that you’ve come across that was just like, “oh yeah. This is so unique, so different. Challenging even.”

Mindy Weiss: Yeah, I think my favorite wedding event is like a secret garden when I can create a garden inside to make it feel outside. To me that’s when you can, if you have the budget to bring in the trees and the flowers growing in random places and, and on the bar, it’s all made out of, you know, moss and grass and really every aspect, even going into the bathrooms all have plants and sometimes I take it too far, but…that would be my favorite kinda wedding.

The energy doesn’t go up as quick as a colorful wedding, you know, or the shock value walking into a garden. What if it’s at somebody’s home, I leave it as somebody’s home. Right. You know, I don’t try to change it up except adding to some, like for the holidays, again, if the bar’s set up in the kitchen, you know, I’ll separate the cocktails from the cocktails, but each aspect still looks like your home.

Which is actually a little easier for me.