We Made It To Martha — GATHER Events

GATHER Events on location in Tuscany with James x Schulze Photography

Friends we’re going to speak candidly for this post. We can’t play cool and coy over this news, we’re far too excited: WE MADE MARTHA STEWART’S BEST WEDDING PLANNER + DESIGNER LIST!!!!!!!!!! (yes that’s ten exclamation marks, thank you very much). Being shortlisted by Martha Stewart Weddings was such a big deal to us and it came at the best time. This year has been hard. COVID has ravaged our industry, our clients’ plans and as planners we sat at the heart of it. When we got the news that we had been selected back in October it was the bright light that we needed in the darkness of 2020. We couldn’t wait to share.

GATHER Events team retreat shoot 2019 with Sweetlife Photography and former Martha Stewart Weddings editor Shira Savada

Martha Stewart has long represented to us (in the fifteen years that we’ve been doing this), the pinnacle of design for gatherings and entertaining. Years ago, when Cuckie was living in NYC, she had an impassioned conversation with a member of the city’s intelligentsia at an art show where she proclaimed that she lived and breathed all things Martha. Meredith designed a number of the aspects of her Orcas Island wedding around a MSW magazine featured wedding that took place on the island (in the days before Pinterest, yo!). Just the other day, Sarah was saying how she felt it was the ultimate publication because of how Martha Weddings are so curated and personal. So you could say we’re fans.

We’ve been fortunate enough to have been featured by MSW a number times and in one case, we even got to work in tandem with the Martha team on location in Mexico for one of our weddings. It was fantastic to see the amount of time and detail that goes into styling for the magazine (and be part of it!). Every flatlay, vignette, tabletop, guest bag shot, etc had hours of effort behind it. We kid you not, we styled and shot the wedding stationery suite with a team of people for five hours! PS, one of our best takeaways from the production was the value of getting a good table shot, even if it meant setting up a sample table in an entirely different location on the day before the wedding. Whatever it takes, right?! Check out how they turned out below and you can see the feature here.

Wedding invitation suite for a destination wedding in Tulum, Mexico.

Destination wedding in Tulum, Mexico with Martha Stewart Weddings and For the Love of It Photography

We are honored to be listed among the ranks of such talented designers and planners. We have serious crushes on so many of the other listees. It’s almost surreal for us. Sarah remembers meeting Mindy Weiss thirteen years ago at a conference in LA when GATHER was a fledgling design house and being (admittedly) a bit starstruck. A big congratulations to all our fellow planners, you all inspire us so much, and we’re happy to call a number of you friends.

Big hugs!

XO- the GATHER girls