Engage '09 Luxury Wedding Business Summit, Grand Cayman Islands

I am so honored to have been asked to speak at the Engage09 conference at the Ritz Carlton on Grand Cayman island. Engage09 was a luxury wedding business summit. There were rock star planners, designers, authors, florists and photographers from all over the country. As most of you know, I recently published a book with Chronicle called "Destination Weddings; The Ultimate Guide to Planning A Wedding From Afar". Rebecca Grinnals from Engaging Concepts asked me to speak at the summit about my book, how to get published and about planning a destination wedding in general. Thayer Alyson Gowdy who's work I love was also invited to speak with me since she provided all the beautiful images for the book (and she is a celebrity photographer and has been published everywhere!).

This is a photo of us signing books (from left to right) me Alison Hotchkiss, Thayer Allyson Gowdy, Sylvia Weinstock, Preston Bailey, Darcy Miller from Martha Stewart, Marcy Blum, and Michelle Rago.

The first day we arrived, all 135 attendees were treated to an amazing welcome reception designed by the fabulous Michelle Rago out of NYC. The next day we listened to some fantastic editors speak about their magazines and trends....Carley Roney from The Knot spoke about statistics....Darcy Miller of Martha Stewart, spoke about some of her favorite photos over the years, Millie Martini Bratten of Brides spoke about the history of wedding fashion, Antonia Van De Meer from Modern Bride and Elegant Bride spoke about the trendsetter awards. Then celebrity planner Marcy Blum made us laugh with some great stories and Preston Bailey made us drool over the crazy over the top events he has done over the years and Sylvia Weinstock wooed everyone with her fantastic cakes she has designed over the last 20 years...
The ballroom at the Ritz Carlton Grand Cayman where the speakers presented the 1st day..

Here is a photo of Thayer and me on the blue carpet....

and us speaking.... along with Joanne Brown with Celebrations (a local planner in the Cayman Islands) and Susan Moynihan from Destination Weddings and Honeymoons Magazine.



Me on the patio at the Ritz Carlton after our first break. La Tavola provided all the linens for the event, apparently 700lbs of linens were shipped down. We LOVE their linens.



Stay tuned for our next post showing photos we took while exploring the island, and swimming with the stingrays on a boat trip.

:)
Alison