WHEN you arrived at a wedding reception décor, what comes first to your mind? How the wedding gown is designed, bridal party attire, will it be a live or boring function, is the time management put into consideration, is the food well-cooked, are people dressed modesty?
I have learnt now that invited guests are so particular about how the reception venue is decorated and how creative the decorator is.
I enjoy being among the invited guest, this is where l learn a lot of things. The guests will analyse the décor, food and bridal party. They have (me too) observed that, when one enters a reception venue it feels as if one has attended the same wedding several times.
There is too much copy and paste type of décor. The invited guests have observed this also.
They know by heart the websites where such décor are copied from. The most copied from is  nigeriandecor.com, guests have access to the internet like no man’s business.
At the work place there’s free internet services so any dull moment, someone can check on the décor images as a way to see what’s happening and it keeps one awake.
Many Zambian decorators are lacking creativity in the way they put up their work. There is nothing wrong with seeing what’s happening in world of wedding decor and learning about the new trends. Copy and paste type of doing this is not welcome. As a Zed  decorator, it’s vital to get ideas and comments.
This source of ideas from the invited guests you don’t need to pay for them, just listen to their comments and suggestions.
Thousands of today’s thriving businesses have started with just one man/woman feeling that they could make a success of their own enterprise.
There are some pitfalls but your business needs to be backed up with plenty of hard work together with creativity. The point is that nearly the only real limit to your success in business is yourself.
A decorator needs determination to make it in the world of wedding decorations.
All you need is to use your head and creative ideas that’s all you need in this country and peculiarly Zambian business tendency which is a frenzied tendency to abuse a good thing to death.
If one retirees and gets their benefits, builds guest houses, then there are fifty guest houses to choose from within weeks, some houses are six hours’ drive from the main road a.k.a “hide outs places”. If one TV talk show succeeds then we soon have five vying for our attention.
One company makes kids snacks then within a week we have other snacks by different companies’ emptying our wallets. One starts wedding decorating we have thousands doing this business.
That’s not simply saying that business thrives by copying a good thing nor does it attempt to suggest that one firm own one product and that everyone else be restrained from selling a similar one, but it does remind us that the propensity to believe that you can do it just because somebody else has done it has produced some pretty notable failures in many businesses.
As a Zed decorator you need to understand that every idea is a potential money maker and l believe that when we bring out these ideas they are powerful, right and they will prevail. To quote Margaret Mead who once said “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed persons can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Let’s examine for a moment or two the realities of the wedding decorator business, first, their fatality rate, no doubt is related to the huge numbers of amateurs who embark on it thinking it is an effortless route to millions in one’s spare time without quitting the regular job.
Wedding decor needs planning, turning the bride and groom dream into reality and creativity but despite this, many continue to dive in because the mechanics of wedding decorating business are extremely tantalising that it is all too simple to hypnotise oneself into thinking of easy success.
This is a game for tough men and women. A Wedding decorator must have enthusiasm and strength of purpose to reach a level where décor is part of your life rather than a business. Wedding décor needs people who can create something of their own. Creativity anchors if your business is guided by a need to build or create something of your own. Entrepreneurs are guided by this anchor.
Be alive always to new ideas and knowing your own business well and become more creative in generating ideas. You can come up with a technique that will enhance creativity. An additional technique called brainstorming is commonly used. In brainstorming group members generate as many ideas as they can about a problem.
As the ideas are presented they are posted so everyone can read them and people can use these ideas as building blocks. The group is encouraged to say anything that comes to mind, no criticism of ideas is allowed. Sit with cake bakers, DJ, mc and owners of reception venue to  discuss the way forward.
When you create such an environment people are less inhibited and more likely to voice their unusual, creative or even wild ideas. By the time people have exhausted their ideas a long list of  alternatives would have been generated.
Now, many different ideas can be considered, modified or combined into a creative custom made solutions to the problem. I spoke with some mc’s about combining speech time and meal time being  done at the same time as a bad idea. The speeches are also important to the couple and the invited guest.
Being different, creative can be very rewarding. Copying, doing what everyone else is doing is a certain way to obscurity, an easy way to allow your failure factor to keep you under its thumb.
Why go back to the days of slavery? Try by all means being different and unusual. Do the opposite to other people. Give your décor a touch of individuality.
Zed décor has come a long way, even before the internet it was there. Why fail now? I remember  in those days when we had no access to the internet, we used toilet tissue paper as lanterns for  decorations. It was all elegant, beautiful and glamorous.
The manufacturers did not care that their product was being used for a different and wrong purpose. I believed they were celebrating because their sales margins were very good and they started designing the tissue paper harder and many colours to suit the décor purpose. They were supposed to manufacture a different tissue paper called wedding tissue paper to be used for the right purpose.
A wedding decorator is responsible for decorating the entire wedding events. Have an active and genuine desire to be of service to people. Creativity is essential to  wedding decorating since you must turn a client’s vision into reality so you need to be capable of seeing the potential in a particular venue and helping your client see it too.
The wedding venue is the canvas and you are responsible for designing and styling it to suit the client’s desire. Wedding decorators have some flexibility in deciding how to establish themselves since you are offering a service you will need to promote yourself and your service.
Creative décor will help set you apart from the crowd and can teach  you new and innovative techniques and approaches you can apply to your wedding decorating.
Guests want to see a decorator transform a wedding reception venue into an elegant and  extraordinary affair. Every function is perfectly designed and the décor is planned to the finest detail to suite the clients required style and theme.
On this column we covered Albert, Chalwe royal inspiration wedding, the father of the bride was happy. Many grooms and brides love it and have changed the other themes they had to royal theme.
The owner of venue added her voice. Thank you for the article on me and Mr and Mrs Albert Kapapa’s wedding which generously made mention of La Fina gardens.
Your kindness through the article is well appreciated by all of us at La Fina. Thank you so  much and may God bless you.
Charity Nanda.

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