If you haven’t seen my giddy posting on Facebook and Instagram from my
Intrigued Experience…experience…then let me fully clue you in here in this blog post 🙂

Intrigued Experience is a 3 day hands-on conference of all things wedding flowers, with some clever all-over wedding business tidbits tucked in. It’s held in Maryland and is the brain child of Sarah Campbell-Angers from Intrigue Design & Decor. IT WAS AMAZING!

Let’s back track for just a minute, because I…am…terrified…of…flying. Hate it. Anxiety. Motion sickness…the whole ball of wax. I had paid for my conference fee, but procrastinated forever about booking the plane ticket…because that made it way to real and scary. WHY AM I TELLING YOU THIS? Because….if I can fly….ANYONE can. This conference was worth every minute of all my roller coaster of feelings.
So go! Attend Intrigued!

I did it…it was amazing…it affected me on so many levels.
Some of which I can convey in this post and some that are so
deep and personal that I just cannot.

And, let me just clarify: I had absolutely NO floral styling experience when I attended.

So, take a pretty break and let me take you through my journey.

Sarah

Sarah Campbell, the founder of The Intrigued Experience, is fun and creative and certainly put on one heck of a conference. Every minute of the conference was thoughtfully laid out and organized.

Sarah was present and attentive through every segment of every day, and is quite witty and kept the fun energy going.

You can certainly feel her passion when she gushes over the conference, and it certainly made my Intrigued Experience an amazing one. I consider her a friend, now. xoxo

Day 1

When I arrived at the Baltimore airport (BWI), after a not-so-pretty-chock-full-of-anxiety-and-motion-sickness airplane ride….I was RELIEVED that I had booked a car service through ZBest Worldwide…because they made me feel so much better about traveling alone. They were always confirming (a wedding planner’s dream) and texted me that they were at the airport waiting for me. The driver was holding an iPad, with my name on the screen, so they were easy to find. Really professional and comforting to this girl, who was traveling alone.

Arrival at the hotel was swoon-worthy to say the least. The Inn at Chesapeake Bay Beach Club on Kent Island is beautiful. Their restaurants are amazing, the rooms are beautiful, they not only clean your room in the morning, but turn down your bed and leave yummy banana muffins for you in the evening!

Registration time gave all of the attendees (like me!) a chance to see each other for the first time, after a full year of interacting on the Intrigued Experience 2017 group page on Facebook.

As for the swag? Wowzers. We got this beautiful tote, which would be our partner-in-crime for the entire duration. It was chock full of goodies like Chrysal spray, clippers in a pretty leather wrap pouch, snacks, an Intrigued apron, a pretty blue pashmina, an itinerary for the conference and more.

On Day 1, we were greeted by beautiful arrangements and great speakers who kicked off a seriously amazing conference.

Day 2

After a casual breakfast in the ballroom, a segment of inspirational, creative, business-savvy speakers spoke to us about trends and design.Then…it was off to do some hands on workshops! Yay!

Workshop 1, for me, was learning to create tall elegant centerpieces with roses and hydrangea with Posh Peony as an instructor.

Workshop 2 was about creating a modern piece to get us thinking outside the box. Hothouse Designs was the instructor.

I am not pretending…by any means…that mine came out at all like an arrangement…
at all…LOL!

Then, it was off to a fabulous lunch with some more business savvy speakers:

Details Flowers talked about organizing work flow, and also offers online software for this.

Posh PR has a social media panel Q&A with Silk & Willow, Magnolia Rouge and Claire Duran Events.

Workshop 3 was how to best use your own phone for capturing your work. Liz Fogarty Photography and Valley & Co teamed up to instruct this session.

Workshop 4 was floral costuming with Mt. Lebanon.

Dinner was amazing, and at each attendee table was at least one speaker or instructor from the day’s events. This was an amazing opportunity to connect and ask questions on a more intimate level.

Our tall centerpieces we made earlier that day, were used as the centerpieces for the dinner tables, set on top of beautiful BBJ Linens. Tables were set with dishware from White Glove Rentals, and with a place card and menu handcrafted by Momental.