Welcome to the first post for The Cherry On Top Events Blog! We are a small event company based in Northern California. We are a Mother/Daughter Party Planning team who have been working together for about 10 years now on all sorts of events including Weddings, Showers, Birthdays and Anniversaries. There have been a few Holiday parties in there as well. 


I have been throwing parties since my kids were small but it wasn't until our daughters were in High School that we decided to work together on a Halloween party. Then one of her friends got married and we volunteered to help. Her friend knew we threw great parties and just wanted a little "day of" help. Our first gig. From there it grew until I moved away to Arizona for two years. This put the business on hold, sort of, and we only took a few events while I was living away. I mean, flying in to work an event bites into the profit big time! Well we moved back to California almost 5 years ago and quickly started building our business again. With one addition. While in Arizona I had started to learn how to decorate cakes. I'd been decorating since the kids were teeny but nothing that warranted any notice. By the time we moved back from Arizona the cakes were worthy of a bit of notice. You can check that side of the biz out by clicking on the blog on the right called "Cat's Cakes". 


So let me introduce myself. I'm Cat Harper, the "mother" part of the team and what I like to call the Art Director. I've always been "crafty" but in the past decade I've learned how to do SO much more than what I had learned to do while working at a craft store in the mid 90's. I've learned how to do every detail for a wedding from scratch. From Invites to Favors to handtied Bridal Bouquets and more. I've had to learn about place settings and how to design centerpieces to fit a theme. And I love every single bit of it. I've been married for forever, started out in the Wedding Biz as a photographer, have 3 kids; 2 grown girls who each have a little one at home, and one 10 yr old son. 


The other half of our team is Tory Bright. She's the organization whiz. She's the one that will be able to help you figure out your budget, straighten out that seating chart, help you whittle down that guest list, keep everyone and everything on time and oh, yeah, she's half the Art Department too! All this while raising a 9 month old son and being a wife as well. It's a challenge but she's the Ying to my Yang and together we make the perfect team. For each of us this isn't just a business, it's being able to be a  part of some pretty special days. We love our jobs and we know how lucky we are to be able to do something we love.


I am located in Sacramento and Tory is in San Jose. We work from here to Redding to the North, Carmel to the West, Tahoe to the East and Modesto to the South. Over the last decade we have formed relationships with venues, DJ's, photographers, florists, stationary specialists, alterations specialists and, of course, a certain Custom Cake Designer....yours truly. We have learned that, if you are good at party planning, you can take a clients budget and, with the savings you create with those professional relationships and the DIY you have learned how to do, you can carve your own paycheck out of that savings and your client doesn't spend a penny over their budget. In other words, they never feel our fee but get exactly what they were dreaming their event would be in the end. 


So I hope you'll stick around and catch the next blog. I plan to post at least once a month but hope to be able to post once a week so you can see what is going on, get some great ideas for your next event and, of course, contact us if you need some help and are in our area. See ya soon!


Cat