2018 recap – what a year, part 2!

JULY – DECEMBER: We really couldn’t believe that the second half of the year would be even busier than the first, but with heaps more person power, we accelerated and took on more hire customers, more styling customers and more other events and activities. At some points I was like GOOD GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE, and at many others there was medium kick celebrations around the office, high fiving and celebration beers. That’s the thing with the #smallbizlyf, it’s a frigging rollercoaster. We met so many rad people who shared their stories, and made us laugh. Stevie and I teared up witnessing people doing their ceremony practice runs (I mean come on!) numerous times – we got really into all our events in such a lovely way!

July

Tave went live

Continuing on our [boring] systems implementation odyssey of 2018 so that you, our customer, may have the bestest experience possible, Dave got us rolling with a customer relationship management (CRM) system, Tave. It’s actually the greatest thing that we’ve ever done.

Because we honestly want to give the best customer service experience we can – which we designed based on our own experience of having some pretty crappy/disjointed/slow/hopeless vendors who were slow to reply, lost our wedding cake, and generally caused us a whole lot of stress when we were planning our own wedding in 2013. We don’t want that for you and now we have Tave, we’re even more shit hot at this (see our 5 star reviews, and that 1x 4 star one, wah).

Sidenote to small biz owners: if you’re trying to decide which CRM to implement, we are so happy to talk you through all the ones we tried over about a two year period and how we got to settling on Tave. It was such a confusing journey and at some points I didn’t think we’d ever work it out. And in unheard of systems implementation news, it actually does even more things than we had wanted it to, and we continue to see huge value in it. We know what a big commitment it is – given the complexity of implementing these systems and the time it takes – you want to be sure that it’s right before investing time and money.  

Em + Nick’s wedding published in Rock n Roll Bride

See the article here

Em + Nick are one of our very favourite couples ever. We loved them, we loved doing the design and styling for their wedding because they are the sort of people whose wedding theme was “I like your face, loser”. I mean, come on.

We came up with the concept of ‘Mid-Century Mexicana’ after synthesising all their wants and likes and pins and words. And Rock n Roll Bride agreed it was a rad, non-traditional delight and they published it on their blog.

GOOD LORD! RNR Bride was the first glimpse I had into the world of non-standard, non-cookie cutter weddings and it planted a seed for me. One of my new career goals when we started this biz 4.35 years ago was to get published in Rock N Roll Bride. And thanks to Jerome Cole capturing the ace wedding Em + Nick invited us to create, it happened! Now we need a new goal. Thoughts?!?!

Don’t Tell Charles 5th birthday styling

Clean lines and modern masterpiece cake legends, Don’t Tell Charles asked us to design their fifth birthday party. They wanted something mature, awesome, sleek and ace, but also wanted it to be somewhat interactive so that it wasn’t stiff, and that people would mingle. We get this, a business party can be kinda like a hens party – aunties, friends from work, friends from high school, nan, your boss – they don’t necessarily gel.

So along with the styling, we designed a scavenger hunt, and a cake decorating activity – both of which would be fun, but also are total OPT IN activities as opposed to the forced fun of hens party games, ya know?

August

Golden disco Tanglewood Elopement

As published on Nouba

Anna Taylor Photography and I now have a yearly thing where we give away an elopement for a deserving and terrific couple – you remember Amie and Nick’s snowy GOT elopement from last year, doncha?

Well we did it again this year, but at Tanglewood Estate which is a dream location where definitely unicorns live. Lauren-Anne + Mark eloped with their parents and it was a golden, disco-y celestial dream. Check out those triangle arbours. We were Commander-in-chief of concept, design, styling as usual, and those legends at Nouba featured it too a couple of months later.

Photos: Anna Taylor

Small Business Festival champions

So, we became one of four Small Business Festival Champions. You can read about us and the things we had to say. The Small Biz festival is in fact quite ace as it’s accessible and has great content for people running small businesses or those thinking about starting one. We had a photoshoot as part of this, and of course we put chairs on our heads, and you folks made it one of our most liked Insta photos.

The local newspaper also ran the pic and story – with a massive headline saying ‘Man jailed for “dramatic” robbery’, which of course was not about us but some other non-chair har wearer who robs people, so boo to that, and thank you to the sub editor or lack thereof, for this excellent smearing of Dave’s character. I can not imagine a person less likely to do a robbery.

I’m a panelist thank you

Because 76% of people working corporate jobs want to leave said jobs, there’s a call for people who have taken the leap to talk about this. And thus, I went on a panel at the launch of Three6 to talk about taking the leap and the innovation needed for a successful and longlife small biz. It was really fun, but I swore too much and waved my hands around too much. But at least one of my jokes was met with laughter, so there.

September

An actual rock star’s wedding

Photos: Beck Rocchi, published in issue 23 of Hello May

You may recall from part I of this recap, that local rock star Dan Sultan sat on one of our couches when we furnished the VIP area for St Kilda Festival. Well in September, we furnished a super arty, theatrical wedding for Tara and Allen – Allen being Allen Stone the rock star. Tara and Allen came in to meet with us and talk through their vision and they are the loveliest, coolest pair you can imagine. So it’s not really a surprise that Hello May picked up their wedding and popped it in a coverted spot in their latest print edition. Go buy the issue people to see it in all its glory – we’ll share more of it soon.

 

New webby + 130 packages yo!

New systems, oh so sexy. Whilst I do not like the process of getting them up and running, I hate more the idea that you, the excellent customer, is using a website that feels like it was built in 1996, can’t load a photo and looks like a steaming pile of crap. So, with grumbles in my belly and wrinkles on my forehead, I did all the writing of the content and bossed people around about what photos to use and before you knew it, we had a much better, more useful, easier to navigate wesbite, that’s built to add cool shit to in future.

Dave actually did all the really hard work of migrating us from Squarespace to WordPress, designing the structure, building the pages and what not. And he hardly even grumbled. Having said that, he did break the internet twice in the process of getting it live, including leaving a dummy link in, which some smart bastard has bought the domain for (test1.com) and it was redirecting customers to a multi-player sex game. A definite low light of the year, let me tell you. NO YOU CALM DOWN was definitely said, as was YOU’RE FIRED. 

We also launched 130 + new packages to take the pain out of choosing every little thingy you need for your event. With 9 styles to choose from, 3 types of events and then a range of guest numbers, it makes choosing about 400 times easier, yew! See them here!

Autumn editorial feature

As published on Nouba

A bit rustic glam and a lot autumnal, this editorial put together by rad lady Jessica from Sassafras Wedding + Darling Don’t Panic, was featured by Nouba. The very lovely cake viral and also ended up in Nouba’s best cakes of 2018, along with another one of our couple’s cakes – Kate’s and Will’s.

Gettin’ local

Bubbelini + Feather and Noise brand shoots

We teamed up with local sparkling brand Bubbelini for a lifestyle shoot on a lovely sunny day. When packing up, Dave left a bunch of furniture just outside the park, and some girls proceeded to think it was curb-side and took it home piece by piece in their hatch back. When we saw them, they kindly agreed to give it all back and all was well but Dave still gets teased about this. 

Iconic fashion label Feather + Noise smashed it for their spring edit shoot. And we were along for the ride with a pastelly dream.

Photo: Anna Encio

October

Mid-century warehouse wedding

At Fortyfive Downstairs

Carolyn + Matthiew’s rad magenta mid-century tinged wedding at FortyFive Downstairs was an amazing one to work on. With the best mix of old and new, a couple dressed in some of the best outfits I’ve ever seen, killer stationery and a bag full o’ neon, it was a dream come true. A photo of their ceremony was later featured in Hello May’s top spot for 20 Ceremony Styling Ideas, BOOM!

Chair tattoos are very nice

Got a bunch of old chairs tattooed on my arm. I really love them, so do you according to our Instagram most liked. An old delivery guy was so dubious about them the other day and said, ‘Well what if you were a prostitute?’ and I said, ‘See ya buddy, who doesn’t like chairs?’

Permanent design, yippee!

I’ve had a hankering to do some permanent design – while I adore doing events, there’s something in me that wants to see something we create stay put for more than 12 hours.

So when Marry Me Dee from The Altar Electric called to asked me to design something permanent for their new HQ I said hell yes little lady, where do I sign. It’s almost finished and we can’t wait to show you!

Rebrand!

We do so much more than just hire things nowadays – when we started over four years ago, that’s all we did. Now that we have so many other services, it no longer makes sense to call ourselves Good Day Rentals – so we’ve embarked on the process of a rebrand. Early in 2019 we’ll become Good Day Club, so stay tuned for the invite to that rebrand party! And you’ll be hearing about a range of new things we’ll be offering soon too #thesuspense. Look at this sexy AF logo the By Jena Marie designed for us. HEART EYES!

November

Published in Rock N Roll Bride magazine!

You read that right! After kicking off a career goal, by having a wedding that we styled and designed published in Rock N Roll Bride earlier in the year, I got word that one of my blog post series’ – How not to go mental when planning a wedding – was going to become an article in Kat William’s actual Rock n Roll bride mag. And out it came in November and honestly, I can’t even really fathom this! You can order it – and honestly, just subscribe! It’s a treasure trove of aceness. 

First FULL TIME staff member – that’s not US!

We’re growing and growing and damn well growing so we made Stevie full time, YAY! She’s now our in house graphic designer and stylist, and she has her own styling clients – helping people who want our help with floor plans.  We made a huge deal of Stevie on her first full time day, decorating her desk, giving her flowers and vegans lolly treats, taking her out for lunch and throwing confetti at her and giving her a heart attack as she walked in – because we are a bit mental and we just love her!

Top spot in Hello May’s 20 ceremony styling tips!

As published on Hello May

What a fab thing to see – our ceremony design and styling for Carolyn + Matthew’s warehouse wedding in Hello May’s top spot for ceremony styling ideas. Honestly, we couldn’t be more excited about this – which we created alongside this ace boronia filled floral fringe from Good Grace and Humour at fortyfivedownstairs.

Arty farty crafty love party

Shona + Grzegorz were the bestest couple who we had so much fun with coming up with their concept and design – an Arty Farty Crafty Love Party at The Line: Ops shop vibes mixed with 50s bohemian feels and rainbows and arts of many types. Shona walked down the aisle to Man Eater and for this alone, she is our hero.

They had sadly lost many loved ones in the past few years and wanted to honour them but without it being too sad or sentimental. So we came up with the idea of creating a salon wall combining their loved one’s photos, with art they love and has meaning to them, including aboriginal and queer art and a portrait a friend painted of their very gorgeous little human.

Grzegorgz and I also bonded strongly over being high users of grazing tables and really hanging out at them for ages and trying everything. So we decided to place our grand Very Large French Table in the centre of the main room to be a big grazing table that can be accessed from all four sides – make it a delicious focal point.

I cannot wait to see the profesh photos because we also created an enormous, kick arse dance floor room grander than any that have come before it!

Transforming a bar from drab to fab!

Linda + Peta wanted some help to bring Port Melbourne’s lifesaving club to life. They loved florals and so we decided to go hard with the florals, layering with vintage prints and neons to create something super bold and feminine for these excellent ladies.

Transforming the frosted glass bar was the highlight! The venue begged to keep the decals on they loved them so much too!

Featured in Marie Claire magazine

Teegan + Mahatia’s midnight wedding at the first legal moment possible for same sex couples was so wonderful to see as a big double page spread and a website article – celebrating a year since Australia said yes. It was such an amazing night, with these wonderful women who had had to wait to marry each other legally because of some seriously ridic bullshit. Now they are having a tiny wee baby angel – congratulations to these excellent humans and thank you having us and providing such a moving, massive highlight for us. 

1960s inspired wedding published in Rock N Roll Bride

See the article here

A third run in Rock N Roll Bride this year – Stacey and Ben’s cute AF wedding is a delight as were they!

Elegant Yarra Valley wedding

As published on Ivory Tribe

One of our fave weddings from last year, Sib + Johnny’s wedding at dream Yarra Valley venue Zonzo, is stylish eye candy as far as you can see!

Immigration Museum’s Love Exhibition

Our pals over at the Immigration Museum asked us to be part of a large scale, important exhibition focused on love. Alongside Electric Confetti doing some custom neons and paper artist Amanda May Lee, we did our first ever furniture sourcing job, choosing romantic, retro pieces for exhibition visitors to relax upon and enjoy their surrounds.

The red, crimson and gold pieces will join our regular collection once the exhibition closes at the end of April.

If you’re getting married or doing an engagement shoot, this is such a cool location and if you are a regular person, just get on down there!

Find out more here

Graphic design + signage

With Stevie’s mad design skills and our collective ideas, we’ve begun offering graphic design in-house for our floor plan, concept and styling customers and it’s already been the most fun!

We’re doing both custom designs for stationery items like welcome signs, seating charts, table numbers, bars signs and menu and name cards. And we’re also creating some more generic items that can be hired out – welcome signs and table numbers, yay!

December

Our first big xmas party

Holding our first big xmas party, we went a bit cray with a sit down lunch from some of our favourite vendors, celebrating partnerships and friendships and the creating of awesome stuff for you dudes this year!

Thank you to Betty May Vintage for the tableware, Boutique Cake Art for the cake, Bad Love Club for the dessert and Good Grace and Humour for the flowers and cray ‘xmas tree’.

Magical cocktail bus editorial

A year in the making, we can’t say much about this yet, but it’s a cracker of a creative shoot and we cannot wait to share!

Moody palette and bright florals wedding

At The Estate Trentham

Erin + Dave’s wedding in Trentham was such a magic dream fest – so many ace vendors, such a wonderful venue, perfect weather and a dream couple!

You can see the whole thing on I Got You Babe’s website.

Sun Jellies lookbook shoot

Those feels when a brand you love wants you to furnish their look book shoot with a bunch of cute preppy retro stuff. Sun Jellies is our pastel and colour spirit animal!

Podcast guest spot number 2

Ya gurl was a guest of neon focussed podcast Mondo Neon based in NYC, talking about how were using LED neon in event design and its excellent fit with our vintage style. It’ll be live soon and you can hear me be not that impressive. 

Party of the year!

When one of the founders of prob the biggest events company in Melbourne calls you up to provide vintage and antique furniture for their 50th birthday party, it’s a pretty awesome deal. We were very happy to be part of such a beautiful, OTT, spectacular celebration from party legends Chkya and Bruce of The Big Group.

Film stars

Continuing to bang on about making the transition from corporate life to small business life, Dave and I filmed a video for Training.com.au about taking that leap from corporate life to small biz because we are both former flunkies now! Next up, TED Talk!

Sunset vibes wedding

Photos: Samara Clifford Photography

And we finished the year with a huge bang – creating a sunset vibes wedding for legends Becky and Gearoid – at rad venue Two Ton Max. What a year, seriously! You can see one of the renders we did below to show the couple what we wanted to create, and then below the real deal. Could be my fave wedding ever! Those florals are by legendary Raven and the Rose. 

We transformed the white industrial space into a gradient driven sunset hues wedding. The ceremony space would later become a massive lounge area/band/dancefloor – so that elaborate set-up could be reused. 

We also transformed the very formal marble bar with a sunset gradient decal over the top and front, lighting up the edges to create a neon light feel, that amazing floral creation and the giant bar menu which was actually a GIF so it was a live, moving feast!

Thank you!

If you got this far, you deserve a bloody medal! We love you so much and we want to get you pregnant (very consensually of course) . Thank you for being part of this journey (sorry for saying the J Word) and we do really hope you stick around!

See you in 2019 for a bunch of new and exciting stuff that we cannot wait to share.

33/180 Fairbairn Rd, Sunshine West VIC 3020

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