Event Planning at its Best
By: Hope Wilkos, Writer/Blogger
Photos: Curtis Smith Photography
A wedding is one of the most anticipated experiences in life. It requires extensive preparation and planning in order to make it a memorable event. While exciting and gratifying, it can also be extremely stressful.
There is one wedding planner who has catapulted the ladder of success in the world of wedding planning to become a name synonymous with customized and imaginative. Her name is Ana Cruz, Style Network’s TV Host and Celebrity Wedding Planner.
Ana’s story is an interesting one. Ana’s life ambition was to become a teacher. She put herself through school while working for a corporation as an event planner. After getting her feet wet in this field and really enjoying what she did each day, she saw a great deal of potential to take it to the limit and pursue this profession full-time on her own. She switched majors and this is where it all fell into place. Having that unique flair, The Style Network contacted Cruz in 2005 to plan a wedding as part of the show, “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway” and by airing the wedding on television it gave Ana unprecedented exposure, exhibiting her distinctive style. She quickly became a favorite in the wedding world and the E! Network has labeled Cruz as the ‘Latina Carrie Bradshaw’. She has been highly sought after ever since her television debut. Up until 2009, the actual clients’ weddings that Ana was hired to plan were featured on t.v.
In 2010, Cruz was the genius behind the Earl Cole (winner of the 2007 season of the Survivor Show) wedding. It became a battle of the event elements pitting the groom against the bride. The wedding was televised on The Style Network and Ana Cruz did a fabulous job thus giving her even more widespread recognition.
One of her most notable wedding experiences was when she was chosen by a bride and groom who were very indecisive and couldn’t come up with a theme, therefore calling on Ana Cruz to assist them. Cruz grabbed the reins and ended up planning around an Asian disco theme which was a terrific learning experience and giving her two very satisfied customers.
Word has traveled fast and she is one of the most desired planners in the world of events. She is featured on the E! Network’s reality destination wedding series, “Married Away”. Cruz planned a destination wedding for a Boca Raton, Florida couple who ended up getting married in Chile. Today she appears regularly as a popular event planning consultant on local radio, television and news media outlets and played a large role in the recent Miami Beach International Bridal Week with the bridal boot camp. She is popular on I-Tunes and watched in over 83 million households. Cruz has clients all over the world although her home base is Miami, a destination very popular for brides and grooms to get married and a selling feature for her business. She caters to custom weddings making herself available to travel with the lucky couple to ensure that the wedding is perfect in every sense of the word, going as far as Mexico and Chile.
Her clients continue to use her services generation after generation, one family having her plan seven weddings over the course of a number of years.
Cruz has now branched out to offer a clothing line in good fun on the web called ‘Born 2 Wed’ which launches officially in 2012. It capitalizes on the biker theme which has become the rage lately bringing a more edgy feel to the wide world of weddings. Ana Cruz has another venture in the works under wraps at the moment soon to become a reality.
What is the secret to her success besides hard work and dedication? Cruz does not impose herself on her clients because the wedding truly needs to be a reflection of the loving pair. They must stay true to themselves. Cruz puts her special touches into the mix to wow the occasion.
So what does the future hold for wedding and event planning? Destination weddings are fast becoming a vastly growing trend and Ana Cruz would like to change the face of this movement adding her own style. She is the undisputed leader in her field. No question is too small and no challenge is too large. Just recently, she attended the 1st Latin American Congress of Destination Wedding Vendors in Mexico and was one of the guest speakers.
See all the romantic details that go into an Ana Cruz wedding for yourself and make everlasting memories with: Ana Cruz
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