Run of show · Season ten
We plan the year, and we run the day.
Solstice is an event and wedding planning studio in Charleston. Six weddings a season, one production schedule, and four of us standing in the room from load-in to the last car off the drive.
Venues
Rooms that already know us
Nine houses, farms and halls where we have run a day before, and how many seasons running.
Lowndes Grove
The Cigar Factory
Kiawah River
The Cedar Room
Middleton Place
Memminger Auditorium
Rosehill Farm
The Ashworth Orchard
Bowens Island Room
Selected work
Days we have run
Filed by the date they happened, because that is how we remember them.
Nora and Ellis
Weddings
A lawn ceremony under the oaks at Lowndes Grove, then a hundred and forty people at four long tables until the sprinklers came on.
- Location
- Lowndes Grove, Charleston
- Guests
- 140
Aisha and Tobias
Weddings
Ninety guests on the marsh at Kiawah River, timed to the tide table and to the hour the light goes gold.
- Location
- Kiawah River, Johns Island
- Guests
- 90
Priyanka and Sam
Weddings
Three days on Wadmalaw Island for a hundred and eighty, including the four hours of rain we had a plan for.
- Location
- A farm on Wadmalaw Island
- Guests
- 180
Genevieve and Rui
Weddings
Sixty people in a courtyard off Bull Street, lit entirely by candles and one very carefully hidden generator.
- Location
- A courtyard off Bull Street, Charleston
- Guests
- 60
Hollis and June
Weddings
A January wedding for two hundred at the Cigar Factory, with a ceremony-to-dinner flip that had eleven minutes in it.
- Location
- The Cigar Factory, Charleston
- Guests
- 200
The Marigold launch
Brand events
Two hundred and twenty press, buyers and staff for a skincare launch at the Cedar Room, run to a stage-managed sheet.
- Location
- The Cedar Room, Charleston
- Guests
- 220
The day
What a Saturday actually looks like
This is the real run of show from Nora and Ellis, printed the way every vendor received it on the Monday before.
Load-in opens
Rentals, then floral, then band. The gate list is with the house manager.
- Wes
Tables set and checked
Every place setting photographed before a single chair moves.
- Odalys
- Wes
Weather call
Go or no-go on the lawn. Whatever we decide holds for the rest of the day.
- Margot
First look
Fifteen minutes, no guests on the drive.
- Priya
Ceremony
Doors at 3:30. We start on the hour, and we have never not.
- The whole studio
Cocktails on the porch
Room flip runs behind the doors while the tray passes start.
- Wes
- Odalys
Dinner served
Toasts between the first and second course, three minutes each.
- Priya
Band up
Cake cut at the top of the second set so nobody misses it.
- Margot
Last dance and send-off
Sparklers lit in threes, cars staged on the drive at ten to.
- The whole studio
Strike
Personal items boxed and labeled, gifts in one car, keys back to the house.
- Wes
Every vendor has this sheet in hand by the Monday before, and a laminated copy on the day.
What we do
Four departments, one studio
Every engagement is scoped by department, so you can see which of us is doing what, and for how long.
Full planning
We come in early and stay to the end. You get the studio for the whole run, from the first venue walk to the last car off the drive.
- Venue search, site visits and the contract read
- Budget built line by line, and kept honest every month
- Every vendor sourced, negotiated and managed
- Design, tabletop and floral direction
- The run sheet, the floor plan and the seating chart
- Four of us on site for the whole day
Typically 320 hours across the year
Partial planning
You have the venue and one or two vendors. We take it from there and carry the second half, which is the half that gets heavy.
- A budget audit of what is already booked
- The remaining vendors sourced and contracted
- Design direction and a tabletop plan
- The run sheet and the floor plan
- Three of us on site for the day
Typically 150 hours
Day-of production
You planned it. We run it. Eight weeks out we take the whole file off your hands and nobody calls you on the morning.
- Every contract read and every vendor confirmed
- The run sheet written and circulated
- A rehearsal walk-through at the venue
- Load-in, ceremony, flip, dinner and strike
- One number that rings all day
Typically 60 hours, most of them in the last ten days
Brand dinners and launches
The same production discipline pointed at a room full of press, buyers or staff. We have run openings, harvest dinners and one very wet ribbon cutting.
- Venue, permits and the vendor bench
- Guest list, invitations and the door
- Set design, lighting and sound
- Run of show and a stage manager on comms
- On-site production crew and strike
Quoted per event, from $8,500
The details
The parts nobody sees us build
Paper, flowers, light and linen, with the maker credited on every one. We do not take credit for other people's hands.
How it goes
Counting down, not counting up
The year runs backward from your date. Here is what we are doing at each distance from it.
The studio
Four of us, and one very large binder
What is in the file, who keeps it, and how we got into this in the first place.
I started on the support desk at a freight startup, answering the same eleven questions about where a truck was. Rewriting the tracking page so nobody had to ask them was my first product, and the pattern has not changed since: sit with the people who use the thing, find the ten minutes that ruin their day, and take it out.
Eight years later I run dispatch and payouts at Parcelo, a shipping platform for mid-market carriers. My teams ship in small cuts, plan against a written target, and read the number back when the quarter closes. The launches on this page are the ones that moved it.
I am looking for a Group PM or Director role where the product is operationally hard and the team is small enough that the decision log still fits on one wall.
One page per decision: the options, the number we expect, who disagreed. Reviewed every quarter, the wrong calls marked in red.
A folding bike, a sourdough starter that has outlived two apartments, and Saturday mornings at the St. Lawrence Market.
I ask "what would we have to see to stop this?" before we start, and I write the answer down.
The four of us
Who you will actually be working with
All four are on site for every wedding. Nobody hands you to an associate after the contract is signed.
Margot Devlin
Studio lead and lead planner
Owns the budget and the run sheet, reads every contract twice, and makes the weather call at noon
Odalys Ferrer
Design director
Palette, paper, tabletop, floral and light, and the one full place setting she builds on the studio table before anything is ordered
Wes Okonkwo
Production manager
Load-in, the floor plan, the vendor bench and every cable, chair and truck that has to be somewhere at a particular hour
Priya Raghunathan
Client care and day-of coordination
Answers the email you send at eleven at night, keeps the seating chart, and walks the family down at the right minute
Ten seasons
The numbers we keep
Counted honestly, including the ones we would rather round up.
The book
What people wrote afterward
We keep a guest book on the studio table. These are copied out of it, with permission.
What it costs
Our fee, divided by the work in it
Brand events are quoted per event, from $8,500. Every figure below is the studio fee only, not the wedding budget.
Where most couples land
Full planning
$16,800
fourteen months, four of us on the day
$1,200
a month, for a studio of four carrying the whole thing
$16,800 ÷ 14 months of work
- Venue search, site visits and the contract read
- A budget built line by line and kept honest every month
- Every vendor sourced, negotiated and managed
- Design, tabletop and floral direction
- The run sheet, the floor plan and the seating chart
- Four of us on site from load-in to strike
You have a venue already
Partial planning
$9,400
about seven months, three of us on the day
$1,343
a month, for the half that gets heavy
$9,400 ÷ 7 months of work
- A budget audit of everything already booked
- The remaining vendors sourced and contracted
- Design direction and a tabletop plan
- The run sheet and the floor plan
- Three of us on site for the day
You planned it yourself
Day-of production
$4,200
eight weeks out, two of us on the day
$525
a week, for never answering a vendor call again
$4,200 ÷ 8 weeks of handover
- Every contract read and every vendor confirmed
- The run sheet written and circulated
- A rehearsal walk-through at the venue
- Load-in, ceremony, flip, dinner and strike
- One number that rings all day
Half on booking, half when the count lands. Travel outside Copenhagen is charged at cost and agreed before anything is booked.
Questions
The things people ask before they ask about price
Grouped, because a couple and a marketing director do not want the same six answers.
Planning
How far out should we book you?
Do you only take six weddings a year?
We have already booked half our vendors. Is that a problem?
Will you work outside Charleston?
The day
What actually happens if it rains?
Who is on site, and for how long?
Do you handle the rehearsal dinner too?
Money
Is your fee a percentage of our budget?
How do payments work?
What does the whole thing usually cost?
Brand events
Do you do corporate work?
Can you work with our agency?
Inquiries
Tell us the date and we will tell you honestly
We take six weddings a season, so the first thing we do is check whether yours is still open.
Received. We will check the date and write back within two working days.