Casey designed and created this custom white box with a
base of pavee roses, bursts of green and white calla lilies,
green cymbidium orchids and custom candles hand-encrusted
with crystals for an engagement party in Beverly Hills.
Special to the News Journal
 
  Casey strung this archway of roses and callas with custom color candles on apple green ribbon. The archway led guests into the food area of a Hollywood party. Special to the News Journal

Kris Thoma
@PensacolaNewsJournal.com

Lara Casey, owner and founder of Bliss Event Group in Pensacola, has rocketed to what many would call mind-blowing success.

She lives in Los Angeles -- planning weddings and other events for celebrities and major corporations with two high-profile companies -- all while continuing to run a successful business in Pensacola.

A graduate of Gulf Breeze High School, Casey went to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to study music and theater. After graduation she began a career in personal training, contributing regularly to Shape magazine.

After Hurricane Ivan hit the area, she moved back home to help her parents, then started her business shortly after, filling what she saw as a need for upscale wedding and event planning in the Pensacola Bay Area.

When her boyfriend, a flight surgeon in the U.S. Navy, was transferred to California, Casey decided to move with him and manage her business from there. She recently began working as a designer with Mark's Garden florist of Los Angeles and as an associate producer of events with Corridan and Co., a wedding and event planning firm with locations in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Both firms work with high-profile celebrities and corporations.

She lives in Los Angeles and commutes to Pensacola as needed to work on projects for her company, Bliss Event Group.

At Mark's Garden, Casey:

· Has various assignments such as writing the anniversary cards from A-list rock stars to their A-list supermodel wives. She wouldn't disclose names, but told of a recent experience: "I got to sign the card to her from him -- it was very surreal," Casey said. "He sent her $1,000 of red roses."

· With the help of an assistant, she puts together $10,000 in flower arrangements weekly for the home of a billionaire casino-owning family in Las Vegas.

· Prepares flowers for celebrity weddings, with prices just for flowers tallying into the hundreds of thousands.

· Will work as a designer on the Governors Ball of the 58th Emmy Awards in August. She wrote the proposal and presented the sample to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

"Every day I pinch myself," Casey said. "My first day working for Mark (head of Mark's Garden) I was thrown into a sample meeting with one of the most difficult women in Hollywood. I employed my Pensacola charm and turned it into a fabulous meeting."

She wouldn't disclose the name, but Casey is working on the flowers for the upcoming wedding of a pop star who she expects will spend about $500,000 on flowers alone.

At Corridan and Co., Casey handles all corporate events -- mainly in Santa Barbara at the newly remodeled Four Seasons Biltmore, Bacara Resort and Spa, and the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa.

"For instance, if Lamborghini wants to send all their top sellers out to Santa Barbara to thank them for their millions, I would arrange their lavish getaway," she said.

Casey describes the juggling act of handling all three companies a "daily challenge."

"In the end it's all about making the client, the bride and the groom, speechless," she said. "I used to think it was about making them happy. But my eyes are opened now. Even without $100,000 to blow on flowers alone, anything is possible."

Casey will begin flying to Pensacola twice a month to do house flowers for local clients.

That's great news for her parents, Celia and David Casey of Gulf Breeze.

"I'm happy for her out there because she's doing absolutely amazing and interesting things," her mom said. "She has a real unique flair. She doesn't do the standard bridal and event planning flowers. Her style is very unique, very colorful."

Celia Casey said the family threw plenty of parties when her daughter was a child. Maybe that's where her daughter picked up the detail-orientedness that every successful event planner must possess.

But planning events in Pensacola and planning them in Los Angeles is like comparing apple pie to crème brûlée.

The prices are simply unbelievable on the West Coast. In the Pensacola area, spending $20,000 on an entire wedding is considered lavish.

But you get what you pay for, Casey said.

"I have to say, as much as $100,000 worth of flowers sounds absolutely ludicrous." she said. "It's absolutely amazing."

"I knew I would be stellar as far as client relations -- it's what I do best. So if there was something I didn't know, I made myself an expert on it as fast as possible. I read every book -- I just immersed myself.

"You have to know everything to even create one small dinner party. It's all in the details and going the extra mile. People get really sick of stuffed chicken and gooey wedding cake. I wanted to move people away from the typical chocolate fountain/surf-and-turf thing and towards something that really mattered to them," she said.

Career highlights: In 2006 Casey began working as a designer with Mark's Garden florist of Los Angeles and as an associate producer of events with Corridan and Co., a wedding and event planning firm with locations in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. In 2004 she started a wedding and event planning company in Pensacola, Bliss Event Group. In 2004 and 2005 she was a contributing writer for Shape magazine while working for Crunch Fitness International as a personal trainer.

Web sites: www.BlissEventGroup. com, www.LaraCasey.com, www.MarksGarden. net and www.Corridan AndCo.com.