JESSICA MOSEBACH
RENO GAZETTE‐JOURNAL
Posted: 3/21/2006
Missy Green has enjoyed throwing a good party for as long as she can remember. Today, she helps others find what they want for any special occasion, whether it’s a birthday, wedding or a corporate luncheon.
“People are my passion,” Green said. “I love what I do.”
Green’s business, Parties to Remember, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Parties to Remember caters to private and corporate events, and has recently coordinated events for the Compaq Computers Convention and American Public Works Convention in Reno.
Green started her own business in 1986 and built a staff with friends who owned their own businesses at the time or have since branched out and own businesses today.
“All the people I use are my ‘party family,'” Green said. “My bakers, caterers and florists are loyal and wonderful, and it’s been a real adventure.”
Green’s anniversary also marks a special moment. She used her party planning experience to throw her son’s 21st birthday last week. Those moments make her career fulfilling, she said.
“What a good feeling it is to stand at the end of setting up an event, and I’m there looking at the tables “» and knowing it all came into place,” Green said.
Other party planners in the area also say party planning is an essential business in the area.
Like Green, Jan Blevins, co‐owner of Rutherfords Premier Events and Catering in Sparks, has witnessed a growing wave in event planning over the last 20 years. Rutherfords opened in 1982, and business has remained strong.
“(At first) it was relaxed, slow and easy, then these alligators started after us because of the quality of the food,” Blevins said. “We make everything from scratch.”
Pam Fuller, owner of All‐Occasion Rentals‐Wedding Design Center, says the need for party planners is increasing.
“We Americans need more balance and everyone is going 55,000 miles an hour, and we need to do what the corporations do by contracting out and outsourcing “» to let people make more important decisions (than in the details of event planning),” Fuller said.
Fuller says she enjoys watching the party planning and wedding industries evolve in designs and trends.
“The wedding industry is bringing more vibrant colors instead of the flat white, which is sacred and pure,”
Fuller said. “It’s bringing back cultural themes such as Hispanic and Italian.”
Reno’s party planners are increasingly being called upon for special commercial events. Green was hired by the Rose/Glenn Group of Reno to give out hot chocolate for 12,000 people to the crowds checking out Summit Sierra which held its grand opening last week.
But for Green, no event is too small or too large to handle.
“I try as hard as I can to make it work,” Green said. “I try my best to facilitate a ‘party to remember.'”