Party girl’s passion for creativity
LIKE so many businesses, The Events Lounge seeded as a dream, sprouted as a conversation at the dinner table and blossomed when time and effort gave it what it needed.
Now Rachael Romijn-William and her team is booked almost every weekend, with clients from across Australia jostling for her creativity.
Her eye for romantic highly Instagrammable design and whimsical ideas has seen the Burleigh-based business style weddings for dozens of highprofile couples and in demand from corporates like SurfStitch to style their catalogue shoots.
The Events Lounge has arranged parties for celebrities including Elsa Pataky, wife of Chris Hemsworth, while Margot Robbie has also been spotted at one of the company’s lavish events.
Four years ago, when she was events manager for tech company Hewlett-Packard, Ms Romijn-William could barely have imagined this being her everyday work.
“I’ve done event management for 20 years,” she said.
“I moved from Sydney to the Gold Coast about nine years ago and wanted to get more involved in the creative side of events.
“People and experiences are my passion so being able to create something outside the norm of what had always been done was exciting.
“The best part of my job is our amazing clients who become beautiful friends.”
Behind the lush green foliage, fragrant blooms, fairy lights and timber tips are 18hour days and a large dose of thinking on her feet.
But the hardest part for Ms Romijn-William is her own expectation, the pressure she puts on herself to ensure every event is unique.
“We don’t want to recreate the same event twice and so are always looking for new inspiration,” she said.
“To do something well and ensure it runs smoothly requires a massive amount of hours to pull it all together behind the scenes.”
“There are lots of trucks to unload and lots of backup plans to put in place when the rain comes. But we love it.”
And when you’re planing events that are mostly outdoors, the rain does come.
“It was the worst flooding in 30 years and we had two weddings on that weekend.
“We brought in marquees, raised flooring and prepared for the worst – the venue flooded … and some power was underwater. We became our own island in the Hinterland.
“We couldn’t get in or out and had 120 people stranded with us. After contemplating making beds out of table cloths and plotting and trying various escape routes we managed to get one bus in at 2am and got everyone out safely.
“But guests had an amazing time and said it was a great day and partied until the early hours – it’s still one of our favourites ever.”