One of the best things about being part of a small business is the relationships we get to form with our team. I count myself so lucky to work beside the women at Jane Rae, and I want to take some time this year to help you all get to know them as well. It felt only right to start by introducing you to our CEO and founder, Katie Murphy. I sat down with Katie and asked her all about her design journey, her life outside of Jane Rae Events, and what she sees in the company’s future.

A fresh year is usually a good time to look around and take stock of our world, and how we want to make it better. One issue I’m looking into this year is how we can create beautiful, trend-forward weddings in a more sustainable way. Trends can move lightning quick, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth engaging in. At JRE, we love playing with new styles and finding ways to explore and experience trends in the industry. So, as much as it may sound like an oxymoron, there are so many creative (and easy!) ways to design an event that belongs in 2025 and that you can feel good about for years to come.

We’re drawing to the close of 2024, so we wanted to take a moment and savor the joys and accomplishments of this year before jumping in to the next. It has been a massive year here at JRE, but instead of just looking at numbers, I asked our team what moments they are most proud of. Each member of our team reflected on one of their accomplishments this year, and I could not be more proud to share them with you.

We’re wrapping up our 2024 wedding season at Jane Rae, which means we’re looking forward to holiday celebrations of all sorts. As wonderful as it is to gather with friends and family, the thought of hosting and attending holiday parties can get overwhelming. I chatted with our resident expert on hospitality, Ashley Anderson, to get a few tips for elegant, stress-free celebrations.

It’s October, so in the spirit of Halloween, let’s take a little time to talk about superstition. Weddings bring out all kinds of nerves, hopes, and predictions for the future. It’s only natural that they have a long history of superstition attached to them. A wedding is the start of a couple’s lives together. You invest a whole lot of time, money, and care into that day and the life you plan to build beyond it. It makes perfect sense to look for signs of prosperity or participate in traditions that are supposed to create good luck, whether they change anything or not.

When it comes to wedding flowers, is it better to use silk or fresh? There’s not one right answer to that question. For most of our couples at Jane Rae, the best answer is a mix of both. The trick is to find a balance that highlights your day to your taste. As one of our floral designers, I’d love to fill you in on a few pros and cons to help you weigh that balance.

When planning your wedding, you may get lost in what seems to be hundreds of decisions. These decisions can range from minute details all the way to what dress you will wear on the best day of your life! When finally finding the perfect dress, what will you choose for your beautiful bridesmaids to be wearing by your side? These are some of our favorite bridesmaid looks that may help you make that decision!

Each year the SD Soybean and the SD Soybean Checkoff come together with a local farmer in the state to host an educational and social event for local producers and legislators. It has been a privilege to be a part of this event the last couple of years and celebrate the hard work that our state's farmers put into the soybean production.

As a wedding planner, every event is a canvas where dreams and creativity merge to craft unforgettable moments. Styled shoots, in particular, offer a unique opportunity to push boundaries, experiment with new trends, and showcase our design in a creative way with a great team of other vendors.

Last month, May 2024, I had the privilege of working with some incredible clients on their romantic garden themed wedding. It was such an amazing planning process and the wedding day was an absolute blast. When thinking about what part of their day I wanted to share about I realized that all of the details of the day would not have even been possible without all of the incredible vendors. I think it can be easy to look at a photo from a wedding and think wow that's really pretty, and it is, but it’s more than that. It takes so many people to make those pretty things happen. So this is a huge thank you to all of the wonderful vendors that made Shelby and Keegen’s wedding celebration possible.

The idea of birth flowers dates back to ancient Rome, around the same time birthdays began being celebrated. Alongside Zodiac signs and birthstones, birth flowers are a way to celebrate specific characteristics about each and every one of us! Some months have multiple birth flowers associated with them due to cultural differences and what is available in certain regions.

When planning a wedding, there seem to be an innumerable amount of decisions that have to be made. Some big, some small. Some exciting, some dull. It can all be overwhelming. One of these decisions is choosing the color palette. Making this choice affects not only the decor and attire, but also the photographer, desserts, and overall guest experience. Talk about daunting. My goal is to give some tips and inspiration to make the experience of choosing your color palette more enjoyable.

Startup Sioux Falls is a community of doers, thinkers, and innovators to support entrepreneurs on their journeys. We are proudly a part of that group of people and loved being able to help plan their annual Founder's Day Event! The day was filled with inspiring local entrepreneurs, impactful networking, and celebration.

The intricate dance between elegance and practicality is a hallmark of wedding planning, and the seating chart is no exception. Seating charts continue to evolve past poster boards as couples continue to seek unique ways to incorporate their personality into the celebration. As event planners, we are seeing interactive seating charts that double as a guest favor as well as a way direct guests to their appropriate seats. So let’s get into the trends.

Each event that I have had the honor of planning and designing holds a special place in my memory. There comes a time when all your experience, knowledge, and preparedness meets an opportunity that will challenge you beyond what you have done before. That for me, was the Everist wedding in June of 2023.

We love to see different cultures joined together by love on the wedding day and beyond. I come from a Mexican family and I could not be more proud of it. Showing one's culture on such a special day could be fun and simple! In Mexican culture we are all about good food, a chilled margarita and music all night. Here are a few elements that could be incorporated into a Mexican inspired wedding.

Weddings are built on centuries of cultural, familial, and personal traditions, but we don’t always think about where they come from. Wedding dress shops are full of white and ivory gowns that look unlike anything we wear in our regular lives. Bouquets and boutonnieres are just flowers, right? And why do we make a whole group of our friends dress identically and stand next to us at the altar? Modern weddings are shaped by centuries of weddings before them, and all our traditions have stories to tell.

There is no way to get around the fact that weddings are often stressful. They are tedious, expensive, overwhelming, time consuming and not to mention, one of the most important days of someone’s life. I try to help my client with this by having them identify 1-3 things that they are the most passionate about when it comes to their wedding day.

Our team was honored to be a part of planning the newest Orthopedic Institute Groundbreaking event! OI will be opening a new complex just outside of the Sioux Falls area, in Tea, South Dakota. We look forward to their expansion and working with them in the future.

The Think3D team is doing great things in our community of Sioux Falls. One of those great things is creating an event for local speakers to shine called CultureCon. Our team has the honor and privilege to be a part of this planning and design process. We are all about culture here at Jane Rae Events, therefore this is the perfect fit for our team and Think3D!