My Internship with Esprit Events: Mallory Cohen

           

By Mallory Cohen

             I went into my internship with Village Crown and Esprit Events knowing event planning sounded interesting, but not really knowing much else.  I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started my first day.  I just hoped that by the end I would have a better idea of whether the event planning industry was still something I would want to consider for my future career.  And coming on the last day of my internship, the answer to that question is officially a yes.  While catering may not be the exact part of the industry that I want to stay with, this internship has helped teach me a bit more of the inner workings of the event industry as a whole, and given me skills I would need for any job.  

The first skill was talking on the phone with strangers.  Most people my age rely pretty heavily on texting, and try to avoid actually speaking on the phone, especially when it comes to phone calls with random people that last longer than a minute.  However, starting day one I have been on the phone almost every day with people, and have had to learn to be more comfortable with it.

Another skill I used was social media.  While I have been using social media since middle school, I have only used it for myself.  However, I see with the social media work that I have done through Esprit and Village Crown that through a company it may be very different approach, because you are trying to appeal to others rather than whatever you want.  But at the same time it is still fun.  Especially when doing things like making a board for wedding cakes on pinterest.  The easiest way to find and write things that appeal to others is things that you yourself find interesting too.  Social media should try to feel personal for the people viewing it.

I also learned just how important presentation and approach is.  This is a catering company, so you would think how the food tastes is the only thing that matters.  But I see that it is much more than that (even though of course the taste is very important).  When viewing a tasting I notice how meticulous they are in arranging everything so that it looks nice.  Whether it is cutting and stacking the string beans into a pyramid, or rearranging the deserts so that the colorful treats are distributed evenly among the darker chocolates on the platter, they clearly put thought into more than just the cooking.  The food, however, is not the only time presentation counts.  I’ve noticed just with the proposal at the start of the process time is spent to make the layout look nice.  There are pictures spread throughout, and for things like the cocktail stations there are cute names for the stations.  All of this is done with thought, rather than just listing out the food and prices.

The last thing I learned that I am going to talk about are from these blog posts.  The force me to not just witness what the companies I am interning for does, but to be able to reflect on the things I am learning and share them with an audience.  It forces me to put more thought into what I am doing, rather than just writing some numbers down in a chart.  In addition, while writing has never been my strong suite these blogs not only taught me that no matter what field you work in writing is important, but also have given me the chance to improve my writing skills.

           Overall interning for Esprit Events and Village Crown has been a short, but informative and rewarding experience.  I plan to take all the things I have learned and use them in my future career.