Horse Drawn Carriages

Just imagine Cinderella arriving to your daughter's party in her beautiful pumpkin coach. Just imagine party guests being able to ride in that same coach. How magical would that be? Last week my performer Nicole's presence was requested for a charity event at UCSF. It was hosted by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Upon her arrival, she was escorted to a beautiful Cinderella style coach where she greeted, posed for pictures and made balloon swords and tiaras for the attending children. Within hours of blogging about that event on my CC site, Jennifer and I started receiving inquiries about the coach. We unfortunately do not own the carriage, but have decided to contract with the company that does. Pricing will vary from $700 for the traditional style vis-a-vis coach (below) up to $2,000 for the more elaborate pumpkin style coach (above). Pricing is dependent upon location. We will be sure to post carriage styles to The Cinderella site soon.

Is Yelp a Help?

I had an ear-to-ear grin on my face as I began writing this blog entry yesterday morning because I had noticed that my Cinderella Company had received 5 Yelp reviews in one week--three of which came in one day! That had never happened before. Since I was so excited about it, I decided that I would share the good news with everyone.

As consumers, we all look to find people's reviews about products and businesses that we might be interested in online. Later yesterday afternoon, my partner and I were called by a Sales Rep from Yelp to inform us that the reviews were no longer posted. In less than 24 hours they were down. The reason that they were taken off is because Yelp has a filtering department. This filtering department weeds out any negative or positive reviews that a person writes who does not have an account history with them.

This department has been devised to protect both consumers and businesses from people making false claims--either negative or positive. Yelp's position is that they want to make sure that they deliver quality, so in doing so they carefully monitor people's reviews. Although I can understand this, it is still quite upsetting because our reviews were legitimate and I think the company is eliminating too many of these type of reviews. I also believe the company needs to do a better job at conveying their review policy to the public. For the longest time we couldn't understand why our client's reviews were not appearing. We now know why.

American Idol Party

I was recently approached by one of my dear friends about hosting an American Idol party for his 7 year old daughter. Since my children and I are big fans of the show, I couldn't turn the idea down. I am just now working out the details. I will use my performer Nicole who is a musician, and she will play a former contestant. She will show the young applicants the ropes of learning how to audition as well as sing one of her favorite songs. This theme will include star makeovers, hip hop dance moves, lip syncing, karaoke, and more. Party accessories will inlude contestant numbers, access passes, and American Idol tee shirts. I cannot wait to share this one with you.

2010 Marin Cinderella Production

Masque Unit Productions are adaptations of classic children's stories. This non-for-profit organization was started in 1961 by a group of women who saw a need to provide live theatre experiences at a reasonable cost for Marin County children. March 6 & 7 at 1 & 3 pm will be a production of Cinderella. I can't wait to take my girls.

Belle Loves the Beast

March is always a busy party month for me. Today I am preparing for an upcoming Belle party I will have in Atherton. When preparing craft items, I always try to create and offer something that is appropriate to the theme. For Belle, the wilting red rose in a glass cloche is very important to the story because it symbolizes the time left that the Beast has to find true love before he remains a creature forever. Since a glass cloche is not practical for a young child's party, I am using a plastic bell shaped cloche with plastic bottom and handle for my craft. On the plastic bottom disc, I have hot glued a small piece of styrofoam covered in moss in which to place the standing rose. Depending on the age group, an adult will most likely have to hot glue the items on. On the outside handle, you can have the children adhere self adhesive gems or pearls, you can then attach a pretty name tag with thin red ribbon. The bottom will have to be secured with clear sticky dots. I will attach a picture as soon as I finish.