EWPC – Exotic Wedding Planning Conference ’23, in collaboration with Ras al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority, is the World’s biggest wedding planning conference “landed” in Ras al Khaimah until 3rd March 2023.
Hosted by Ras al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority, the 11th Edition of EWPC is the benchmark for the global luxury wedding and events industry. The exclusive event has been perfectly organized and managed by Exito Media Concept.
Rishikesh Shetty, Founder and CEO of Exito, says: “This year’s edition will feature plenty of learning, impactful networking, gala evening and entertainment. The meticulously curated agenda has been composed of extensive research and valuable industry insight”.
Tomas De Bruyne – Rishikesh Shetty
During the opening day, the conference centre has hosted 350 people involved in luxury weddings and events from all over the World, from 80 countries.
An exclusive “Stardust” of the most important leader in wedding firmament will take part at the event.
Today, during the EWPC, we had the opportunity to meet one of the most famous Wedding Floral Designers: Tomas De Bruyne.
Let’s now discover more about the prestigious World of Tomas De Bruyne:
Tomas De Bruyne, the undisputed leader in Wedding Floral Creation. How do you manage your public image?
By being authentic in how I act and believe. Simply by being myself and feeling comfortable in how I communicate and interact. My passion and curiosity keep my drive alive and I certainly enjoy challenging myself in what I do.
Can you describe the evolution of the wedding world? More than 30 years of experience make the difference.
The real difference is made by the way one travels through the process of learning in a career, not by the length of I, per se. I would break down my years of experience into three stages. The first 20 years were invested in a journey of self-discovery. This journey led me to the point where I can now see the bigger picture of my growth, evolution and contribution within this industry.
The following five years were when I absorbed and started to understand the bigger picture of a worldwide wedding evolution. I have actively worked in significant scale events, designing for highly demanding clients and partnering with valuable people from the industry. All these have helped me to emerge into the industry indeed. Wisdom comes from experience and knowledge, and in a sense, my description of the wedding world comes from the perspective I have grown into in the past five years of my career,
It is known that the bigger an event’s impact, the bigger it affects us emotionally. As we all know, emotions manipulate our thinking process. They filter what the truth is. Our beliefs, actions and emotions drive our perceptions. Nowadays, the awareness of the WHAT factor has shifted to the WHY factor. Why we do something is a more conscious way of thinking instead of just doing something without purpose. Moreover, we notice a shift in the number of guests as well, as previously the weddings used to house more people, while now the personal experience comes into play. The budgets are kept the same, but the focus is switching to quality, design, conceptual thinking and giving their guests a different and everlasting experience.
Starting an amazing project… we can imagine many people are involved. How do you manage your professional team?
Leading instead of managing my people would be my one-sentence reply. It is as important to value your team as much as you value your clients. I am blessed that the right people have crossed my path. Our team all work with the same drive and passion on the projects. I believe my strengths lie in the open and positive mindset combined with a remarkable ability to see potential in each team member. I involve my people closely in the process of creating a project by being transparent.
Being aware and grateful for what we can achieve together, each one contributes with their strength to strengthen the outcome. I allow my team to let their personality blossom, and I trust them to take action and make decisions in their field of expertise. All my team members know they have that freedom, but when it comes to decisions that impact the aesthetics, they know nothing passes nor is decided without my approval.
It is important to know and accept people who make mistakes. To fail is ok for me as it means they are challenging themselves by pushing their boundaries and potential. I genuinely respect and appreciate my team, and the win-win factor is always important for our company. My focus has to be on what I excel in: coming up with innovative ideas, which is impossible by micromanaging a team. Empowering people to give their best and focus on growing together makes our projects successful.
Please tell us your vision for the future of the Wedding Business.
Tailor-made events will shift to be even more in-depth and personalized. I call them ‘DNA weddings’. Clients will focus more on showing their values, who they are and what they stand for. The common inspiration by replication of the same ideas will dissipate in time. A wedding will become a place where all elements merge beautifully into each other and the personal experience and emotional factors are very much taken into account. Architectural designs become more popular as they reflect the way of the why-thinking concept and ensure the environment uplifts the personal experience even more as all elements interact. Once we know the event’s elements and ideas, we can uniquely box to trigger feelings.
The wedding industry is also becoming fully recognized, meaning it has evolved dramatically in the last couple of years. People are starting to see the value of hiring an event planner, catering services and professionals dealing with their expertise and, in my case, connecting the dots visually to create a higher Gestalt of harmony and beauty through this fantastic medium that I specialize in: flowers!
The challenge for creatives who work in this industry will be to guide the couple through their unique storytelling and somehow, the quality of the services and the recommendations will start to whirl around this concept. Wedding couples need a guide to take them through this process when their story becomes a reality through connecting ideas, wishes and expectations. People tend to cling to their own experiences made by many patterns, their expertise in what they see, feel and do. It is up to us to connect the right dots to create their story and their trend. That demands mastery in what you do and an open mind in acknowledging that you don’t know everything.
We like to conclude this amazing and exclusive interview with a classic question: What is your friendly advice for people to start as floral wedding designers?
Let’s start with “Be authentic in what you do and believe in yourself”. Be confident in what you do, as self-doubt is the worst enemy of creativity. It is known that in order to escape competition, one must go through their authenticity. Working through owning a personality, building a signature style and nurturing a confident attitude is important.
Also, they should remember that this business focuses on the client, not themselves. Moreover, nowadays, it is not enough anymore to only know your medium; one should hold as well the knowledge of knowing the potential of their medium in order to go for the maximum and best outcome. The power of working creatively with floral design lies in its impact on people, the guest, and our clients. Don’t design to be safe; design to win!
Thirdly, keep persistence in what you believe and do. Keep yourself an everchanging mirror attitude as creative as the shifted perspective is ever revealing! An excellent guiding tool is having a mission and vision and being loyal to your values.
We really thank Tomas De Bruyne for the time dedicated to us and our readers.
Discover even more @ Tomas De Bruyne World
Article edit by Massimo Basile
Editorial Director