Audit the Package
Read what the venue already includes line by line. Replacing competent included centrepieces and chairs is the least valuable use of a styling budget.
Western Sydney
Event Stylist Western Sydney
Western Sydney is where Shabz does a great deal of his work, and it is genuinely different to styling in the city. The rooms are bigger, the guest counts are larger, and the install access is far better, which changes what is realistic to build.
What Is Different Out Here
Scale, access and time.
- The rooms are larger
- Reception centres across Western Sydney routinely carry guest counts that most city venues cannot, into the several hundreds and beyond. That is the reason many large celebrations end up here, and it changes the styling brief from decoration to composition across a big space.
- The install access is better
- A purpose built function centre with its own car park and a loading area is a completely different proposition to a CBD hotel with a shared dock and a three hour window. Longer bump in and easier access mean structures, backdrops and installations that simply are not feasible in the city become realistic here.
- Ceilings are usually high
- Which is generous and unforgiving in equal measure. Anything specified at standard scale disappears in a big Western Sydney ballroom. Height in the centrepieces and generous proportion in the backdrop is what stops the room flattening the styling.
- Venue packages include more
- Many Western Sydney venues include linen, chairs, centrepieces or a dance floor as standard. That is a real head start, and the useful thing a stylist does is audit what you are already getting and put the budget where the venue gives you nothing, rather than replacing competent inclusions with something marginally different.
- Celebrations run large and late
- Which puts weight on the dance floor, the entrance and the couple seating staying visible from the back of the room. Those three get planned before the tables.
Venues and Celebrations
Where Shabz works across the area.
Shabz has styled at Novella on the Park at Abbotsbury in the Western Sydney Parklands, and at the Westella Renaissance at Lidcombe. Both carry large weddings and both give the install access that makes proper structural styling possible.
Western Sydney also hosts a great many of the large cultural celebrations in this city. Shabz styles Afghan, Lebanese, Indian, Greek, Persian and Chinese weddings, each of which asks for something different from a room.
Corporate work out here tends to sit with the business parks and the larger function centres rather than the hotels, and often benefits from the same advantage: a real bump in window. Corporate event styling starts from $1,200.
Planning for a Western Sydney Venue
Four things worth doing early.
Ask About Bump In
Install access is usually good out here, which is what makes ambitious structures realistic. Confirm the actual window and the loading arrangement before designing.
Specify for the Ceiling
Big rooms with high ceilings swallow standard scale. Pieces get specified against the real ceiling height and room depth, not a supplier photograph.
Plan the Floor First
Where dancing runs most of the night, the floor is sized before the tables are placed, and the entrance route is protected in the plan.
Common Questions
Yes. Shabz is Sydney based and works across Western Sydney regularly, including Parramatta, Lidcombe, Abbotsbury and the surrounding areas. Travel within Sydney is included rather than charged separately.
Event styling starts from $1,200 and wedding styling from $5,000, the same as anywhere else Shabz works in Sydney. Where a job lands above that depends on the room, the guest count and what is being built. See the pricing page.
Yes, including weddings into the several hundreds. At that scale the work becomes as much operational as aesthetic: crew numbers, install sequence and a consistent table language executed precisely across the whole room.
Often yes, but for different reasons than you might expect. The value is in putting your budget where the venue gives you nothing, which is usually the ceremony, the entrance and anything above head height, rather than swapping out inclusions that are perfectly competent.
Let's Create Something Beautiful
Tell Shabz about your event and a considered response follows within 24 to 48 hours.
Prefer to talk it through?
02 9191 7381