At A.a.B. Creates, we know that weddings and social events are joyful, but the road there is not always easy. This unique time is exhilarating and a bit daunting all at the same time.
We aim to help you think beyond the confines of the way things are “usually done”, and create for you and your guests something that is beyond a party: it will be an experience that won’t be forgotten.
Since we launched as Always a Bridesmaid in 2003 we have worked worked on hundreds of celebrations with just as many diverse stories and backgrounds. Yet they all came to us with a common goal- to help them create something that meaningfully reflected their unique styles and tastes. Be it a multi-cultural Indian-Chinese celebration for 400, a unique product launch, an intimate, destination birthday party or a second wedding blending two families, A.a.B. clients know that we will design an experience that is thoughtful, personal and creative.
Experience Design is what happens when we work collaboratively with our client, creating meaningful choices every stop of the way. From how your guests are greeted at the hotel to the scents and scene when they enter your reception, Experience Design is as much about thoughtful hospitality as it is about décor.
Over the past eight years, we’ve seen A.a.B. grow and evolve from a little idea we had over cocktails into a nationally recognized, award winning event design firm that has worked across the country and abroad for clients both local and international.
A.a.B. Creates, formerly Always a Bridesmaid, has long been one of the New York area’s most sought after Event Design firms and have been nationally recognized wedding and entertaining experts lending their voice to the Huffington Post and Real Simple.com
Those wonderful accolades aside, AaB Creates is really just the result of two friends who wanted to start a business that had personal meaning to us. Though we were both at Brown University at the same time, it wasn’t until 2001 that we met while both bridesmaids for a mutual friend. The fortuitous meeting happened while Xochitl was working as Event Director for the Clio Awards and Mayra was looking to relocate to NY from LA. The timing was perfect: Clio was hiring and an amazing partnership was born. While planning an award show with events around the country was a very FUN way to spend our early twenties, after a while, we wanted to do something that we felt more connected to.
In 2003, Always a Bridesmaid was born with the goal of solely planning weddings. By 2005, we had expanded to event design and planning services and in 2010, in an effort to focus more fully on our design services, we launched our sister-company, Just About Married, which specializes in day-of coordination.
Over the years, as we’ve grown as a business and as people, we’ve found our true passion in the act of hospitality: helping our clients put together amazing nights their guests won’t forget. We’ve since found ourselves called upon to design non-wedding events and to style and stage shoots for venues and locales. As the scope and depth of our abilities have grown, we realized we might not always be Always a Bridesmaid and changed our name to AaB Creates to reflect our broader service offerings as well as our own history.
And it’s a history that we’re quite proud of: Since 2007, the editorial team at New York Magazine has named us to their list of top event designers in their bi-annual Weddings issue. The editors at The Knot and Bride’s named us to their New York Editor’s Circle and we’ve been tapped by some of the city’s most exclusive venues for styling services.
Our expertise has been included in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Reuters, Glamour, People.com, CNN, Real Simple, Real Simple Weddings, Martha Stewart Weddings, New York Weddings, Time Out New York, The Village Voice and various international publications. Our blog, Always a Blogsmaid, receives over 100,000 views per month and has been named to countless “must read” lists for to-be-weds. We’ve appeared on The Style Network , The Knot Live and MTV Europe and our event designs have been featured in Inside Weddings, Martha Stewart.com, The Knot, Bride’s New York, Bride’s New Jersey, YWD, Latina Magazine, Style Me Pretty and Brooklyn Bride amongst others.
We look forward to getting a chance to hear about your vision, and how we can work together to create something unforgettable.