Event planning company Lauren Sydney Events has been a consistent presence on Long Island’s party scene, planning lavish bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings and luncheons with a confident sense of style.
The company was founded by Lauren Abate, 43, of Roslyn, whose path towards event planner extraordinaire began in an unlikely fashion.
“I always had a passion for art,” Abate recalls. “After college, I taught art lessons out of my apartment.”
After a lean period in her 20s in which she was unemployed, Abate became a member of the Entertainment Committee at Fresh Meadows Country Club in Lake Success. She parlayed that opportunity into becoming the club’s ladies president, whose responsibilities included event planning.
It was at that point where her love for entertaining was first kindled. But it wasn’t until a friend asked Abate to plan her son’s bar mitzvah five years ago that she saw event planning as a feasible job on its own.
“It kind of spread like wildfire after that.” Abate says. “I knew as soon as I did her party that it was going to take off.”
Afterwards, Abate founded Lauren Sydney Events as a two-person business. She describes herself as a “team leader” for every party she’s hired to plan, working on aspects ranging from the vital, such as food, logos, flowers, and music, down to details like the design and type of cocktail napkins. But she leaves it to her clients to decide how involved she’ll be.
Nonetheless, being a part of the creative process means being available to talk to clients whenever needed, even at odd times of the day, as Abate pointed out.
“I get texts at 7 o’clock in the morning and at 10 o’clock at night,” she says. “From the time they hire me, even if it’s a year out, I’m there for them pretty much every step of the way.”
Even though Abate’s path towards entrepreneurship was somewhat atypical by her own standards, she relishes the opportunity she’s been given to provide everlasting memories for her clients, no matter the time and no matter the budget.
“It was just the next chapter in my life, and it came at the best time for me,” she says.
Lauren Sydney Events can be reached at 516-721-6045.
