Sea Island Life Magazine Fall/Winter 2014 | Page 54

JESSE LEAKE

Actors and guests attended Sea Island’s
Titanic-themed party in costume.

A warehouse full of props helps set the stage
for Sea Island events.

A picturesque tablescape by Alison Event Planning and Design for a wedding near Carmel, Calif.

Custom Celebrations
For corporate gatherings, faraway lands have
inspired themed events. One such function
celebrated markets from around the world.
Brightly colored drapes brought the lobby
air with a chorus of foreign languages as they
partook in Cuban dominoes, poured rum and
played pingpong.
Jason Russell, Sea Island’s executive banquet
chef, works with the event team to create culinary presentations that bring themes to the
next level. For this dinner, he designed each
course to represent a different part of the globe,
with Cuban cocktails to start, Chinese dim sum

Even the most aspirational concepts have
that recreated life on Mount Everest, The
Cloister Ballroom’s temperature was dramatically lowered to 50 degrees.
In addition to changing the climate, the space
was turned completely white—the carpet, the
walls, everything—to create the “white-out”
conditions atop Mount Everest. The foyer and
cocktail space were designed to feel like base
camp, with servers dressed in Sherpa hats.
On their way into the ballroom, guests walked
through a tunnel with lighting that twinkled
like stars. Tables were adorned with antique

cameras and vintage photographs of previous
climbers at Everest.
Just as easily, The Cloister’s Black Banks
Terrace was transformed into Havana, Cuba. In
a collaboration with Garden & Gun magazine,
Sea Island hosted “An Ode to Havana and Key
West,” a weekend-long celebration that paid
homage to Ernest Hemingway’s time in these
and Cuban music, food and cocktails. “Any great
theme needs a surprise factor and full buy-in, in
terms of entertainment, smells, sounds, lighting and even temperature,” Ippensen says. “To
pull off the Cuban-themed party we needed the
sultry, humid air with a hint of cigar smoke.”

54 SEA ISL AND LIFE | FALL/WINTER 2014/15

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