Wirral Life June 2019 | Page 27

MEET – THE EVENTS EXPERT (OR GURU) She has been at the helm of over 3000 show-stopping events, launched a multi-award winning catering company and is now taking the marquee market by storm. Kim Maher, joint owner and director of Wirral’s Cheeky Chilli Catering, event supremo and all-round wonder woman tells us all about her busy life as one of the regions most respected event professionals. With a background in luxury hotel management and a host of high profile clients under her belt, Kim has spent her entire career in the events industry. From planning and managing show-stopping weddings to delivering some of the North West’s most exceptional events, she has served, planned and smiled her way through more events than most of us will experience in a lifetime. On the eve of launching her most exciting venture to date, we catch up with Kim to talk weddings, work and why she thinks Wirral is the best place on the planet. So Kim, you are a busy lady! Tell us a bit about your exciting new venture. Having launched Cheeky Chilli with my fellow director Phil Williams just over 9 years ago, we have both been blown away by its success and the amazing feedback we have had from clients. We’ve got an incredible team and worked tremendously hard to make Cheeky the ‘best of the best’ in terms of event catering and management and we are both really proud of what the team have achieved. Inevitably, lots of the events we have been involved with over the years have been outdoors and been hosted in a marquee of some kind, so taking the next step into marquee supply was an obvious move. I teamed up with a trusted business colleague, Lee Dunbar and together we invested in what has become Signature Marquee and Event Hire earlier this year. So now its full steam ahead with our full-service event management offering. Tell us a bit about the new marquee. Well I’ve always been a ‘go big or go home’ kind of girl so we have gone all out with the new marquee. It’s a state-of-the- art facility which can be adapted to accommodate anything from 100 – 1000 guests. It comes with a partial clear roof – perfect for dancing under the stars, is totally flexible and is a perfect blank canvas for any event. We are absolutely over the moon that the new marquee venture will allow us to deliver exceptional end-to-end events here on the Wirral, in our own stunning events space. We are based in Neston and the support we have received from the local Wirral business community and beyond has really been instrumental to our ongoing success. And we understand it’s going to have a magical home here on the Wirral. Can you tell us a bit more? We are absolutely thrilled to be working with the team down at Parkgate Festival Fields to give the marquee a semi-permanent home here on the Wirral. It’s an absolutely incredible site with stunning views of the Dee estuary. I think the Wirral is the most beautiful place in the Northwest and this must be one of the most stunning locations on Wirral so we are delighted to be launching the marquee as a venue in its own right – Mostyn Grange. A little bird tells us you have a pretty epic launch party planned for Mostyn Grange? Yes! We are teaming up with you guys to do the Wirral Life Summer Ball on Thursday 25th July and we couldn’t be more excited! It will be an amazing event and a great showcase for both Mostyn Grange as a venue and of course our Cheeky Chilli event catering. Working with the Wirral Life family means we can launch the Mostyn Grange in style to the right audience and show the Wirral what we do best – show-stopping events! As a semi-permanent events space we will be encouraging clients to come and have a show-round and see the space in action but it’s also important to stress that the beauty of having a marquee is that it can be packed up, moved and positioned pretty much anywhere, so clients can get the full Mostyn Grange experience in just about any location. With all that going on, dare we ask what the rest of the year has in store? Obviously we will still be working hard to build on Cheeky Chilli’s amazing reputation. We have exclusivity at 22 high profile venues across the Northwest as well as still catering for ad-hoc events across the UK and Europe. We have an amazing new partnership that we are developing over in Miami with leading luxury event planner Michelle Stubbs so that is super-exciting and other than that it’s just all the usual events mayhem! We can’t wait to officially launch Mostyn Grange to the great and good of Wirral at the Wirral Life Ball next month and we are already taking bookings for this year, next year and even 2021 so it’s going to be a landmark year for us. wirrallife.com 27