Jewish Party Maven

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COURTESY OF PAT BLACKWELL

Pat Blackwell of Red Coat Ladies and Jewish Party Maven

Party Maven

“Red Coat Lady” Pat Blackwell is adding to her business by training vendors in Jewish customs.

LYNNE KONSTANTIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The name Pat Blackwell brings to mind one thing in the Metro Detroit Jewish party-planning community: Indispensable.

The founder and face of the Red Coat Ladies (named for their iconic, eponymous attire), Blackwell has been running the show for bar and bat mitzvahs and weddings for close to 25 years under the name Party Assurance. From wrangling in unruly tween guests to sewing brides into their dresses last minute to ensuring party timelines run without a hitch — so that the party-planning parents can enjoy the event instead of worrying about the details — Blackwell and her team have seen and done it all.

“I love that we allow people to enjoy their special moments,” she says. “In a typical four-hour party, how many memories can you create? Do you want your memories to be of yelling in the kitchen because you’re out of french fries? We allow people to enjoy every second of their events.”

Building on her years of experience and impeccable reputation, Blackwell has launched a new business (and donned a new blue blazer): Jewish Party Maven trains and coaches venues and vendors to understand and honor Jewish party traditions.

Blackwell comes by recognizing this need intrinsically, as she had to learn everything, too. Raised Catholic on a farm in Minnesota with 10 siblings and prize pigs, she knew nothing of bar mitzvahs. After earning a degree in hotel and restaurant management, she, her husband and their three children landed in Metro Detroit, where she answered an ad for a building manager in charge of events at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield.

“They called and told me about the job,” Blackwell says. “I said, ‘Don’t you want someone who is Jewish?’ and they said, ‘no, we want someone who can work on Yom Kippur.’” Her response? “What’s that?”

Eleven years later, “after watching people have amazing parties that they didn’t enjoy,” she launched Party Assurance, and now she’s ready to let others in on what she’s learned.

With a lapse in parties to work during the pandemic (and having broken her back last June), Blackwell began thinking of ways to help clients in less physically demanding ways.

“I’ve always dreamed of a job I can do from anywhere,” Blackwell says, while stressing that Red Coat Ladies is not going away. But Jewish Party Maven is an extra layer to her business. In fact, each Red Coat Lady is required to become certified in the Jewish Party Maven course. “I held a mock