4 minute read
GETTING CREATIVE Erin McDonald
MEET ERIN MCDONALD
Event and Interior Stylist
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Erin McDonald is a designer at heart, always has been and always will be. He grew up in Rochester, New York and was a dancer for a good portion of his life. He moved to Chicago when he was just 19 to pursue a dancing career.
His path led him into the world of flowers though, starting with the design of windows in Chicago. During his twenties, he decided to move to Miami, Florida for a short time where he designed w i n d o w s o n Lincoln Road and started to delve into the event world a bit more while there.
His “wanderlust” s p i r i t t h e n brought him to San Diego in the early 2000’s where he continued to design windows and worked with several high end event design companies there. Sadly, in 2004 his brother died unexpectedly and then the world opened up for him. He was brought back to Chicago to work with the venerable team at HMRDesigns. event designer for well over three decades working along side some of the top professionals in the country, including being former VP for HMRDesigns in Chicago. He has won several awards for his events throughout the years and is humbled by the fact that he barely graduated high school and never went to college.
McDonald has designed events
for several presidents, dignitaries, celebrities and thousands of beaming couples. His craft for turning rooms into spectacular events has blossomed into interior design of homes and designing event venues. Erin is sought after throughout the nation to help existing event companies, as a consultant, to increase their brand awareness, teach their existing teams how to sell event design, and re-designing their studios; to match their long term goals.
McDonald has designed events all over the world such as destination weddings and events in Rome, Mexico, nuptials in Paris, and curated designs all throughout Rochester and Chicago’s most elite properties. His holistic florists approach to design can take him anywhere from a luxurious table for 20; for a second wedding, to designing a brand new event venue for one of Chicago’s power families. His design logic is simple…”keep it simple and the design will speak volumes”.
In early 2020 he opened his first “second” location i n U p s t a t e R o c h e s t e r , New York. The move back to his hometown was his way of getting back to his roots and being able to share time with his dear family. The goal was to open Rochester and Upstate New York region for event design under his name while still focusing on his legacy clients in Chicago and the Midwest.
Unfortunately he has had to pivot his company concept and focus on
smaller weddings and events, given the COVID pandemic and has just launched his sister company Down To Earth Event which is a stylized event concept focusing on small, chic events brought right to your home.
Erin also has a new product coming out, called EMOCUFF, that is centralized around the floral and event industry and is a tool band to safely carry your hand tools while creating floral arrangements.
His work has graced the pages of such publications as Martha Stewart, Modern Luxury Weddings, Grace Ormonde, Town and Country Weddings, InStyle Weddings, Brides, as well as the top wedding and event blogs such as Carats and Cake, Junebug Weddings, Style Me Pretty and 100 Layer Cake.
McDonald has been a course instructor with The Event Leadership for many years and has worked alongside Bizbash Media where he taught a national Design Lab where hundreds of people competed on tabletop design. He has spoken at several top event conventions including Catersource and The Special Event. In 2011 he was voted as Chicago’s Man of Style where nowadays you will probably find him in jeans a t-shirt and most definitely a hat.
He loves living back in Rochester these days and spending time with his mother, sister, nieces and nephews and awesome brother in laws. He has
a 4 year old lab mix named Joey who is his partner in crime and everyones favorite dog.
Since moving back to Rochester he has the wonderful opportunities to restyle and update the wonderful Inn on Broadway University Ballroom, and works exclusively with venues such as Oak Knolls Manor in Caledonia and Lincoln Hill Farms in Canandaigua as a preferred partner.
He loves and lives a work-live lifestyle and says that he will probably never retire…”Everyone loves a good gay designer. I’ll never not work”.
