Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: Student Life

Media Credit: SUBMITTED PHOTOS A family gathers to have a picture taken in front of an arrangement that was put together by intern Emily Zisla.

(Left to right) Emily Zisla waits for subway train with her roommates Jenny Petrella and Suzy McMillen.

Growing up, senior public relations major Emily Zisla wasn't exactly into weddings.

For most of her life she didn't attend any and her exposure to them was minimal. Ironically though, it was a wedding that led to the discovery of what is now her passion and love - event planning.

Zisla experienced her brother's wedding in October 2006. She was given the responsibility of making the wedding invitations and also making sure they got to where they needed to be.

Watching the wedding come together allowed her to see how the event planning aspect of weddings went, and it was something that immediately caught her attention.


Chicago love
Aside from her passion for event planning, Zisla has a love for the city of Chicago. She says it is her favorite city because it is a big metropolitan city that offers a lot of public relations job opportunities. She also likes that it is close enough to her home of New Brighton, Minn., that she could leave to return home and it wouldn't be a big hassle.

While working at Victoria's Secret during her sophomore year, Zisla said she brought up her love for Chicago to then co-worker and recent UW-Eau Claire graduate Lindsey Owens. Owens remembered the same internship program she used to get her two magazine internships in New York, University of Dreams, also offered internships in Chicago.

She told Zisla of the program and what it offered, but Zisla didn't look into it until she got back from studying abroad in France in 2007.

At that point Zisla looked around Owens' Facebook profile and saw a link to the University of Dreams Web site. She checked it, seeing how the site broke things down into industries and then supplied a list of internships geared towards what someone would want to do. She applied and got accepted in August 2007.

Zisla said University of Dreams seemed geared not towards internships alone, but getting an overall experience.

Along with internships they have a weekly seminar series where industry professionals come and talk to interns. Zisla also liked how the program offered weekend events to get a broad idea of city. She described it as a study abroad mentality, where University of Dreams wants you there to experience the internship but also to experience the city.


Getting the "in"
Once in the program, Zisla was allowed to pick her top five choices for who she would want to intern with. On the top of her list was the respected, well known and number one wedding planning company in Chicago, Big City Bride.

Zisla was hoping to get the internship because she felt what it would teach her would be directly related to her major. Event planning is a subset of public relations, Zisla said, and because a lot of public relations practitioners use events to get their message across, she wanted to obtain that skill.

"I got familiar with the company through checking out their Web site," Zisla said. "I really liked their photos … and thought (interning with them) would be a good way to see how that type of event was put together."

Zisla's placement agent from University of Dreams then contacted Big City Bride and set up a phone interview. Because Zisla was in Eau Claire, the interview was done by phone and simply required her to answer a couple of questions.

A day later Zisla's agent contacted her and said Big City Bride wanted her to intern with them and she had 24 hours to decide yes or no. Zisla quickly said yes to her first-ever internship.

Once Zisla arrived in Chicago, she was glad she had studied abroad in France. She had gotten used to culture shock through that trip, and also found it easier to adapt to using Chicago's public transportation and general lay of the land.

"Compared to France, Chicago was a piece of cake," Zisla said. "Everyone spoke English in Chicago when I arrived, so I was good to go from the start unlike in France where no one spoke English really."

It didn't hurt that as part of her tuition towards University of Dreams, Zisla was provided an apartment, which also housed her former co-worker Owens. Additionally, Zisla's best friend had just moved from Eau Claire to Chicago, so she had friends there from the get go. And she also got to experience what having roommates she could go out with was like for the first time as she shared her apartment with two other female interns who were from the University of Ohio.


Thrown in the fire
It wasn't long until Zisla realized wedding planning was the boot camp for event planning. She learned quickly it was an intense business and brought on a lot of pressure and stress.

"I was so used to being in Eau Claire and that warm feeling and hadn't been around that kind of atmosphere," Zisla said. "They are a small company but they do big business … the workers are so extremely driven and career focused and busy … and the clients take things very seriously."

Four wedding planners are employed by Big City Bride, said Zisla, adding for each one there was one intern. During the work week in the office, the interns would undertake a laundry list of things including: help contact vendors to get contracts, find various contact information, make phone calls, get e-mails or fax, follow-up with vendors, get confirmation, call vendors involved over the weekend to make sure they had the timeline and know what they are doing, and answer any questions asked of them.

A typical work day consisted of getting to the office earlier in the morning followed by getting it ready and making sure it looked presentable. Then, depending on what planners were there in the morning, Zisla said she would check if they had appointments, complete any leftover items from the to-do list from the previous day and doing little random things that pop up. Additionally, interns had to be ready to greet customers as they came in and get them all set up, and then would stay on their e-mail in case one of the planners has something they need at a moment's notice.

Fridays and weekends were another story though. Generally Zisla said she would leave the office early for a rehearsal dinner to make sure everything was set up, on time and would help direct where things were to go. Sometimes she would do setup at the wedding location set up tables and chairs, check the floor plan, double check transportation, and would go to hotels to make sure buses were there to pick up guests and take them to the church and shuttle guests around.

Saturdays were the craziest days, said Zisla, with the four wedding planners having a wedding every weekend, forcing the interns to go between weddings.

Zisla's first weekend and first event provided one of the craziest moments for her. Still not accustomed to the city and how things worked, and not being prepared or knowing what questions to ask, Zisla was setting up for an event when she was supposed to get a car a block away and go to a hotel with it.

However, she didn't know which car to get and what side of building it would be on. She ended up not having cell phone reception and missed the car and became frantic and panicky. But she ended up figuring out how to get another car and it all worked out in the end.

"They did treat us not as equals but as a crucial part to their business," Zisla said. "If we did something wrong they wouldn't be very happy with us but that was important because it showed we were important to them and they trusted us to do important things."

Zisla also said when having some down time the planners would ask about what was going on in her life, how she was enjoying Chicago and would even offer up advice on things to do around town.

"They were friendly and wanting to have me involved in their life and their business," Zisla said. "Occasionally they would have us do stuff like take out the garbage, but we also did a lot of important things for them."

As a reward for her work, Zisla was allowed to conduct her own rehearsal dinner. Zisla said her experience throughout the summer had taught her what to do and how to do it while being confident. She got to the restaurant, set everything up, learned the floor plan and how to get a hold of the manager in case of emergency and began to greet guests.

"Personally, (the dinner) was a rewarding experience," Zisla said. "It showed I had actually learned something and could apply it which was nice to see."


The aftermath
On a personal note, Zisla said she feels more confident about herself after experiencing the internship. She still wants to plan events, but going into wedding planning is something she is no longer interested in after seeing how crazy it can get

In regards to school, Zisla took an event planning course that was offered to communication and journalism students last fall and found most of what she learned through the internship with Big City Bride directly related to what she did in the class.

The class planned the Chippewa Valley School Press Association Conference in which 300 to 400 students and faculty attend, Zisla said. To plan the event, each student was a director in charge of one particular aspect of the event, and Zisla managed to be appointed second in command of the whole event as assistant director.

"(The internship) made it easier to answer other students' questions and keep a tab on everything and keep it all together," Zisla said.

Zisla encourages students to try new things and attempt as many internships as possible, especially with the job market the way it is. She plans on applying to the University of Dreams for an internship in Sydney, Australia.

"I would just say take a chance and go for it," Zisla said. "It will pay off."

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