Hi, my name is Caitlyn Johnston, and this summer I
interned at Rafanelli Events.
So, a little about myself.
I am a psychology major and an art history minor,
from Jupiter, Florida.
I'm a junior.
And approaching the summer, I originally
intended wanting to go into PR and marketing.
I was really focused on those fields
when applying for internship opportunities.
And I landed a few interviews, and I
wasn't really connecting with any of my interviewers
and understanding, desiring what my responsibilities would
have been.
So then I decided to approach event planning, which
a lot of people tend to consider live marketing.
And that really excited me to be able to work on-site
on the events, and also behind the scenes as well.
So through the wonderful worldwide web,
I started searching event planning internship
opportunities, and eventually found Rafanelli.
Went through the interview process,
landed it, and was able to experience
living in Boston for an entire summer, which I highly
recommend people doing, if they're able to take advantage
of living in the city, which, coming from Florida,
I had never done before, which was definitely
an eye-opening experience for myself.
So, Rafanelli Events is a full-service, private event
planning company that provides its customer
with a unique experience that is designed
to tailor to their every need.
We had customers that would come with a week's notice,
and we'd have customers that would come in
with an eight to 10 month notice,
and we were able to produce events of their liking.
We specialize in nonprofit, private, corporate, and wedding
events on both large and small scale.
We have main offices in Boston and New York,
with our head office in Boston, which is where I was working.
We also had satellite offices in DC and Palm Beach.
And while I was this summer, we had several event producers
and managers fly all the way to Turkey for weddings,
and down to the Bahamas for wedding anniversaries,
and upstate New York for weddings as well.
So we're really able to take our services all over the world.
So these are some images that Rafanelli
has produced in terms of events themselves,
just to give you an idea of the elaborate nature
of our services.
And part of my responsibility included vendor sourcing,
setting up and preparing design presentations,
pricing specialty decor.
And I would walk in at 9:00 AM every day.
I was there for two and a half months.
And I'd have a list of, basically, tasks for the day,
and then also for weeks or for the months that I'd
be carrying out.
So one of the craziest recommendations that I had was
I had to source 12,000 oversized large jingle
bells for a Christmas party in December
for a rather large client.
One of the first things I was required to do on my first day
was sign a nondisclosure agreement,
so I wasn't allowed to talk about any of my clients,
or any of the guests on the list,
because we did have a rather large clientele list.
Most of them are pretty famous.
So one of my favorite aspects of my internship
was working on-site on the events,
and really being able to see the events come to life.
Because when you're working on an event day in and day out,
and you're putting in all this effort and research
trying to track down the precise napkins or the precise place
cards for hours on end, and then being
able to see it come to life two, three days ahead
was really an eye-opening experience.
And you get on-site anywhere between 6:00 and 8:00 AM
three days before, and we'd stay on-site,
building and setting it up, making
sure everything was right, managing the entertainment,
the catering, making sure everything was flowing
the day of the event, and just making
sure all the guests were happy.
So that was one of my favorite parts.
And then, obviously, breakdown the next day.
So, likes and dislikes.
I definitely have my ups and downs
throughout this experience.
I'd say living in a new place, living in Boston,
was definitely an eye-opening experience,
like I said earlier, but I was alone in it,
and I didn't really know a lot of people.
So it was definitely an obstacle that I had to attack.
I met an amazing group of people.
I was with four to five other interns
throughout my experience, and I still stay in touch with them
today.
One of my favorite parts was being
able to sit in on the designs presentations themselves,
and that was something that I was really excited about going
into the internship, was being able to see
the ideas and the creative aspect come to life.
But, unfortunately, one of the downsides
was I wasn't able to see the actual thought
process that goes into creating the design presentations.
And that was something that I was hoping for.
So I'd sit in while they presented
the clients the potential color options for whatever,
the table may be or whatever the centerpiece may be.
But I wasn't able to actually understand
how they got to that part, which was something
that I was hoping for.
And I realized about halfway through this internship
that event planning wasn't going to be my future career,
but I did enjoy my experience.
So, sort of baffled by the fact that I didn't really
know what I wanted to do with my life,
and halfway through, I realized that I've always
had a passion for sports.
And as a psychology major, sort of combining the two,
I got really excited about the idea
of a career in sports psychology.
And so I started researching the field online for several days,
understanding what it entails in terms
of graduate school, certain certificate requirements,
just getting a better grasp on the field.
And so through contingence, one day I'm
doing a general search I came across Dr. Jack Lesyk,
and he's at the Ohio Center for Sports Psychology,
and he also works one-on-one with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And I was able to get in contact with him,
and we had over an hour phone conversation,
just allowing me to pick his brain,
understand the field better, understand what he does day in
and day out.
And that really excited me.
And that's something that I highly
recommend for anyone that's not really sure what they want
to do, is just, honestly, LinkedIn and the internet
is such an amazing resource.
And I was able to basically stay in contact with him.
And I still talk to him.
And he's really been a mentor of mine, I'd say,
since having this opportunity in this summer
and really being able to realize that although I loved
one part of my internship, it also gave me insight as to what
I really do have a passion for.
So thank you all for coming.