By: Kendra Paredes Hayden

A few years ago, Wonda Karibian cried for a couple days after she found out she was losing her job at a local rental store. Part of the rental business was being sold. The party rental portion of the business was simply shutting down. As a result, Wonda and the employees that worked under her were losing their jobs. Worse yet, it was the Christmas season. No one knew what to do.

That's when Wonda's husband, Carl, handed her the deed to their house and told her to buy the party end of the rental business. He believed in her. Wonda, however, was worried. She and Carl had worked hard to pay off their house. If it didn't work, they'd lose everything.

Nine years later, Wonda's husband has not been disappointed. A1 Party and Wedding is going strong.

The party rental business provides everything anyone needs for a party or a wedding. Patrons can go in and pick up the items they need for their special event, and then bring everything back the following Monday. Or, all the decorating, setting up and cleaning up can be left to A1 Party and Wedding.

"We will help design a wedding reception," Wonda said. "We will come in and do all the details for them and come back and take it all away so their day is as easy as possible."

A1 Party and Wedding has over 1,000 assorted size tables and over 2,000 chairs. They have linens, china, silver and centerpieces, and they have all kinds of backdrops and special lighting to accentuate the walls.

Roman columns have been very popular the last couple years Wonda said. A1 Party and Wedding offers columns with lighted bases, which make the columns glow adding a distinctive ambience to the celebration. "I love to take an ugly hall and make it pretty," she said. "I love to see the reaction of the mother and daughter, and I love to hear them say it's exactly what they wanted."

Wonda is extremely flexible when it comes to designing a wedding to suit any bride's needs. She's decorated for weddings with over 600 guests. She's done theme parties including one wedding that used Cardinals Baseball as a theme.

"We did Astroturf on the tables. We used buckets of peanuts and popcorn for centerpieces. We had reception cards printed up with a Cardinal background. There was a three-hour gap between the wedding and the reception so everybody could go home and dress in baseball attire. That was really fun," she said.

Wonda has also done Christmas weddings. One Christmas wedding was done in lavender. A1 and Wedding brought in the Christmas trees and decorated them with lavender bows. The centerpieces were lavender, and snow was on the tables.

"I'm always open for suggestions," she said. "When a bride comes in, I don't ever want to tell her what she needs to do. I want to hear what she wants to do."

Wonda keeps up with the trends. A few years ago, everyone seemed to use burgundy and hunter for the colors she said. However, these days the colors are more festive.

"This is a great time to decorate. The colors are fun. People are using the lime greens, the hot pinks, the turquoise blues. The colors are more vivid, more bright," she said. "Everything is getting accentuated with an ivory or a Champaign." Wonda said the expertise of her staff makes the business successful. Kathy Phipps worked with Wonda and then followed her to A1 Party and Wedding. Kathy said,

"I've been with Wonda since before the beginning." Rachel Waller and Pam May have stayed with Wonda for over 6 years.

"I started out with Kathy and two drivers. Now I'm up to four young ladies and four drivers," Wonda said. "I couldn't have done it without my staff. We're a big family."