Preston Bailey at the Learning Annex in NYC

Image via Brides Magazine

Preston Bailey is one of the most sought after event designers in the world. Using his god-given abilities to make the impossible, possible, he is literally in the business of making dreams come true. Preston was born and raised in Panama and after moving to the US, opened his own floral business in NYC in the 1980's. Sixteen years later, he was doing events for Galliano. After that, came the Trumps and Oprah. Not only is he a leader because he is one of the best at what he does, but he is black in an industry not known for its diversity. He is giving a class tonight at The Learning Annex in Midtown called How to Create One-of-a-Kind Events. Anyone interested can sign up here. I wanted to feature him because he is one of my personal fav's (I could go straight to heaven if he did my wedding!): a true visionary and inspiration for people of color not only in the fields of events, design and architecture, but across the board.

Preston gives an interesting (and candid) time line of how his company grew financially over the course of 20 years and mentions that 15 years ago he was in debt over a million dollars on his personal blog.

Some of Preston's blow your mind creations: