Life's a party. Plan it.

When the bride is about to walk down the aisle with chewing gum in her mouth, it's one of the wedding planner's many duties to stick out a hand and tell her to spit it out. Pat Bailey, a Bloomington wedding planner, once instinctively held out her hand to receive bridal gum right before a ceremony started. She says she would expect no less dedication from her two interns junior Rachel Schiff and senior Angie Botos.\n"There's nothing we won't do," Bailey said. "And we do it with a smile."\nInterns Schiff and Botos are studying tourism management, but they already started their dream jobs when they became wedding planner interns. The two students are at weddings almost every weekend. On Oct. 8, they worked to organize the wedding of Jennifer Sonneborn and Charlie Laughlin. Before the ceremony, while the minister was at IU's homecoming football game, Schiff was pinning flowers onto the bridal party, and Botus was setting up for the reception at Eagle Pointe.\nAt 5 p.m., in a room draped with linens and filled with elegant place settings, Schiff sat diligently cutting and tying ribbons. Botos' arms were filled with jars of jelly beans as she sailed from table to table placing the favors for each guest. With their high heels lying off to the side, the two interns worked quickly to make sure everything looked perfect before the guests arrived. They tied bows around more than 170 chairs. \n"It kind of gets crazy when it gets down to this time," Schiff said. "These are very long days."\nThe interns found their shoes before the guests arrive and get ready to greet them. Once people begin to filter in, Schiff and Botos stood back and awaited the reactions to their work on the room's decor.\n"You've been staring at it for a few hours," Botos said. "It's nice when they come in and validate it."\nBailey arrived at the reception to find her interns discussing the color balance of the jelly bean jars at each table. They quickly filled in any holes. \nBailey started Social Butterfly, her own wedding- and event-planning business, "on a whim" after realizing her talent when she planned her own wedding.\n"It doesn't come naturally to everyone," Bailey said.\nBailey graduated from IU in 1995 and taught English for nine years at Bloomington High School South. Her business card dubs her a "wedding- and- special event muse."\nSocial Butterfly is one of three major wedding- and event-planning companies in Bloomington. Bailey recently took a year off from teaching to concentrate on her business and yielded a season of 27 weddings, her biggest yet. This fall, she returned to the classroom. She found she can balance two jobs with the help of her interns, whom she promoted to work as her assistants.\nSchiff and Botos began their internships last summer and twice a week they come into Bailey's home office, where a wedding dress stands by the window, color schemes are mounted on an easel and a small dog named Sydney greets visitors.\nBefore she hired interns, Bailey was a "one-woman show." She said she was overwhelmed by the number of applicants interested in working with her, but in order to get hired, candidates were expected to like dogs and had to answer a series of short essay questions.\n"That was probably the English teacher in me," Bailey said.\nThough Bailey promoted Schiff and Botos, she is still looking for new interns. She wants people who are easygoing, flexible, creative and eager to learn. The job description doesn't just include answering phones and running errands. It provides a look into the creative process and hard work that goes into coordinating a wedding. Interns also learn tricks of the trade, such as how to open a champagne bottle or cut an elaborate wedding cake.\n"I challenge the average person to cut a wedding cake," Bailey said.\nSchiff and Botos first sought internships because their major requires 320 hours of experience. The interns are preparing to book their own weddings where they'll have a chance to use their creativity.\n"We're meeting with brides from the beginning," Schiff said.\nSchiff enjoys the job because she sees something new every weekend and has the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of local businesses, from disc jockeys to caterers.\n"We know almost every photographer," Schiff said. "We're constantly interacting with other vendors."\nBotos noted the value of networking with local businesses during her internship. The contacts will be valuable when she starts planning on her own. She has already booked her first wedding.\n"I have my own bride for next June, and it's so scary," Botos said. "You just have to learn as you go."\nBotos used her internship to build up her portfolio. She takes pictures at every wedding to show future clients. When she thinks back on how she became interested in weddings, she puts her hands over her heart and sighs. She describes herself as a hopeless romantic and "the little girl who was in love with Cinderella." Like many students, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do when she came to college. She even considered going into radiology until she realized she had to follow her passion.\n"What I'm passionate about is passion itself," Botos said.\nAs soon as she revealed this maxim about passion, her boss reached for a pen to write it down, suggesting that it be their new tag line.\nIn spite of working out all the details behind the scenes, Botos said working as a wedding planner doesn't take away from the magic of weddings. But she admits the job has a certain amount of pressure.\n"You don't want to mess up," Botos said. "It's their wedding."\nSchiff realized she was interested in event planning when she planned events for her sorority, Delta Zeta. She said the courses in the tourism management curriculum don't cover event planning in depth. Learning to be a wedding planner requires hands-on experience.\n"It's not really something you can teach in a classroom," Schiff said.\nSometimes Schiff finds it hard to believe she's already found her dream job.\n"When someone in class raises their hand and says they want to be a wedding planner, I just grin because I'm already doing it," she said.