Venue: Hilton Los Cabos
Hotel in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Attendees: 330 Thrivent
field managers and spouses
Entertainment: Terramar
Destinations
Rental company: Terramar
Destinations
Audio-visual and
lighting: Hilton Los Cabos Hotel, Terramar Destinations
Catering: Hilton Los Cabos
Hotel
Photographer: Sergio
Reyes
Florist: Terramar
Destinations
Event planners: Jodi
Collen, Dan Young, and Joette Zembal, Thrivent Financial; Cheryl Miller,
Terramar Destinations; and Tania Manzo, Hilton Los Cabos Hotel
The Welcome to Cabo dinner party brought traditional elements of a Mexican
street fair into the Hilton Los Cabos Hotel. The dinner was part of a four-night
annual incentive and training trip for field managers from Minneapolis-based
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. It was designed to “get everybody reconnected.
For a lot of them, they don’t see each other every day or even more than a
couple times a year,” says Jodi Collen, formerly a senior event planner for
Thrivent.
As guests arrived at one of the Hilton’s two large pool areas, they were greeted and served tropical drinks by women wearing traditional embroidered blouses and skirts and men who wore serapes (woven blankets) and sombreros. Tequila was also served in a commemorative shot glass attached to a chain so it could be worn as a necklace.
At one end of the pool, about 25 different Mexican artisans had set up shop and were selling everything from fine silver jewelry and blankets to large paintings and sculptures. Some artisans also demonstrated their crafts. “The painter was a big hit, as were the cigar rollers and the jewelry makers. The gentleman making the blankets was amazing to watch,” Collen says. Each dinner guest was given “funny money” to purchase goods from the artists, and guests had fun bartering and negotiating with their colleagues and vendors for various items.
The décor, provided by Terra-mar Destinations, a destination-travel management company based in Los Cabos, Mexico, made for a festive atmosphere, with colorful blankets covering all of the vendors’ tables, paper garlands in rainbow colors, boats full of flowers floating in the pool, and luminaries surrounding the pool. The pool bar’s palapa—a round, grass-roofed structure—featured the Thrivent Financial logo projected on the side of the building.
The Hilton served a buffet-style dinner, including Mexican beer and tequila, pork tacos made on the spot by chefs who cut pork from a grill spit into tortillas, traditional vegetable quesadillas, chipotle steak, and a ceviche bar with fish marinated in lime and lemon juice mixed with seasonings and vegetables. For dessert, there were churros and sopapillas. The tables were covered with white linens and then draped artfully with Mexican serapes, and the centerpieces were sombreros with straw flowers. White chair covers were tied with bright ribbon.
The Hilton also provided entertainment, which included a roaming fire dancer and a roaming acoustic guitarist who played classic rock hits. A fireworks display over the ocean capped off the evening.
