Balloon Artistry: Chestnut Ridge's Four-Decade Party Designers, From Balloons to Full-Room Transformations

## Nearly forty years of making rooms unforgettable

Long before a party starts, someone has to imagine what the room will feel like when the guests walk in. In Chestnut Ridge, that someone has been Balloon Artistry since 1987, when Jeff Fruman founded the company as a full-service party decorating business specializing in custom balloon and centerpiece decorations. Nearly four decades later, the company has grown into Artistry Event Design — in its own words, "the next chapter of a company that has been creating unforgettable celebrations for nearly four decades."

The name changed. The job did not: take a plain room and turn it into the party itself.

## From balloons to the whole room

Balloon Artistry built its reputation on balloon work, but the craft was never just balloons. The company's current work covers the full room — custom centerpieces, balloon installations, ceiling décor, entrance displays, lounge and room décor, dance floor wraps, signage, and branded swag — for Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, corporate events, and private celebrations across New York, New Jersey, and the Tri-State area.

A 2014 Mitzvah Market vendor spotlight, updated in 2017, shows how deep the detail goes. The team designs custom logos for a party because, as they told the site, the logo "often leads the way with the rest of the décor." Their centerpieces range from feather palm trees to aqua gem designs; their backdrops are hand cut, painted, and sparkled, then framed with chaser lights; their dance-floor décor runs from ceiling draping to loose balloons with shimmer ribbon and lights sparkling beneath them. Candle-lighting displays get custom cutouts and water-filled vases with crystal chips, LED lights, and floating candles. Even the place cards are custom designed for each event, using the party's themed artwork and photos.

It is the kind of work where the decorations are not an afterthought to the party — they are the party's setting, built piece by piece.

## The people behind the rooms

The Mitzvah Market spotlight interviewed the company's graphic artist, Shaina Fine, about the work — a sign of how much of it is drawn, cut, and built by hand rather than ordered from a catalog. That hands-on approach still shows in the company's current work: a featured testimonial from Marci Stern praises Shaina and the entire Balloon Artistry team for a manga/anime-themed bar mitzvah, saying they "made my son's manga/anime-themed bar mitzvah party come to life in a way that far exceeded our expectations" and that Shaina "listened to our vision for the party and ran with it."

Four decades in, the lesson is simple: a celebration is not a room with decorations added. It is a room designed around the people in it — and that is what this Chestnut Ridge studio has been doing since 1987.

## The practical details

Balloon Artistry — now Artistry Event Design — is based at 100 Red Schoolhouse Road, Suite A11, in Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977. You can reach the team at (845) 352-2828 or info@artistryeventdesign.com, and see featured celebrations at balloonartistry.com.