First impressions and second glances are fleeting and patience isn’t my virtue, yet inevitably, one thing would lead to another

Many of the clients in my home-based event planning business — which also provided invitations and the accoutrements that went with them — were members of the tribe, just in different stripes and colors.

I had one cardinal rule with new clients who were nonobservant: I never, ever mentioned religion. I displayed invitations; I schmoozed about calligraphy fonts, layout styles, color themes, tablescapes, and lighting; how to deal with mechutanim; what colors best suited what skin types; and the all-important shoe shades and eye-shadow tints.

And I would wait. First impressions and second glances are fleeting and patience isn’t my virtue, yet inevitably, one thing would lead to another — a comment here, a question there, and I now celebrate the friendship of more than one client turned close friend.

If invitations were ready for pickup either Thursday or Friday, I would make sure my Shabbos table was set, complete with elegant tablecloths, cloth napkins, napkin rings, chargers, my beautiful Shabbos dishes, crystal goblets and — because what would a table be without them? — hand-calligraphied place cards.

For extra measure, I’d bake apples sprinkled with cinnamon — and the house smelled good enough to do the talking for me.

Sunday through Thursday, that table was laden with the telltale objects belonging to a busy household, one where Hubby and the elves who lived there tended to leave things where they didn’t belong. It was also strewn with samples of bentshers, kippot, as well as the cumbersome invitation books so clients could choose paper stocks and ink colors. But on Thursday, it would be transformed.