ellie Nottoli
The compliment could have qualified as the understatement of the year. It ended up doubling as a career launcher.
“You’re good at this,” a woman told ellie Nottoli, after Nottoli, a mother of five, had hosted yet another memorable event when she lived in Lake Bluff.
More than 10 years ago, Nottoli, now a Lake Forest resident, chose the construction of a great horned owl’s nest—built near a ravine—as the party activity at her son Vincent’s 5th birthday bash at home, where about 20 partygoers had gathered. Vincent was wild about hoot owls back then.
Nottoli also threw an autumn equinox party, replete with homemade scarecrows, apple bobbing, and a pie eating contest.
Good?
Nottoli was better than good—much better.
“I was constantly entertaining at home, and I’ve always had a love for fashion, art and design, and entertaining,” the 45-year-old Nottoli recalls. “Business dinners, birthday parties, first communion parties, graduation parties, you name the party. I was a stay-at-home mom, and I loved that, loved the time I spent raising my children while planning for special occasions.”
She worked in sales and merchandising at the Lake Forest clothing store Valentina for four years. But the 9-to-5 job did not quash Nottoli’s love for event planning in the least; she morphed the passion from an in-house-only gig into a notable side hustle for friends, friends of friends, neighbors, or anybody interested in staging an event that would certainly widen eyes and smiles and generate a host of indelible memories.
The word got out, steadily. You won’t believe the wonderful gathering that ellie Nottoli created for us last night!
Nottoli then took her craft to a higher level.
Her venture, elliestyled, was born in 2016. It’s a modern luxe lifestyling brand specializing in event planning and styling. Based in Lake Forest, elliestyled’s detail-oriented team excels at creating on-trend yet approachable weddings, gatherings, birthdays, and intimate dinner parties. It also provides many offerings, including event planning, party packages, workshops, styling services, and event rentals (from the elliestyled studio, which is located on Scott Street and houses candlesticks, vases, and collections of vintage glassware, among other adornments).
The elliestyled team consists of three full-timers, two assistants, and a strike crew. Vincent, now 17, has worked for his dynamic mother as a strike crew member.
“It was terrifying, starting a business like I did and at the time that I did,” admits Nottoli, who has gone by “ellie” instead of “Ellie” since the start of her middle school years. “I was a single mom, with five kids, and had very recently returned to the workforce. But I wanted to write my own story, as a business owner, and to be challenged, creatively.
“I worked in retail before I got married, and it wasn’t until I was 38 that I knew for sure what I wanted to do for a living.”
Nottoli grew up in Lake Bluff and graduated from Lake Forest High School, where two of her children are enrolled.
“Looking back, I would have loved to have been able to take the Business Incubator course that the high school offers now,” says Nottoli, whose other children are Bella, Nicholas, Lorenzo (“enzo,” for short), and Francesca.
Today Nottoli could teach a course, or 20, in Advanced Event Planning.
An elliestyled event has a luxurious, or elevated, feel to it. The business’s sweet spot, Nottoli notes, is an intimate home dinner party for 10-16 guests, featuring lavish, out-of-this-world tablescapes and bararea themes that set intended moods. Looking for a retro aura while entertaining, perhaps a 1950s or 1960s motif?
Nottoli and her elliestyled crew would know exactly what to do to transform your digs.
“We approach events differently,” Nottoli says. “We’re more than an event planner; we’re also an event stylist. We’re on-trend, without being predictable. I love mid-century modern, and I also love nature. I’m heavily influenced by the juxtaposition of nature and modern influence.”
Elliestyled clients hail from the North Shore, southern Wisconsin, including Lake Geneva and Milwaukee, Chicago, and a slew of other suburbs, from Hinsdale to Naperville to La Grange to Western Springs. Elliestyled—booked for events, already, every weekend through November—was hired recently to stage a baby shower in an urban farm setting.
“The pandemic posed a great challenge for us,” Nottoli says. “The events industry, essentially, shut down. But we figured out a way to stay relevant through videos, such as how to create charcuterie boards, and through selling kits, hundreds of kits.
“People,” she adds, “re-prioritized after Covid faded. A lot of people looked inward, embraced their family more than ever, and appreciated opportunities to have family gatherings.”
Among Nottoli’s favorite things to do in her free time is anything with her children, especially if it’s an activity outdoors. Gardening and cooking invigorate her, while antiquing and art museums inspire her.
Motherhood lifts her.
“I allow my children to teach me,” Nottoli says. “I’m open-hearted. I make mistakes; I learn life lessons from them.
“My hope is that I’ve been serving as an entrepreneurial model for my kids since I launched elliestyled.”
Elliestyled continues to soar under the direction of the inimitable and highly innovative Nottoli, who’s also a throwback who uses a wicker briefcase/satchel to tote her laptop, client folders, notebooks, and an old-school planner to meetings, including today’s face-to-face with an impressed journalist at Prairie Espresso in Lake Bluff.
“I find rewarding moments at every event, knowing that we have touched our clients and been a part of their most intimate experiences,” Nottoli says. “We’re helping them make fond memories.
“I feel honored every time an inquiry hits my inbox, because it means there will be a chance that I get to be a small part of someone else’s big moment. It’s a job I take straight to my heart.”
For more information about elliestyled, call 847-664-9370 or visit elliestyled.com. You can also follow her on Instagram (@elliestyled) and TikTok (@elliestyled). The modern luxe lifestyling brand’s studio is located at 284 Scott Street in Lake Forest.
