A Return to the South

Every day of the life of designer Christopher Todd is completely different from the day before. And probably won’t be anything like tomorrow. That’s because he doesn’t hold himself back from practicing any of the different genres of design that he loves, including interiors, events, florals and holidays, which is where he started, and how he gained entrance to decorating celebrity homes, luxury hotels and retail spaces throughout the country.

“I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset,” Todd said. “When most people look at things as challenges, I look at them as opportunities, and I go out and I make them happen. I remember at the University of North Texas, I created a list of 10 things I wanted to accomplish by the time I was 21. Of those 10 things, I’ve done eight of them. The only thing I’m missing, I’ve never been a puppeteer and I’ve never had my own TV show.”

Todd grew up in Monticello, Arkansas, and when he was 18, started his holiday design business, kind of as a fluke. “I would help friends, and word got around,” he said. From there, Todd launched Pizazz Party Planning.

“But when you’re in a town of 8,000 people, there aren’t many parties to plan,” he said. So the bulk of his business then was baby showers, wedding showers and other family events. 

“My mother was a big influence in my life because she always hosted parties in our home, so I understood how to do things, and how to do things right,” he said. “One of her famous quotes was, ‘It takes very little to be above average.’ And that was always instilled in me – to do everything right, to make sure every detail was touched on. And it really started affecting my business, because I was known for doing things right.”

When he was 23, he opened first brick-and-mortar business, buying an existing flower shop in his hometown from someone who was retiring. In 2002 he relocated to Fayetteville and opened another floral design business. As luck would have it, his very first job was for J.B. Hunt and his wife Johnelle’s 50th wedding anniversary, hosted by the Tysons, of Tyson Foods. 

“It was the most incredible streak of luck that I was able to show off in front of all of these people, and my business just completely blew up and flourished at that point,” Todd said. He began doing work for Walmart, Tyson Foods, the University of Arkansas. 

“And it just so happened that a client at a party we had done, Judy, coined the term ‘Toddify.’ And so anytime she would have a function at her house, she’d say, ‘Can you run over and Toddify things for me?’ he said. At one event, a woman who was there loved what he had done for Judy and hired him to design a 7,500-square-foot house she had just built. 

“I’d never really done anything to that scale. And I told her that,” he said. “But she told me she liked my style, and thought I could do it.”

That was in 2004, and it was that same client who brought Todd to Nashville 20 years later. 

“Over those past 20 years we’ve done six homes together,” he said. “She has been the backbone of my business, sharing who I am,” he said.

Still, Todd was itching to do more events, big ones. So he went out on a limb and contacted the Academy of Motion Pictures. He asked them who did their flowers for the Oscars, and obviously a little surprised with the question, gave him the name of the company, the same one that does the Rose Bowl Parade.

“And with just a little portfolio in hand I drove from Arkansas to California in hopes that I could get an opportunity to do flowers for the Academy Awards,” he said. “I contacted the company and told them I had driven all the way from Arkansas to show them my portfolio. And the gentleman said, ‘Yeah, I’ll give you a few minutes to come in and talk to me.’”

That guy gave Todd the opportunity to help with the Rose Bowl, and based on his work with that, then hired him for the Oscars.

“That was my first really big opportunity to do a nationally recognized event,” he said. That person then introduced Todd to someone with MGM Properties in Las Vegas who hired him to do all of their events. So Todd moved to Vegas, and his career hit a new level. 

“It was just unreal – huge budgets, huge production opportunities,” he said. “I remember the very first event she took me in on, we walked into this big ballroom at the Mirage Hotel, and Garth Brooks was doing a sound check, and I was like, ‘What’s happening in my life?’”

After a few years with MGM though, the entrepreneur in him wanted a change and so he branched out on his own even design business, all the while still doing holiday design. 

One of his first solo events was the national launch of the new Range Rover. And 13 years later, Todd did this interview from Temecula, Calif., where he was designing an event for Land Rover. He has also done events for Audi, Rolls Royce, and BMW.

“Other people plan and we go in and make them beautiful,” he said of event design. “Being we have a background in design, and we have a background in floral design, we are a one stop shop. We can go in and do everything where a lot of people would have to call a florist, and then call the rental company for furniture. We do everything.”

In 2024 Todd was working on a project with that woman he met at the party years ago. It was their third home in Nashville to work on, this one a smaller property by Lipscomb where their daughter was attending. He would fly in from Vegas every Monday and fly out Thursday, for a year and a half. 

Realizing he wanted his future to be more Nashville focused, he made the choice to make it permanent. He moved, and almost immediately opened a showroom in Belle Meade, his sixth brick-and-mortar across his career. 

“I decided to close the store in Las Vegas, and I just packed everything up and we relocated to Nashville,” he said. “I signed the lease on September 1st, and I opened the doors, renovated and ready to go, on October 11 of last year.”

Now he is excited to invest the next stage of his career here, a return to the south where he was born and raised and first built his career. 

“People have a sense of home and family here,” he said. “They appreciate their homes, and they like investing beautiful things into their homes. I see my future being a lot more based in Nashville, getting more rooted in Nashville.”

Christopher Todd is the featured event designer of the upcoming Nashville Interiors magazine 25th anniversary dinner and celebration at Clementine Hall on December 11, 2025.

The Nashville collection consists of four designs that celebrate the city, featuring two variations of glittering skylines, a hot sauce bottle, and a banjo, with only 72 pieces of each available. Exclusively available at his showroom, this collaboration marks the beginning of what Todd hopes will become an annual collector’s series, created for those who see the holidays as an opportunity to express taste and tradition.