Picture from KissTheBrideNW.com
Wedding Wisdom ; insider knowledge to help you relieve stress, celebrate, and enjoy planning your dream day!
Summer, fall, winter or spring? 2 pros weigh in on the wedding ‘when’
Anna Sachse CTW Features
January 12, 2012
Summer
Pros: “The weather!” says Christina Friedrichsen, author of “Intimate Weddings: Planning a Small Wedding that Fits Your Budget and Style” (North Light Books, 2004). “If you’ve got your heart set on an outdoor wedding, there’s no better season.” There are also three great three-day holiday weekends, and guests are more willing to take vacation time in the warm months and/or when kids are out of school, says Wendi Hroncich, founder of Seattle-based Ethereal Events. Other advantages Hroncich points to include a seasonal produce and flowers, and more daylight hours, which is great for photos.
Happy New Year!
I hope all of your holiday dreams came true! If you are one of the lucky ladies who ended up with a romantic holiday proposal then the Seattle Wedding Show should be your first stop of the new year! If you have been planning your wedding for a little while now, the wedding show is still for you! (I sort of feel like it is a right of passage when planning your wedding!)
There are a ton of vendors at the show, great cake and goodies, so it can be fun to go to. Here is the info, and tips I have if you are heading to the show:
Seattle Wedding Show
Location: WA State Convention & Trade Center
800 Convention Pl, 4th Floor
Seattle, WA 98101 Read more
Wedding Wisdom – insider knowledge to help you relieve stress, celebrate, and enjoy planning your dream day!
Happy Holidays! I hope all your Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc. dreams came true! For those of you who’s dream of getting engaged over the holidays came true, I’m
here to help! Here is the first of many tips to come!
10 Tips for Wedding Dress Shopping Success!
Wendi Hroncich
1. Always make an appointment at the dress shop beforehand!
2. Shop for your wedding gown SEPERATE from Bride’s maid dresses. Shopping for both at the same time can be too overwhelming and does NOT give either shopping experience the value it deserves!
3. Wear or bring a strapless bar
4. Wear or bring heals with a comparable heel height to what you will wear on
wedding day.
5. Shower and do your hair/makeup – when you try on dresses you will feel
better in them if you like your hair and makeup that day!
Wedding Wisdom – insider knowledge to help you relieve stress, celebrate, and enjoy planning your dream day!
Every girl has a little bag of tricks she uses from time to time! Whether it be in her purse or in her pocket, most ladies bring a few items with them to look and feel their best all day long. There is little difference in this from day to day to wedding day, except
the size of the bag! I collaborated on the article below, to give a few of my key emergency kit essentials for all you brides to be out there! Enjoy!
10 things every bride should have with her on her wedding day
Anna Sachse
CTW Features
Wedding Wisdom – insider knowledge to help you relieve stress, celebrate, and enjoy planning your dream day!
Fall is upon us hear in Seattle! The rain has returned, the leaves are beginning to change and football season has begun! Whether we like it or not, the hot summer days of August (as few as there were) are behind us, and all the crip beautiful days of Fall are here to stay!
The turning of the seasons also marks a significant turn in the Wedding Industry. In October, we go from the summer’s wedding every weekend craziness to wedding show mania until the beggining of the year! It is a wonderful time to be a newly engaged couple starting your planning or finalizing your wedding day plans!
Here are the details for one of my favorite shows of the whole season! Get out your party dress, grab your girl friends, and get ready for Urban Unveiled!
Wedding Wisdom – insider knowledge to help you relieve stress, celebrate, and
enjoy planning your dream day!
Hi all, I hope you are having a wonderful summer! Here is another article that a friend of mine sent me! It is dealing with a wedding planning package called ‘DAY OF’! I think it is a well timed article since we are in the middle of PEAK wedding season in Seattle! Many of you may be at your wits end wondering if hiring a day of planner is the way to go!
It is a package that I offer personally. I truly value making a Bride’s day wonderful and stress free. I wholeheartedly believe every Bride(s) and Groom(s) deserve nothing less than perfection on wedding day.
It is one of the most important days in the lives of so many! Many years have been spent by Moms, Daughters, and Fathers thinking (maybe dreading by Dad’s) this day; not to mention the months maybe years spent planning it! It is a huge investment as well! Whether you have a budget of a few thousand or million dollars it is a lot of money for one day! It should be a day in which everyone involved is able to enjoy the long awaited celebration!
For me, I think about: As the bride and groom are standing up holding hands, staring into each others eyes ready to commit their lives to one another, their families, friends, and loved ones as witnesses, sharing the intimate details of their love and commitment to each other NO ONE should be wondering “Oh gosh I hope the cake is here!” That is my job as the coordinator!
Day of packages make sense to me and my business! Don’t let the name Fool you! This is not as simple as it sounds! There is nothing just ‘day of’ about what I do, except for the name! My package starts 6 to 8 weeks in advance. I come into the planning picture after all the vendors have been selected and help tie up all the loose ends, create a detail timeline of the days events, correspond with all the vendors starting a month ahead of time, etc! It is a comprehensive package and a ton of work!!! But so worth it! Okay, okay! That’s all I have to say. I’ll let you make your own opinion! Enjoy!
Wedding Planners Debate Rewards, Risks of ‘Day of’ Coordination
Jul 13, 2011 10:19 AM, By Lisa Hurley
Mix a sluggish economy with a crop of brides who see media versions of beautiful weddings everywhere and use the Internet to price-shop—and what do you get? Relentless pressure on professional wedding planners to pare down their traditional role as experts who guide the bride for months ahead of the big day. Instead, many brides who believe they can “do it yourself”—the DIY brides—are pushing wedding professionals to offer “day of” wedding services.
The topic brings a range of responses from professional planners, with those who flat-out refuse to offer such services and others who have added some form of short-term planning to the range of options they offer.
JUST SAY NO
Lindsey Pitt, CSEP, founder of Atlanta-based Toast Events, has a prepared statement she sends to potential clients asking about “day of” services, explaining why she does not offer them.
Pitt explains that the only way she can ensure a flawless wedding day is if she is involved in “conversations and meetings” with the bride in the months leading up the big day. She closes with the sentence: “We hope that you will see the value in our wedding experiences that we offer so that we can work together during the entire process to execute your vision and make your wedding the ‘toast’ of the town.”
In contrast, Chicago-based wedding planner Ali Phillips, head of Engaging Events by Ali, has just launched a sister company—Elevage Events–to offer what she calls “weekend wedding services.”
The move was prompted, Phillips says, by a steady stream of inquiries about “day of” services. “‘Day of’ coordination is very popular in Chicago,” she notes. “We get about three inquires a week for this.” Her new division enables Phillips to focus on full-scale wedding planning while her staffers handle the “weekend” services.
Lynn Fletcher, head of Lynn Fletcher Weddings of Calgary, Alberta, began offering her version of day-of services a few years ago thanks to the sour economy and the pressure of competition. “We want to be able to offer our services for every bride’s budget,” she explains.
Fletcher’s company gives its “day of” brides a set of templates and checklists, which are returned one week before the wedding and reviewed by junior members of the team. “We have a halfway meeting with them as well just to go over their plan and help them along with any gaps or issues in the timing, etc.,” Fletcher explains.
Besides offering day-of services, Fletcher’s company also offers coaching to new wedding planners. “We really can support all aspects of the industry,” she explains. “There will always be competition. It just makes us come to the table with our ‘A’ game every time because we know that there is always another planner waiting in the wings to take advantage of the business.”
BATTING CLEAN-UP
Although most of the planners interviewed by Special Events would prefer to offer full-scale wedding planning, some see “day of” planning services as a profitable way to clean up the messes made by DIY brides who realize as their wedding day draws closer that they don’t know what they are doing.
Gwen Helbush, founder of Newark, Calif.-based Where to Start, offers what she calls her “wedding management” package.
“They do the planning and I bat clean-up,” she explains. About four to six weeks before the wedding day, Helbush meets with the couple and collects all their wedding-related documents. After reviewing the plans already in place, she schedules a walk-through with vendors, meets the couple one more time, then oversees the rehearsal and the wedding itself.
Helbush says she has offered “wedding management” for about a dozen years, “and it is becoming more popular now,” she says. While she prefers to plan a wedding from the very start, “You have to be flexible to stay in business,” she notes.
Similarly, Kerry Lee Dickey of Santa Barbara Wine Country Weddings and Events in Santa Barbara, Calif., offers what she calls her “month of” package option—and she has some strict rules for brides who opt to use it. “Otherwise, you risk inheriting the mess a client made planning their wedding on their own,” she says.
Dickey says she carefully pre-screens potential “month of” clients, and then requires them to hire vendors from her list. All vendor contracts must be in place no later than one moth prior to when Dickey steps into the picture. “If [the contracts] are not, I reserve the right to walk away—and keep their deposit—or I can charge huge fees to compensate me for the extra work that I will now have to do since they did not uphold their end of the contract,” she explains.
Dickey is grateful for her “month of” option, she says, “because with the economy, fewer brides are booking my full-service package.” She adds, “Most venues now require at minimum ‘month of’ to hold a wedding there, so it’s a niche I’m glad to offer.”
FIXING THE NEWBIE’S PLANNING
Ironically, the rush of “newbie” wedding planners into the market sometimes boosts the business of experienced wedding professionals who can step in late in the planning game to fix the newbie’s mistakes.
“I have had several clients come to me after having hired another planner who ‘said’ they could handle things, but after a few months, the client realized that the planner was a joke, and therefore terminated their contract and hired me,” notes Janice Blackmon, head of Atlanta’s Janice Blackmon Events. She adds, “In a couple of these situations, the ‘fired’ planner had initially charged a higher fee than I did.”
Robyn Martin, ABC, founder of The Wedding Belle of Edmond, Okla., started offering “day of” service but switched to a package called “The Basiques—Wedding Day Directing,” which steps in to help brides about a month out. Martin estimates that she sells one “Wedding Day Directing” package for every 10 full-service packages.
Martin adds, “Most of the Wedding Day Directing packages we sign are actually distressed weddings for brides who have gotten in over their heads for any variety of reasons.”
Martin says she stopped marketing to low-end brides, choosing instead to target brides who want the full-service package. “The reputation of the company has come full circle, and now those clients we thought weren’t our clients are increasingly coming on board to get it fixed or finished.”
STOP SAYING ‘DAY OF’!
Virtually all planners interviewed by Special Events wish the term “day of” would just go away because it leads brides to expect a planner can drop in the day of the wedding and make everything run smoothly.
“A planner who claims to be able to swoop in on the actual day-of and pull it all together is conning someone—the bride and her family,” says Erica Prewett, president of Atlanta’s A Big To Do Event.
“I never just show up on the day of,” Helbush says. “That is a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
Wedding Wisdom – insider knowledge to help you relieve stress, celebrate, and
enjoy planning your dream day!
Hi All! I hope you are doing wonderfully! Wedding season in Seattle is in FULL swing! It really is my favorite time of year! I love wedding season! I know we can’t quite tell it’s summer yet, since we’ve had maybe 5 warm sunny days. But sadly, that is not stopping the calendar from pushing summer forward! In honor of this time of year I thought I would share an email Darnell shared with me. It is from another wedding expert located in Florida. (Thank you Darnell!) I thought she had some fun and new information to share that is light hearted and might help some of you in the dog days of your wedding planning! I’ll be back soon with more inspiration and advise of my own! Enjoy!
Article by Cara Davis
Here’s a look at eight alternative wedding trends that are popping up in 2011.
1. Mini Wedding Dresses
Whether it’s glammed up, vintage or breezy casual, knee-length wedding dresses are more practical and more personalized for today’s bride. As more stores roll out wedding boutiques like J.Crew and White House Black Market, brides can pick up a wedding dress from their favorite retail store. And let’s not forget that for some, that’s Etsy, where they can pick up a custom hand-made gown for as little as $40.
2. Fun with Color
From black accents to bold color blocks, color is king this year. And it’s not limited to the bride. Non-matching bridesmaids are coordinating in patterns or complementary color combinations like this crafty DIY wedding of mega-blogger Elsie Larson. In addition to bold color palettes, shades of gray and stripes continue to be big color trend for the year.
3. Alternative Gift Registries
Many couples are registering for gifts that will help them in a practical way. Travel agencies are starting to offer honeymoon gift certificates and some auto dealers are offering gift certificates toward the purchase of a new vehicle. CardAvenue.com allows couples to create a gift card registry for national retailers. Couples can get creative as they want: they can request gift cards to home improvement stores to offset costs of home renovation, or register for local restaurants so they can continue dating as newlyweds on a budget.
4. Punchy Personalization
While the structure of the wedding remains the same (you’ve got a bride and groom, an officiant, a group of family and friends, a ceremony and reception) the look is anything but. The time may be different (think brunch), the seating may be smarter (seated at tables & staying put for reception), the furniture may be funky (varying size and shape or non-traditional choices), and forget the wedding favors, today’s couples are giving personalized takeaways, like souvenir photo booth picture strips.
5. Eco-friendly Finds
Outdoor spaces, reclaimed furniture, flea market finds and even wooden rings are helping eco-conscious brides and grooms celebrate in a big way without the environmental impact. Green weddings can feature locally grown food and seed-lined wedding invitations that can be planted.
CarbonFund and Terrapass offer wedding carbon footprint calculators, where air travel is most likely to be the big offender. Couples can purchase carbon offsets to lessen the impact, or request contributions as gifts.
6. The Rustic South
There’s been a rise in rustic weddings in the past several years and it mirrors a growing hunger in popular culture for all things Southern (think The Civil Wars, J.Crew fashion, artisan jeans, home-brewed beer). Today’s vintage and rustic weddings are all about embracing simplicity and infusing new life into old things. From location (barns or old warehouses) to furniture & decor (antiques and flea market favorites) to apparel (vintage clothes and even broach bouquets), many couples are going for the nostalgic feel of the old South.
7. Cultural Cues
Couples looking to add levity to their big day are incorporating pop culture trends. Food cart fare is showing up in pre-wedding cocktail hour and the after-party. Culturally significant themes like retro Asian flavors and ethnic icons like sushi, ninjas, geisha girls and Chinese lanterns are being used in inventive ways. Vintage board games are showing up as Monopoly pieces in bouquets and Scrabble letter tiles as signs for the buffet.
8. Death of the Wedding Cake
The exorbitant cost of traditional tiered wedding cakes have given way to nontraditional desserts like square mini-cakes and cupcake tiers or a dessert buffet that might feature pies, macaroons, Whoopie Pies, cake pops, color-coordinated candy and even ice cream sundae stations or cookies and milk bars.
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Weddings expert Cara Davis is the author of Cheap Ways to Tie the Knot and blogs from her home in Orlando, FL, about cheap ways to spend and save at CheapWaysTo.com.
Wedding Wisdom – insider knowledge to help you relieve stress, celebrate, and enjoy planning your dream day!
Now that your RSVP’s are in, your feast has been selected, and your timeline of the days events is done; there are still many more decisions that need to be made to create the perfect wedding reception!
One of which is, Where will my guest sit? There are so many options when answering this question! Do I assign tables and exact seats? Do I just assign tables? Do I reserve a few tables for family and friends? Or do I let it be a free for all and guests chose where they want to sit? Professionally speaking, taking that extra step of assigning your guest’s tables is wonderful idea! It adds a level of elegance to your wedding, as well as lets your guests know that you thought about their comfort at your reception.
I know, this can get a bit tricky, but I’m here to help! You want everyone to have a wonderful time and be social, but sometimes the numbers of seats at the table don’t fit perfectly with the people you’re trying to fit! Believe me, I have worked through MANY table arrangements in my years of planning, and I’ve learned some shortcuts I’d like to share! Here are a few tricks I use when assembling table assignments at my events!
Wedding Wisdom – insider knowledge to help you relieve stress, celebrate, and
enjoy planning your dream day!
It is getting to the time of year when your wedding day is just around the corner! You have hired all your vendors, completed all your projects, bought your favors, had your dress fitted, etc., and now you need to know how to make your wedding day run smoothly.
Many of us have been a guest at wedding where there was a lot of standing around wondering, where are the bride and groom?, or when is the next thing going to happen? I’m sure you want to avoid this for your special day. Good News! It is so easy to make sure that you, your new hubby/wife, and your guests have a great time on wedding day! All it takes is putting together a simple timeline for your vendors to follow and guide you through! You have probably considered the placement of the major events of the day: whether you want to be introduced into your reception or sneak in during cocktail hour. When the first dance will take place if your dancing at all. If you want to do a garter and bouquet toss or avoid the whole thing altogether! The list can go on and on!
Luckily, now days there is no “right or wrong way” to way to put your day together. There are just many things to consider, from ceremony start time to last call, inorder to have a smooth flow to your day.
Many of your vendors have probably tried to help you put together a time line already. (Their tools can be really helpful so please use them!) But, I recommend putting together a detailed timeline for the way YOU see your day going. You should share it with ALL your vendors, and not rely on each individual vendor’s. They may all be slightly different from one another! Using the ONE you created ensures that everyone has the same overall picture of the day’s events as you want it! It also helps you make sure that you are fitting in all the major events in the time allotted in your contracts. If you only have 7 hours with your photographer, you don’t want the ceremony to start at 2:30 and the toast to happen at 10:00pm. You want your photographer there to capture all of the elements you have planned in the 7 hours!
For an easy way to arrange this, I recommend using sticky notes and a large piece of paper with the start of your day on one side and end on the other! It can make for a fun game, mixing and matching the order of events on the time line to find what makes the most sense and works best! It is also a easy way to visually move the key events around to find the suitable order for the two of you! With the events in order you can start filling in the time surrounding the events and creating the time line.
No matter how you schedule your day, make sure that it’s all about you two having the best time EVER, and taking special moments to slip away and enjoy your first few hours of married life!
