Planning the Perfect Wedding, Part 7

Now that you have determined the budget, prioritized your plans and have an idea of what you are looking for in a wedding, you will need to determine the "theme," or "story" that you want to share with your guests.

Why do you need a "theme?" Having a consistency throughout your wedding day will let your guests know what to expect. It immediately relaxes the mind and relaxed guests are happy guests. Happy guests stay longer and are more thankful for your attention to their needs; in short a great event.

How do you arrive at the theme? Decide what is near and dear to your heart:
where you met, where you became engaged, a special song or saying? How about a particular color or food or object? One bride loved shoes so that became her theme. We had invitations printed in the shape of a high-heeled shoe, shoe favors, songs with shoes, and even a shoe cake. Guests found it fun and the entire evening was filled with a light-hearted party atmosphere. It was a perfect wedding!

Find the things that are important to you as a couple and share your story with your guests. They will love you for it, because it allows them to share a piece of your life together.

Planning the Perfect Wedding, Part 6

When planning a wedding, it is best to keep some priorities in mind.
There will probably not be another time in your life when you will be responsible for so many people's happiness and well-being than at your wedding. Some of your guests you may never see again (I hope that this is not the case, but it happens.). How they remember your wedding event will be a testament to your graciousness and thoughtfulness. If you aren't going to go the extra mile and really show your guests your lovely character, then I have to ask, why go to the trouble of spending thousands of dollars at all?

I hope that you realize that most of you will be spending over $3000 an hour on your wedding day event. $3000! If you don't believe me, then do the math for yourself. Most weddings last 6-7 hours. The average wedding in Iowa costs $26,300. Divide 7 into that number and see what you come up with. Even if you tell yourself, "Oh, I would never spend that on my wedding!" Figure out your hourly expenditure; pretty sobering isn't it?

If you aren't going to give your guests great memories, then why have a wedding at all? Why spend the money?

The Perfect Wedding, Part 5

Creating the perfect wedding is not as easy as the guide books would have you believe. They don't take into account that you have to work full time, attend classes, have family obligations and must still attend to your life in general while you take on this momentous task of planning a wedding.

At this point in the planning process, you are probably starting to realize that there is a lot to do and very time or resources to get it done. This is the point where you may want to enlist the help of a good wedding planner.

So many brides tell me that they don't need a wedding planner; they have enough friends and family to help out. That may be true, but what if they don't want to help, or have their own life issues to deal with day to day? And what happens the day of the big event? Why should your mother worry about the caterer or the florist? Why can't she enjoy the day? Are you going to get down from the altar to attend to a lost limousine driver? Why does your personal attendant have to help you get ready, handle a wrong cake order and man the guest book table all at the same time? Isn't that depending on a friendship a little too much?

I understand that many people enjoy doing the wedding themselves, love making the decisions, and want to keep control. Hiring a wedding planner doesn't mean that you loose control, have any less input in the plans and it shouldn't mean that you have to stop wrapping ribbon around the invitations yourself; it simply means that you have hired someone to be a sounding a board, an idea gatherer, someone who knows the ins and outs of vendors, someone to handle the day's crisis, and someone who has your best interests at heart. In short, someone who wants your day to be as flawless as you do.

A good wedding planner will help and enhance, elevate your event and be there in the thick of it all, so that you, your friends and family can sit back and relax on your wedding day---a day that should be remembered as the special event that it is.

The Perfect wedding, part 4

You have a budget and a plan; now you are ready to start looking for vendors and contracting for services and products. Where do you start?



Make a list of all the vendors and services you will need:

DJ and/or Band

Cake designer

Florist

Dressmaker

Transportation



The list can be as long or as short as needed. I always tell my clients that they should interview in groups of three. Take the time to make appointments, sample their ware, ask lots of questions, and compare pricing, service, quality, and client detail. Ask friends and co-workers for recommendations, attend bridal shows, be savvy and alert. Your wedding event is not a time to book a vendor over the phone.

When you go for interviews, take a list of questions with you. In heat of the moment, you may forget to ask an important question that may make all the difference in the world about your opinion of this particular vendor.

How do they treat you during the meeting? With kindness and respect, or with an I-don't-care type of attitude? Whenever I am meeting with a vendor for the first time, I really pay particular attention to the way they speak to me and treat me. If they don't have professional courtesy and sincerity in their voice and actions, I can't knowingly recommend them to a client.

Remember that you are the one holding the check book, so if a vendor doesn't care about your business, someone else will!

The Perfect Wedding, Step 3

So far, we have a plan, a budget and priorities. The next step to ensure a perfect occasion is to set the goals and divy up the responsibilities.
This is a good time to set down all people who are contributing to the wedding event and talk. Who is paying for what? Who is doing what? When and how?
Every great event has a plan and a timeline. We find competent people to help us and off we go to create the perfect event. The same is true for a wedding.

Remember from the first step, that a wedding is a lot of money, so leaving even the smallest of details to chance is foolish. Having a plan and goals are a smart use of your time and energy. It makes the task that much easier when everyone knows their responsibilities.

For instance, if you have a wedding for 400 people, should the burden of the wedding fall on one person's shoulders? Absolutely not--that would be ridiculous since there is a merging of two families, two families should be equally shouldering the burden. This can be a combination of money, time and talent, but the saying that "It takes a village....." it quite true in the case of a wedding. I am a planner and have been doing this for over 30 years and not even I would take on the task of so many guests at one time in one place without pulling in some trusted help.

Yet, I have seen-time after time-the burden of the wedding falling mainly on the shoulders of one person. Usually it is the bride or the mother of the bride while other family members (from both sides of the fence) look on and wait quietly for the fall of the event. Why does this happen? I really don't have the answer for that, but I do know this---the more that two families work together to send off their children into the world of marriage and life, the more successful that marriage will be. The world is tough enough without have to combat members from our own family!

The Perfect Wedding, Step 2

The next step to a perfect wedding is to choose your priorities. This is a very important step and one that requires a lot of communication between the two of you and the source of your wedding budget (i.e. Mom and Dad!). If having an exclusive photographer that takes lots of pictures, has two crew with him, and is available all day is important to you, then by all means, count on spending some serious money of your overall budget. This means, of course, that you will need to scale back on something else in order to have the photographer that you want.

Priorities are good. They allow the two of you to determine what is important to you for creating your wedding day memories. They help you to focus in on those vendors and services that you absolutely feel are essential while letting go of some of the more frivolity items that really won't matter in the grand scheme of the over all day.

Remember that this is your wedding; your story that you are sharing with your friends and family, so decide what best ways to do this and follow through. If having an executive chef prepare a meal that will live in infamy, then a Hummer Limousine to travel 5 blocks may not be so important.

Prioritize and stick to your plan. The perfect wedding is closer than you think.

The Perfect Wedding, Step 1

The perfect wedding starts with a bride and a groom. They themselves will not be perfect (who among us is?), but their ideas, style and thoughts toward their wedding day must be focused on as much as perfection as possible. After all, even though they may have mere weeks or many months to hire vendors, find the perfect venue, and purchase the proper wedding clothes, they have only one day to shine. 6-7 hours to show their guests a gracious and loving celebration. Kind of daunting when we put it like that, but it needn't be. Planning a wedding, no matter what the time frame should be an exciting adventure; a way to share your love with those that will be surrounding you on your special day.

Where do you start?

Step one is to make a list of everything that you want to include in your perfect day. Write down everything; from the type of dress you will be wearing to the type of Champagne you would like to serve at your reception. Write down the types of food that you want to serve; the kind of transportation that you would like to ride in, the type of pictures that you would like to look through on your coffee table when the day is finished, the guests that will be coming to share in your day; write it all down. In order to have a plan for the perfect day, you must first start to plan.

The average wedding in the United States is over $28,000! The average wedding in Iowa is over $26,300! I don't know about you, but when I am spending over $3700 per hour on one event, I'd better have plan and know just how my money will be spent.

A perfect wedding for all

In the next few days, I would like to try to describe the perfect wedding. I will give hints and ideas that may seem like common sense, no-brainer things that everyone should be doing, but don't. I will try to explain why we do certain things as a society at a wedding event for the good of all and why it really does matter in the long run.

You will learn that it isn't about how much money you spend or who you have invited as guests, but more what you do for your guests and how you treat them.
You will find details really do make the difference and the venue can be a posh country club, Quonset hut, or outdoor tent; the basic rules are all the same.

If along the way, you find that you are doing a great job of paying attention to the important etiquette rules and come away feeling comfortable about the choices you are making for your day, then you are ahead of the game.
If, for some reason, you find these writings to be hitting home and help you to take your wedding to the kind of event that it was meant to be, then I am all the more glad for the opportunity to share in your special day!

A sign of the times?

Is it a sign of the times to see complacent brides and vendors that are not trustworthy? Is it just me, or are we seeing more and more "Okay, whatever" types of weddings; brides, grooms and families seem to settle for what they are given and not really what they want? Whatever happened to stand up and be counted? Since they are writing the check, shouldn't they have the final say?

I know that I am seeing more and more vendors giving less, having less than caring attitudes and more devious practices. I have had 5 brides call me in the last few weeks about unfair boutique behaviors. I have had 10 complaints about obnoxious DJ's and 17 brides complained about florists and decorators. All of this in a 4 month period! I would hate to hear what is being said that I don't have counted! (I always pray that I am not in the tally!)

Now, I realize that I only hear one side of the story and every story has two sides, two points of views, but when I witness them first hand, or do the investigating and find out they they are telling me the truth about these bad service providers, I have to wonder, why isn't someone changing the behavior?

Bridal vendors gone wrong

I feel that part of my responsibility as a good wedding planner is to steer my clients towards good, solid vendors that are going to work well with the couple's style, personality and budget.
I also feel that it is my responsibility to alert my clients to unfair and bad vendor practices. One such company is a bridal boutique south of the Metro.
I won't name names here (believe me I would really like to and if you would like to know the name of the boutique, just email me), but this business is so dirty and wrong in their approach to brides, that it rankles me to think of their practices.

They actually told one of my brides to only pay in cash for everything! The only reason I can think of a business asking you to pay in cash is so that they do not have to report their earnings to the IRS. Doesn't that sound like something out of the trunk of a car in a back alley?

Not only did they ask for cash only, but they had the nerve to ask my client to wait out in the car when she went to pick up her dress, because they didn't want her alerting the other customers in the shop. Why would she alert them? Because they treated her like dirt when she asked them for help. They knew that she would say something in the shop about their behavior and they didn't want to risk her ire in the store with another customer. They even had the audacity to refer to her medical condition--a sore back. Now I don't know about you, but I smell a discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen.

These women are slovenly, crass, crude, and rude. Their store is physically dirty and should they ever get up from their chairs to greet a bride with a smile would cause Heaven to ice over. If I sound upset it is because I am. Yet brides still continue to patronize this store. Why? The only thing I can think of is because some customers either don't know that there is better and care, or they are undercutting the competition and then hitting hard with alterations (remember that the brides have to pay in cash!)

Either way, brides, please don't buy from a vendor that does not treat you with the utmost respect. They should want your business, not try to shoo you away.
If the vendor doesn't greet you with a smile and a caring spirit, find another who will. The competition is great; you don't have to settle for less than the best!

Wedding Show tonight

I will be at Toad Valley Golf Course tonight. They are hosting their first bridal show and it should be fun! There are quite a few vendors and I will be giving two seminars plus have lots of decorating displays set up, so come out and join us!

What will I speak on? Wedding Etiquette, of course and Wedding Do's and Don'ts (and you know that I have a lot of those!)

Time: 5:30 - 8:30

For each one of you that comes to the show and mentions to me that you read about the show through this posting, I will give you a $300 Wedding Planning package absolutely free! See you there!

Wedding facts

Here are some fun kissing facts (and you thought I was a fuddy duddy!):

1. The average person will spend an estimated 20,160 minutes kissing in their lifetime.

2. You burn 26 calories in a one minute kiss.

3. Some theorize that when you kiss a person with the same hair color as yourself, the result is a more passionate kiss.

4. The science of kissing is called philematology.

5. Kissing releases the same neurotransmitters (chemical messengers in the brain) as those that are released when you engage in intense exercise such as running a marathon or skydiving. This causes your heart to beat faster and your breathing to become deep and irregular.

6. There are many strange laws regarding kissing that are still on the books. In Indiana, it is illegal for a man with a moustache to "habitually kiss human beings". And in Hartford, CT, it is illegal for a man to kiss his wife on a Sunday.

7. On Valentine's Day 2004, an Italian couple made their way into the record books with a 31-hour 18-minute Valentine kiss. The couple beat the previous record by 18 minutes and 33 seconds, however, the man had to receive oxygen afterwards.

8. Kissing helps reduce tooth decay because the extra saliva helps clean out your mouth.

Now you have no excuse for no romance in your life---it is medically good for you!

Facts to help you think about your wedding planning

Here are some facts to help you think about your wedding planning:

1. Did you know that over 82% of all wedding couples will use the world wide web to help them plan their wedding in some way? Being online is a great way to find resources, hints, ideas, and how-to's.

2. Did you know that the average wedding in the USA costs over $28,000? The average wedding in Iowa is over $26,000! We are not far behind the national average; how are you spending your wedding budget?

3. Did you know that over 2.3 million weddings occur in the USA in any given year? Over 350,000 of these weddings will be destination events.

4. Did you know that the average wedding spends over $3600 every hour that their wedding occurs? That is a very large chunk of change to be stumbling through completely drunk and wasted.

5. Did you know that it costs nothing more to give your wedding the WOW factor than it does to make a complete fool of yourself when you got drunk and stupid the night of your wedding? In fact, it costs much less and the residual from it is much greater than trying to apologize to all of your wedding guests the next day.