Escort Cards

Maybe one of the hardest tasks you can take on in getting ready for your wedding is planning the seating arrangement. You know what I mean, where are you going to put weird old Uncle Lou that he won’t offend your guests and where are you going to seat the boy’s frat brother that has dated and jilted almost every woman at the wedding? The last thing you want is bloodshed after all.

Since you have gone to all that work don’t you think that the escort card table deserves to be just a little special? I love it when the escort card table is the talk of the cocktail hour, it becomes the centerpiece of the room and gives your guests an excuse to meet and mingle while they seek out their card. So…let’s give them something to talk about.

Here are some galleries that have some interesting ideas.

The Knot

Flickr

Martha Stewart Weddings

Think outside the box. So often I see beautifully lettered very formal escort cards just set up on a table. Yawn. How about tying a very simple card to a small favor box, or pinning them to a board or a “bouquet’ of branches, if its Christmas hang escort card ornaments on a tree. Use your imagination and have fun.

Wedding Photography Contest

Score! If you like looking at beautiful wedding photography then I have found the mother load. I stumbled across the Wedding Photography Directory site through an announcement of their WPD 2007 Summer Creative Wedding Photography Contest. Out of over 1500 entries they have narrowed it down to the top 100 images and are asking you to vote on the winner. How better to decide than to get the opinion of the ultimate consumer instead of just a bunch of other photographers.

In addition to the contest, WPD has some well written articles on everything you want to know as you do you homework on the how, when, whats and whys of wedding photography. Unlike some of the large portal sites with four or five generic articles on the topic this site is jam packed with valuable, up to date information.

If like me you like to graze through the beautiful shots you can find a listing of their member’s blogs. Be warned, you could get lost on this site for hours and hours.

Disclaimer: I don’t know any of the photographers that they list in their directory you still have to do your own fact checking; but its still a fun graze.

Image by Alison Williams, Alison Rose Photography

Details, Detail, Details

I had planned a post about escort cards for today but as so often happens on the net I got sidetracked, lost for hours actually. This week has been crazy busy so I had not had time to visit Abby over at Style Me Pretty until now, even though everyone has mentioned the Inspiration Board Contest this week.

What an embarrassment of riches, like the Sunday buffet at the Waldorf there are so many spectacular things to take in. Details great and details small. The passion and creativity of her readers never ceases to amaze me. Right now there is four days worth of boards to stroll though. Each of the boards is a winner on its own but it is the sheer abundance that caught my eye. You will not find a larger collection of details anywhere.

I am sure there are copyright issues to over come but I would love to see these all assembled into a beautiful coffee table book. I am sure that not only would brides love it but it would quickly become the style bible for anyone in the event design arena. Until then set aside an hour or two, pour a glass of wine and curl up for a most incredible design journey.

The above board is just one of my favorites because the off whites stray into the pinks instead of the more common ivory or champagne. This wine country wedding is in my personal palette; ah…those cool greens in this summer swelter.

Thank you Abby for inspiring us all.

Getting the Gown

I had to post a bit about the bride’s look from last weekend. Andrea wore a strapless Romona Keveza gown with a sweetheart neckline and a ruched bodice. Karen Kaforey over at b.Hughes Bridal and Formal tells me that Andrea chose her gown at a past trunk show which had Keveza herself in attendance. Apparently the designer was so taken with our bride that she personally recommended some changes to the gown to enhance the bride’s already lovely figure. Now how cool is that! I told you trunk shows were a must do on your list.

On another note, I love the bouquet Vicki designed.

Images courtesy of David Wright Photography; you can view more from Andrea’s portrait session on his blog.

A Most Elegant Reception

I love this head table; if you are going to have one you might as well do it all the way. All told, this table seated 30 and visually dominated the room with the other tables dancing around it. Centrally located in the enormous ballroom of theLoew’s Vanderbilt Plaza it edged up to the dance floor.

Since I was there for the floral, I have added some pictures of a few of the different centerpieces we used. I think that large glass cylinder is absolutely gorgeous.It is filled with dendrobium orchids and ivory rose petals

Reception décor by Alice Hendry, wedding coordinator, Branching Out event floral and design and T & M Event Rental
All images David Wright Photography

Rehearsal Dinner Details

This weekend’s wedding was all about the details; the small touches that add up to big impact. Notice the orchid on the place setting at the rehearsal dinner. The plate of desserts was served with coffee after the plated dessert for the guests to nibble on during the toasts and photo montage. Tomorrow I will post some images from the reception.

Photos courtesy of David Wright

Observations from a Wedding

Huge apologies for not posting for the last few days; I was helping my friend Vicki of Branching Out ~An Event Florist with the most amazing wedding. Here are a couple of observations from the back side of pulling off an event this large.

1. I do not care who you are or what your budget, you can not anticipate what mom nature will have in store for you. As you sit there in January planning your event you should know what flowers and foods will be in season for your August date on a normal basis. What you do not know is that mom nature has a 25 day string of temperatures over 95, with 11 of those over 100 in the works. You can not foresee that that your lovely wedding will fall smack dab in the middle of a drought of near monumental proportions just as the temperature records start dropping like flies. Sometimes what sounded great in January is darn near impossible in reality. So if your caterer tells you that the fresh mint for your Mojito’s looks a lot less than perfect because the crop dried out or the flowers that should have looked perfect for several days are wilted half way through the day realize that if there had been anything they could have done differently, they would have bent over backwards to do it. As a bride, you have to be flexible and understand that the professionals you are working with are as much at the mercy of the weather as you are.

2. As you plan, schedule in some free time for your guests. This weekend there were events scheduled non-stop. Luncheon on Friday followed by the rehearsal, Greek dance lessons and then the rehearsal dinner. On Saturday another luncheon, the wedding and reception and a 9:00AM brunch on Sunday. We went to breakdown the reception at the appointed time of 12:30 Saturday night fully expecting the party to still be in full swing since this was a very large, very partying type crowd. But no, not only were we able to walk right in and start breakdown, it seems that the event had actually wound down fifteen minutes earlier than expected. By the time midnight on Saturday rolled around everyone was so worn out that they were all ready to turn into pumpkins. I wasn’t there but I bet there were quite a few no shows at that 9 AM brunch. Any hostess wants to make sure that her guests are entertained, but sometimes a nap is entertainment enough.

The Reality of Reality TV

I know you watch them; those shows like “Who’s Wedding Is It Anyway”. You do know that those are only real in the loosest sense of the word don’t you? I mean they are real brides and real vendors but that pretty much is the end of it.

Let me tell you about what goes on behind the camera. In the real world that planner is on the phone with her favorite wedding pros the minute she/he got the call from the TV show. So everybody knows just how important this wedding is to their reputation and marketing. No one wants to be on National TV putting anything but their best foot forward.

Take for instance the florist. If you ask for a mock up of your centerpiece or bouquet you might very well either meet with resistance or be told the specific date they can do it. Here’s why: it will only take a few of each flower you are using to make the arrangement but the florist still has to order the entire box or bunch multiplied by the number of flower types used; very few can be ordered as a single stem. The florist now either has a huge investment or they will try to set it up on a date when they already have the same types of flowers ordered for another event. The smaller the florist the harder this is. If on the other hand that same florist knows that a camera crew is going to be showing up for the trial what do you thing they are going to do? I’ll tell you what they do, they beg, borrow and steal what ever is needed to make sure that those arrangements are gorgeous at whatever time or date the planner wants to see them. They will call in every favor from ever supplier they have to make it perfect. Heck I have even know a couple to paint the workroom.

The same goes for caterers, they hate tastings. It isn’t because they don’t think there food is great; it is because it costs them a fortune. In order to get the kind of prices and quality they need they have to order in bulk. Now what are they going to do with the other 2.5 pounds of extra large shrimp they had to thaw out to get the 6 they put on your plate? If the camera crew is there they are going to feed them and most definitely the producer. Why do you think the caterer always gets so much air time??

It is not that the wedding professionals you are interviewing are treating you badly, they are treating you normally. It is just that you don’t have a camera crew in tow. Those are the ones that are getting spoiled.

They may call them reality TV but you need to take them with a real big grain of salt.

Do Not Mess With This Bride

This gives a whole new meaning to bridezilla; such a lovely young lady, such a large weapon.

It was all in fun at a recent “trash the Dress” photo shoot done by blog buddy Lara over at her blog for A Softer Image. You can see more of the images here and here. If you are planning your wedding Lara has some great tips on all kinds of wedding lore and traditions. Especially interesting are her posts on wedding photography written for brides.

The bride, Meghann, will be donating her dress to the Mary Madeline Project, a group in New England that takes old wedding dresses apart and makes burial gowns for infants that pass away. Then they donate them to families who are too poor to buy a gown, or too distressed to shop for one.

Why Team Work Matters

This video was sent to me by a group of wedding professional in Indiana. It was put together from some real wedding footage by David Chandler-Gick at a deveraux film. I can’t say it any better than this mother of the bride did. Film is courtesy of the Wedding Place Bridal.

I have always been fanatical about the importance of team work on an event. I can’t overstate how much smoother an event or wedding will go if all the players know each other and are able to work together behind the scenes. More times than I can count I have watched a florists save a baker or a rental company go the extra mile for a coordinator or caterer that they know well.

Behind the scenes one vendor can make or break another. A rental company I know liked a particular planner and was in the habit of calling her to reminder of incidental item that she had forgotten such as serving spoons. When she changed rental firms her bad habits caught up with her in some rather embarrassing ways.

Here is what I would suggest you do: get referrals from your most important vendors for any service related to theirs. Ask your caterer and florist for a list of rental firms they prefer; ask your venue about entertainment; ask your photographer about videographers. If you felt good enough to hire the first one you should feel good about trusting their referrals.

What Not To Wear

From the country that brought us What Not To Wear the UK now brings us the most outrageous example I think I have ever endured. ITV program Britain's Youngest Brides got a mention on the BridalWave, my favorite British wedding blog.

For your Friday funnies, have a look at this video clip courtesy of The Heat. Trying to get that girl in that gown into the limo is a riot. Also not to be missed are what the guests are wearing.



What I wouldn't give to see the video from the reception. Then again, maybe not...I just ate breakfast.
Enjoy!

Wedding Shadowbox

I was cruising through my blogroll this morning and stumbled on an interesting post by Mrs. Bell Pepper over at Wedding Bee. If you are not familiar, Wedding Bee is a great blog written by a large variety of brides to be and recent brides. The Bee’s take you through every gory little detail of their planning and post wedding tasks. It can be a bit of a task to keep up with because there are SO many posts but I always find something interesting and a lot of good DIY ideas.

Today I found a post about Wedding Shadowboxes. It is a great idea to preserve the memorabilia of your wedding. I spent some time searching for some other examples and came to a conclusion. If you want a brilliant shadowbox you have to plan in advance.

The more I looked the more boring shadowboxes I found. What is great about the one Mrs. Bell Pepper did is the scope of objects she included.

If you like the idea of preserving and showing off the memories of all the hard work you have put in on planning your wedding you should start from the very beginning.

Keep a box and a note pad with your wedding planning stuff. Toss into the box any bits and bobs that you think might provoke memories. Not just the pretty things either. How about that hole punch that nearly drove you to insanity at 4 in the morning as you tried to finish your escort cards? This is as much about memories as it is about pretty.

Use the pad to write down things you want to remember to set aside from the day itself. For instance you may want someone to get a great shot of the signature cocktail you created or a label from the wine you chose, maybe the cork from the bottle of champagne you toasted with. It’s the little things that will bring back memories in years to come.

Have fun creating an heirloom that you can enjoy for all the years to come.

Who Wants to be an Angry Bride?

One of the things I do in my real life is to advise wedding professionals on their branding and marketing. Some of my clients are gown manufacturers. Consequently I am always reviewing ads and I read a lot of marketing blogs. Today I ran across a post on Holly Buchanan’s blog on how angry and sullen the models in jewelry ads look. Well baby, they need to take a look at some of the ads for wedding gowns!

Commence rant!

For an industry that never fails to use the words “The happiest day of your life” to market their wares it amazes me that the models all look so sullen and pouty. In some cases they just look downright mean. What’s with that?

As a marketer I know that you should use feelings to help bring the message to life for the viewer. Do I really want to buy a gown that invokes those kinds of emotions? Show me happy, show me in love, show me relaxed, but for crying out loud don’t show me sad and angry. Why would I want to be sad or angry at my wedding? If you want to sell me a gown give me an image to which I want to relate.

In their defense, so many of these designers are only looking at how the dress shows in the photo. They’re a designer, that’s what they do. Stop taking only the advice of the photographer and stylist and listen to your marketing director once in a while.

End rant.

I would really like to know if I am alone in this. Look at the two images and tell me which bride you would rather be; the one on the steps or the one with her hands on her hips?

Here’s the Proof

Brides are always asking me what makes one service provider so much more expensive than another. In most cases it simply the attention to detail.

I was at lunch last week with a friend looking at the proofs of her daughters wedding. This was the beautiful beach wedding from a few weeks back. Of course I was blown away by the images from David Wright but I was even more impresses by the presentation. Each image is presented on a 4”x 6” card with color, black & white and sepia tone proofs neatly arranged in presentation quality boxes.

This is the kind of things that set the really top notch vendors apart from the run off the mill or bargain basement providers. So as you are out there trying to decide who to trust with your wedding, look at the details. Chances are good that if they do a great job on the details the big parts will be spectacular.

Easy Candle Centerpieces

Last week I posted about DIY Centerpieces and I found some great ideas for candle scapes that really show what I was talking about. Great candle centerpieces are a cinch to pull off if you think outside the box and think quantity over quality. Bet you never thought you would here me say that, did you?

I found these on the Better Homes and Gardens Website. Just another example of looking outside the box for unique wedding ideas.