Engaged and Excited

Engaged? Ready to start the planning of one of the most special days in your and your families life? The energy is flowing and you are reading every blog, looking at all kinds of magazines for ideas and inspiration? Do you feel like you could stay up forever doing research?

You are not alone. Most brides spend endless hours searching for the perfect location, talking to friends/family/co-workers about the celebration day upcoming...I say again, you are not alone.


What is the first thing an organized and level headed bride does to get the ball rolling? From my experience it is off to dress shops to find the "perfect!" gown. I think it is really important to go and see what lines look best on your body, what type of body improvement you might want as far as the gym and tightening up any loose areas the dress reveals.


In the past when social situations had us play dress up for imperial occasions you could see yourself in a full lengh party gown several times each social season. Now we are much more casual in dress when we go out to parties. And shoes, are they important or what? ...as most modern party gowns are not full length. Remember, in a wedding dress you need shoes that will support you for over 8 hours of standing. I repeat, keep your eyes out for the right shoes.

Get out there, look at yourself in the mirror and get a take on what the possibilies are. This is true fun. Also, an eye opener to know what a dress costs that makes you happy. Do you want to spend $1,000 or over $10,000 - available are dresses for many different price points. Are you an ethnic bride, where it may take travel to an exotic location to find your attire?

Then now let's settle in our chair, get on the computer and really start working, talking to trusted friends, and find a few wedding planning professionals to speak with - usually the first appointment is gratis so you can work out a relationship or move on - and get some meetings set up. Is your phone call returned promptly? Does whoever answers the phone seem to be interested in your well being? Wedding planning is such a personal job, and you want someone on your team that cares about you and is going to share time, materials and resources freely.


After you find someone you can work with, check, that is one budget consideration to put on the fire. Then start looking for locations. Your professional may have some great ideas and even be able to share a turn key budget from past experience to get you to a point where you can visit with your funding base about details. Do you need more flowers? How important is food to you? What are the top 3 most important aspects of your wedding for the bride and groom?


After you have your location chosen, there is a fantastic groundwork set so that organically you can work through details in a hierarchical order of importance. My big hits to get out of the way are: planner (of course), photographer, videographer, and entertainment. Most of these vendors can handle only one occasion per night, and there are only so many Saturdays in a year, but wait, are you a Sunday bride, so you don't have as much pressure to get Saturday vendors? ...so many decisions.


Now after you have your location you can really focus on a dress that allows for movement. Are you seen in a grand large ballroom? How do you look 300 feet away? Is there a special ceremony space with a long or short aisle? How long will the dress be seen from the back? Do you want to trouble yourself with a bustle or have a more manageable train? Are your dinner tables going to be close together or far apart? Check these details with your catering director or rental company for set-up details.


You are on the way. Many blessings to you. It is an honor to be part of so many special celebrations for families over the years. Take time to decompress, bride/groom be gentle with each other. It is not the only celebration in your life, so take it easy, it is just one of the most important and usually the first time you have entertained everybody all at once.

Wedding Experience

A wedding experience is different from a wedding celebration. An experience is something you get home from and can't wait to tell everybody about. A wedding is a nice time with lots of smiles. "Pretty." "She looked so nice." "The chicken was so tender." An experience brings forth the following comments, usually: "That was the wedding of the century!" "I have never had so much fun in my life or ever seen a wedding look like that before!" "I could not stop dancing all night long!" "Wait till they hear about what when on when I get home!"

What kind of wedding do you want to have?


A wedding experience takes into account your crowd, play to your crowd. Know what they are used to and give them a couple of "wow" experiences. Let them participate in something. Sometimes it is just having a bowl of freshly whipped sweetened cream by the beautiful cake a friend baked.


Sometimes, it is a pyrotechnic element that brings the house down. It depends on who your invited guests are as to how far you need to go to blow their minds, and how many times you want to blow them.


Playing to my crowd makes my life so much easier, as taking care of people and knowing what makes them happy, what will make them take stories home is what pays my heart. A fantastic wedding experience is something when thought about 10 years from now, a warm feeling comes over you, sometime you get tears, you remember. Always the most special times in our families and friends lives are something to live, and remember.

Music For My Wedding: I Want To Dance!

One of the most important things at a wedding is music. If your guests don't get to party, you don't get the right memories and everybody is looking for what to do next when the wedding is over.

I call the last 45 min. dance set of the evening "sweat dancing." You know where the guys take off or loosen their ties and the girls are barefoot or in flip flops? Everyone is dancing like crazy??? If you don't have this magic time happen, the party never really "gets off" so to speak. Your good DJ or band leader will know the crowd by then and should have everything pumping.


This needs to happen before any sound ordinance kicks in or before the hall needs to close with plenty of time to get guests out, etc. before any penalties are accessed. Your invite time is directly related to the time of your last dance set. The average wedding lasts 6 hours from guest invite to guest departure.


For example, if you are starting your last 45 min. dance set at 10 p.m. and ending it at 10: 45 p.m., you will invite guests for 4:30 p.m. for the ceremony. Don't forget any travel time that may exist between ceremony and reception space. That factors in as part of your party time.


If you want to have the music off and the guests out by 11:00 p.m., you probably want to close the bar at 10:30 p.m. Make sure and leave self serve water, coffee, etc. on or near the bar so people are not just literally cut off from all beverages. You may want to leave opened liquor bottles with mixers out and some of the cold beer on the bar. It softens the blow of closing the evening.


When choosing whether to have a DJ or a band, know one looks much more impressive than the other - of course a band looks more expensive. Yet can the band play covers you want to dance to? If not, you may be better off with a DJ. You can dress up a DJ by putting a backdrop behind him, putting him on a carpet or astro-turf covered riser and having him spotlit.


It is best to think about what your crowd's favorite music is, not just your favorite music, as an empty dance floor is a very lonely place when your favs are playing and no one is with you to get crazy. Let your DJ or band leader have a list of some "don't plays" and a list of "must plays" and get out of his way. His job is to make the party rock, your job is to have a blast and pass warm or cool towels to keep everyone fresh.

Let's Prepare A Guest List

One of the most difficult tasks, one of the first tasks in wedding planning is preparing your guest list. Much conflict can arise over not knowing how to accomplish this task. I have a simple formula that may make your life a bit easier when it comes to a wedding guest list.

Here is how I figure how many people each segment of the hosting committee can invite.

Break your hosting committee into four categories: bride's list, groom's list, bride's family list, and finally, groom's family list. Each category can invite 25% of the guests. That would mean for a wedding of 200 people, each category gets 50 names. Remember, each name constitutes a couple (Mr. & Mrs. Important Guest) so that really breaks down to 25 names.


Note, there will always be people declining the invite, so 200 invites should garner about 170 guests at the wedding. Later you can send out a "B" list and invite more guests...just make sure you print enough invites. It is suggested that you print about 30% more invites then you think you will need for your master list. (Invites to mail, invites to save, invites for backup, invites for guests you know can't come but must be invited)


This may seem like an impossible task....how do you break your entire world of friends down to only 25 names? The only way I think you can accomplish this is by taking a reality check when it comes to finances. Know that each individual guest breaks down to between $250 and $550, which means $500 to $1,100 per couple! You can easily realize you must keep your guest count down if your budget is important to stick to.


One of my rules of thumbs is: how many times have I been to Guest "A's" or Guest  "B's" house lately for dinner? How many times have they taken me out to eat? If a guest has not been in your home in the past year, it may be they don't need to be at an expensive event you are hosting. (It may be a bit like cleaning out your closet, if you have not worn it in a year, get rid of it.)


What do you tell the people you can't invite? It seems the only answer for their not being on the list is you are having a wedding for family only, or the hall won't hold guests as you would like it too, etc. Honesty is the best policy, you just have to be honest and let those who will not be invited that you will share photos with them and let them know everything that happened, etc. Good luck!

Why Hire A Wedding Planner "or" Would You Do Your Own Surgery?

One of my favorite topics is "Should I hire a wedding planner and why? My mother and her mom did Mom's wedding and everything came out just fine!"


I think a good contrary to that would be considering the scope of a wedding these days compared to 25 and 30 years ago. My parents were married 53 years ago, they had cake and punch at my maternal grandmother's house in Princeton, Il and they looked radiant in the photos I have from the Big Day. I'm sure Grandma made the cake and sweets from scratch - I'm having trouble writing as I'm tearing up just thinking about it. So precious and so sweet.


Now, however, I compare weddings to a movie production with a one time run through and better catch it perfect on camera cuz we don't want Bridezilla comin' out and eating us all alive. Please give me some humor so I can stop crying!


From my "What I Do First?" list there are 54 entries of pre-wedding things to do that I counted so far, not to mention any extraneous items that may come up from each person's needs. In a large production there is always needed a "go to" person to arrange everything and keep the show under control during execution.


One of the best scenarios I have of not having a wedding planner, given Dad is a surgeon, is opening up your own abdomen to do a surgery and then having second thoughts as you nick an artery and wanting to reach out for help. Little late I'd say.


The best way to learn about having a wedding planner from my experience is to have your wedding, go through the experience and learn what it is all about. Then you are an expert on why a wedding planner is needed.


What is it all about? Well, the week of the wedding family starts to arrive from Sun. to Tues, so everything in town is turned upside down. You have all kinds of last minute things you want to do and never had the time, now people want you to go to Universal City Walk, or whatever diversion is comparable in your town.


When you have someone you can trust working in your behalf there's a contact point that is attentive to what is current and needs attention. Many vendors are occupied with several events at a time, the one fast approaching usually takes their focus and it is often difficult and time consuming to get them to respond. A dedicated planner is persistent to get the answers you need and distribute information that is pertinent confirming the vendor understands it.


The day of the event is really action packed as far as details - early set up before make-up on large events, and vendors need a point of contact to fine tune what is going to happen. Most of my time the last 2 weeks of wedding planning is spent with time line adjustments for vendor time in/out, confirming time for highlights (like cake cutting), etc. as there are always last minute changes when everything plays out.


Most of the brides I work with are not available during day/evening as so many other activities are pulling them in different directions. We email or text like maniacs. A lot of the vendors may not respond to email or texts which can me unduly frustrating. Vendors usually work from 10 to 6 like planners do so it is easier for communication to actually happen.


R.s.v.p. management, wedding rehearsal execution, guest list management, guest's questions rolling in all day long, transportation organization, limos, amenity distribution, basic project management really, as well as being a consummate hostess? A mad woman would be an easier role for a bride left alone.


Again, if you are having a small reception in the same location or one close to the ceremony, of course you and your family can handle everything along with the church or temple coordinator. But, if you are spending upwards of $25,000.00, add a little more and get a veteran professional on your side. Peace of mind is worth some bucks.

Who Pays For What At My Wedding?

I'm glad somebody asked me this as I have been dying to talk about it, on my own terms from my experience real time. From watching mothers sneak around corners and whisper about each other how they hate the taste of the other mother. "The other mother does not have as much money as we do." "We don't do things like this where I'm from!" etc., etc....so caddy and I love it! Venting with someone safe, staff, feels so wonderful and freeing.

Where I came from a wedding cost hardly anything, you had to run to the reception hall to get any of the shrimp, there was no booze, only punch, ham sliced with rolls and some cheese cubes. It lasted, thank God, about and hour and a half and you could return to your real life. O, I almost forgot, salted pecans always made a showing...usually there were plenty of those.

Now who pays for what, this life time? Most dads are coming home at 9 or 10 at night, leaving early to work, have tons of tax bills, other kids in college and any bride feels guilty asking for $130,000 cash, right now, for one event, one night! Who is nuts here? Welcome to my world...


Most of our weddings at Entertainment Design Events range in guest count of about 125 people and cost between $75K and $160K. All this depends much on the location and guest count, transportation needs, etc. This number is inclusive of all expenses, not just catering, but it does not include any clothes. The most expensive wedding we did was for 40 guests and cost 1.2 million, so there sometimes is no reason to the rules.


The best way to attack funding that I have seen in California, where wedding experiences include the 4 parties: Meet-N-Greet, Rehearsal Dinner, Wedding Ceremony/Reception, and Post Wedding Brunch, is to sit down with all those that are willing to participate financially and have a pow wow. It is important early in the game to see who is in and who is out. Those that are out may participate in other ways by giving of time and effort, just not funds.


When one family has much more money than the other, usually they will step in and shoulder 75% of the project, the other family will give 12.5 % and the kids (bride/groom) will give 12.5 %. That way everybody gets to participate and feel in the show. You can work these percentages any way you like I'm just giving an outline. The usual people that pay are everybody that can and stay comfortable.


I've also had various family members offer to pay for specific items, for example, a step-father to pay for the band/DJ/music. An aunt or Godmother pay for something like the cake. Mother-of-the-Groom to pay for all the flowers for the whole celebration. These can be really big numbers to cover and my God how generous of the donors to take on this responsibility.


Why you ask would anyone want to spend this kind of money on one night, just to show off or keep up with the Joneses? No. The reason people spend money on big parties is they want to celebrate and they understand the special joy it is to really find someone you want to spend your life with. They want to gather both clans so they are brought together, can get to know each other and form a support group for the new couple.


It is a night, a most special night, where old, young, sometimes babies, all can gather and see each other and friends look their best, get everyone in photos that last forever, and create memories that last even longer. We work and work and work, drudging in and out of our days. When we have something like a wedding to look forward to it is so exciting as well it should be. Other than a car or a house, what costs more? Little wonder there is so much stress, fighting, everyone wanting their part to fill the guest list.


One of Emily's most important lessons I learned was etiquette is something created so when we go places we don't know much about, we have a basic set of rules based on what makes others feel comfortable around us. Using common sense about what makes others comfortable you can most often not make big mistakes in society. Society, where would it be without parties and big weddings...

Budget - What Is It? Why Have One? Do I Die or Kill Somebody If I Break It?

One of the first few questions I ask my clients is, "Do you have a wedding date?" "Do you have a guest count?" "Do you know what time your celebration is going to start?"


Then, the stupid question. "What is your budget?" Well, the client either has a lot of money to spend so they don't want to be overcharged and won't tell me the real budget. Or, well...the client does not have a lot of money to spend and does not want to feel less than so they won't tell me the budget.


Well, that brings us right back to the stupid question of "What's your budget?" If I was a bride I would be thinking "Don't ask me what my budget is - just give me everything I want and I'll decide if I'm going to or even can pay for that!"


Budget is something to divest from emotionally; something that is necessary to think about from a project management standpoint. We have to grow up and and deal with it so you can move forward from some starting point.


Look at it like this...what kind of restaurant food do you want at your wedding experience? A $50 per person place like Cheesecake Factory? A $250 per person ritzo New York type place? Well, take that number and double it, add a field kitchen and rentals, a location, service charge and decor, so maybe the dinner price (3 courses - this is a wedding so go "all the way") should be times 4 per person.


So here we go, $50 turns into $200; $250 turns into $1,000.


That means a wedding dinner for 150 guests lower end is going to be about $30,000.00. It means a higher end would be about $150,000.00.


Now, let's go put our head in the sand, die, and get re-born male so somebody else can pay? No, just figure out a guest count, take a number between $50 and $250, multiply it times four, then times your guest count and start early! The earlier you start the less busy vendors are and they're hungry to book dates.


My advise is also to take twenty percent of your budget and hide it for mad money, as you know you are going to encounter things you can't live without. You need mad money to pay for that stuff with.


Now layout a listing of all the items you want at your wedding and get 2 or 3 quotes for everything and you will know what your realistic budget is going to be. Then you can move forward or cut your list back, or add more items depending on your outcome funding wise.


And as I said earlier, start early so you get the first pick of the crop, you have time to adjust and you can think without white knuckle gripping pressure. A budget is just a jumping off place to help begin planning and necessary. Don't be scared and be honest with your planner, it makes our job much easier. Then we don't want to charge as much cuz we're dealing with an angel.