Moving Day!

Finally, we're moving today. I can't wait until we're all unpacked and settled in ... while I don't like to pack things up, I do love to unpack and organize. I can't wait to set up the new Office for Anderson Green Events and get back into a routine.

Here is an image of the new building:



Our apartment has one of those lovely, large rounded arches as our enormous window in the living room with fantastic views. Ohh, I can't wait to see the sun setting from our couch!



(image from www.brokertales.com)

Summer Wedding Reception Inspiration

In anticipation of the big move tomorrow, I've been cleaning out magazines and files and came across several images that I will slowly be posting around here.

To me, the epitome of summer is: sunflowers. They just scream sunshine, happiness and energy. I can picture a wedding in a vineyard somewhere (perhaps Provence, France) where the vines are surrounded by fields of sunflowers, guests enjoy light and classic french provençial fare, sipping wine all the while sitting at picnic tables scattered around a garden with an old home in the background. What makes you think of summer?

Day Of Wedding Coordination: Misleading

For anyone whose ever had a consultation with me, they've heard this: I planned my own wedding, but I did hire a Day Of Coordinator. I wanted to be a bride that day and given the logistics of a tented reception during a hurricane, having an advocate there to act on my behalf was just invaluable. If I had to get married that day AND oversee all the logistics, I wouldn't have had as much fun as I did. Therefore, I can definitely provide a logical and personal opinion for hiring a Day Of wedding coordinator. My only issue with the "DOC" is that in fact, your planner isn't just there for the Day Of.

If your Day Of Coordinator literally showed up on the day of, it'd be chaos ... she/he wouldn't have any clue what was happening. When you hire a DOC, you're actually hiring someone for Month Of Coordination. Roughly 4 to 6 weeks prior to your wedding day, you will sit down with your wedding planner and go through all the vendor contracts and details that you've worked so diligently on. By doing this, your planner will get the full picture of how you want your wedding day to proceed. During this meeting you'll also start to construct the wedding day timeline (check out my past post on timelines). After a few weeks of editing/tweaking, the wedding timeline will be complete and your MOC will distribute it to the relevant vendors.

By hiring a Month Of Wedding Coordinator, you're ensuring that you and your soon to be will actually be guests at your wedding ~ something truly invaluable!

Join me on my mini crusade to educate the wedding world on the misnomer of the Day Of Wedding Coordinator!

End of May Wrap Up

Firstly, I can't believe its almost June. Where is 2009 going? We've got a few new york city weddings coming up that we're really excited about, a move into a new place and of course, Lulu's 2nd birthday. Its quite a few weeks ahead of us!

In honor of the fabu blogging workshop I attended yesterday, during the month of June, I'll be doing a Series called '30 Days: A Guide to Stressfree Wedding Planning '. It'll be focused on planning your wedding so that you won't stress out or get anxiety regardless of if you are getting married in 1 month or 12 months (or any time in between). For anyone whose met me, I am about as stress free a person you can come in contact with (I also have an abnormally low pulse ... my GP thinks these two things are correlated) and I strongly advocate that wedding planning doesn't have to be a nightmare for the bride, groom or the families. So, stay tuned for 30 Day of Tips.

Happy Planning!

Twitter!

Well ... after the most amazing day of workshops by The Smart Planner, and meeting some great wedding planners, photogs and stationers, I've joined Twitter! Follow along to see my escapades, experiences and general fun of working within the wedding industry in New York City!

Transitions ...

After a loooong week of searching for a new apartment for our little family, we found one! I can't believe we did (after looking at 25 apartments in one day ... I was losing hope). Just means that I need to start clearing out our over abundance of "stuff" and packing up.



Can't wait ... as soon as we're all moved in and organized, I'll post pics of the brand new Anderson Green Events office!

Not Your Traditional Welcome Bag ...

As most weddings are now 'mini vacations' for guests, couples are spending more time, money and effort into creating the most fabulous Welcome Bag. The contents of these bags range from personal (a postcard from the city personally written to welcome so and so to x, y and z city), to a custom map of the couples favorite haunts and activities, mini versions of the best foods and beverages the city has to offer and perhaps something iconic and representative of the location.

I've always loved travel guide books, the best ones don't just give you the usual suspects of a place (i.e. in NYC: The Statue of Liberty, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rockefeller Center (all amazing places btw)), but they give you hard to find restaurants, great walks where you'll see incredible places and amazing finds that even most locals don't know about. I've always enjoyed the Not For Tourists books because they do just that, but, there's a new player in town and I had to share:

Moleskine City Books

These books are customized by YOU! You can add in favorite places, specific types of maps, create itineraries, the works! Its a book to store everything you find that you want to try out when you travel. Genius! If your budget allows, it would be awesome to get one of these books (they currently stock 44 cities around the world) and customize them for your guests. Perhaps even create a treasure hunt to find the place where he proposed? The possibilities are endless ...

Buying in Bulk ...

While I have always been a huge fan of Costco and Target for everyday needs, turns out they are excellent places for wedding related items that look great and cost less. Stationery, favors, flowers, jewelry can all be had for much less than at higher end retailers. The drawback to buying in bulk is that you normally have to put in more effort into the DIY aspects of whatever project you take on using one of these super saver stores ... but labor is a small price to pay for letting your creativity and budget savvy win out!

Check out this fantastic article on SmartMoney about using Costco and Walmart for your every wedding need (I am also extremely thankful to be quoted in it!)

There are some great ideas in the article that you can certainly adapt to your wedding planning needs.

Sharing Information ...

As wedding celebrations have become larger and more detailed, so has the information that you need to convey to your guests. From out of town travel information, to directions, to fun weekend activities, your guests need to know alot. The best way to convey all of this information is to create a wedding website that includes all the pertinent information for the weekend celebrations and perhaps a few funny tidbits about the couple too! Along with your save the dates (if applicable), your wedding website is another glimpse into the style of the wedding, so make sure that it jives with the actual wedding day (i.e. if you've got a beach theme going, choose a beachy background for the page). These are all helpful hints to your guests about what to expect and how to dress.

How do you announce your newly created awesome website? A good place is the Save the Date card, you can just list the website discreetly on the card. Or, if you didn't do "STD's" then insert a card into the invitation with the information on it.

When we put together our Save the Dates with our wedding webpage on it, my mother's biggest concern was whether or not the older folks would be internet savvy enough to get all the information on the website ... we finally decided that they would be and that if not, they would probably call us anyways for the information and that was just fine!

If you want to peruse some wedding webpages, check out:
Wedding Window
Engage Page

Happy Webpaging!

Sponsored Post: Shubi Love

Finding the perfect gift for your bridesmaids is always hard ... you want to give your girls something meaningful, personal, and most importantly ~ something practical! When Soomean, one of the sisters of the Shubi Love duo contacted me, I fell in love! These shoe bags are not only incredibly practical, they are so chic. I personally always have two pairs of shoes with me - flip flops to run around Manhattan in, and heels to look professional in at meetings. With these shoe bags, you don't have to carry your shoes in unsightly plastic grocery bags, you can be trendy and discreet at the same time!

Being Unavailable ...

This topic is not directly related to weddings, but, is one that should be addressed. I had the pleasure or distress (depending on how you want to look at) of my blackberry have a run in with a glass of water ... and then death. This happened last night and I had to spend the better part of today sans any communication device ... which actually wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be. Yup, it was annoying to be without a map while searching for an AT&T store in NYC, but being able to walk around without my head buried into a small screen was actually really nice.

So, I invite all of you, brides or not to untether yourself for a day from your mobile devices and just enjoy everything is happening around you ... you may love being unavailable to all your vendors, bridal party and parents!

Going Postal ...

Just a friendly reminder that today the postage increases on standard 1st Class Stamps. It increases from 42¢ to 44¢, and ps: all other postage increases too.

If you're sending out invites with RSVP return dates later than today, make sure you have the increased postage on the return envelopes. The only stamps that are staying the same (i.e. no additional postage needed) are the FOREVER stamps for 1 ounce envelopes. So if you've got those, stamps away!

For more information, check out the USPS website.

R & R

We are off to South Beach Miami for the weekend! Have a great weekend!

Let Them Eat Cake!

I have a massive sweet tooth, which is why I love the cake tasting portion of the planning process. While I normally tell couples to limit themselves to meeting with three different vendors in each "category" ... I put no such restrictions on cake makers. Every baker you meet brings something different to the kitchen, whether its design, or process or secret ingredients. You want to be very sure that you've exhausted all your potential cake makers before you pick the most perfect balance of frosting to filling.

Go into every tasting with an empty stomach. Be open minded to trying all sorts of flavors ... I personally don't like anything coconut, but have recently been swayed in the other direction. Make sure that you mix and match your cakes with the different frosting. Ask questions about what works better together, how many fillings you can have, what designs they've done. Bring images and ideas. Tell them your theme of the day, or if you love x,y, and z or hate something. Bakers are like fashion designers, they are creative, intuitive and most times will dream up a cake that encompasses all your wildest dreams.

When it comes down to getting pricing based off your taste selections, keep in mind that even if you have 800 people to the wedding, you don't need a 10 tier cake. You can always do something smaller and elegant and then have a sheet cake in the back (which is always less expensive by the slice). Trust me, no guest will know that their slice came from the non displayed cake. Just be sure you order enough cake for all. (To me, running out of cake is akin to running out of alcohol ... not allowed!)

Happy Tasting!


(I don't remember where I found this, but I LOVE IT)

Changes!

Just wanted to share some of the news that is going on behind the scene here at Anderson Green Events! Due to some goings on in my personal life, our Philadelphia office is now closed. This doesn't mean that we won't travel to Philly for weddings, it just means that we won't have an office in the city of Brotherly Love any longer.

In lieu of this news, I ordered some new business cards today from Etsy! I can't wait until they arrive.

And without further ado, back to wedding planning!

Getting Married? Getting Healthy ...

More often than not, brides want to shape up and tone (and possibly shed some pounds) before the big day. It's not an entirely absurd proposition as long as you are doing it for the right intentions ... long term health benefits, starting off your marriage on the healthy foot, or just looking damn good on your wedding day! I lost some weight but not as much as I wanted for the wedding (I'm not like other people who lose lots when they stress out, I pack it on), my motivation though wasn't look amazing in my dress (that was going to happen regardless ... haha!) but I really wanted to be committed to being healthy in my marriage. With obesity on the rise in the US and portion sizes larger than most NYC apartments these days, its actually getting harder to eat healthy if you don't eat at home. Its also getting harder to find healthy foods around that don't contain 100% chemical garbage in them. What's great is that people are starting to take back their health and be aware of what they are ingesting! Farmer's Markets are popping up everywhere, and if you're like me, warmer weather makes you more inclined to eat the good for you stuff and less cookies (right?).

I got an email today about this brand new book called: Clean Plates NYC. It looks amazing and is perfect for the NYC bride who wants to begin to be healthier. Check out their website!



Here's to happy, healthy eating!