2009 Wedding Lessons Learned: Being a Smart Bride

2009 Wedding Lessons Learned

I was fortunate enough to be trusted with the wedding planning of a dear friend's older sister. My friend called me just after Christmas last year and said "My sister just got married and she wants to get married in eight months. Please tell me it isn't possible!". Much to my friend's horror, I said yes, its possible. For some couples a shorter engagement just works better. But, it only works well though if you are a decisive bride and a decisive groom. Since you have less time to gather information and ideas, you need to be willing to act quickly to make decisions. {That being said, never ever rush a decision or act impulsively, just recognize that you can't mull over things for months on end}

We did plan their wedding in just under eight months and it was fabulous. The lessons that I learned from this bride have forever changed the way that I will plan weddings - her organization of time management was simply incredible. She is a busy woman with a very fast paced career and she knew that out of the roughly eight months we'd be planning the wedding that she would be away at trial for two months {two separate trips of one month each} which meant that when she was in town that her focus needed to be on her job and the wedding. Her fiance also has a busy career but she stressed to him how helpful it would be to her if he could pick up some of the slack whilst she was away. She trusted his judgement completely and for the aspects that the groom and I worked together on, he was a delight!

What this bride taught me was that time management skills really are an art and a lifestyle. We made appointments very far in advance, I kept her on track with extensive to do lists and cut information down from vendors into slices of concise and to the point offerings. By keeping each task small and manageable, she was able to plan the entire wedding with 3 months left to spare before the day. As we got closer, all we had left to deal with was details that were dependent on RSVP's. I was thoroughly impressed with her ability to look over information, process it and make a decision and stick to it. No waffling, no wavering - just trusting herself and her groom that the day was going to be fabulous no matter if they did a candy bar or not {we did!}.

As my mother always tells me "The early bird catches the worm" ... when it comes to Wedding Planning - have a clear timeline, keep focused and remember to trust your decisions and your vendors.

A very thankful Thanksgiving this year

Despite my mild shock that 2010 is only five weeks away and that my birthday looms ahead, I want to wish you, dear readers, the Happiest of Thanksgivings. I hope that you have a relaxing and yummy holiday.

Since it is the day of all days to show your gratitude and thankfulness, I thought I'd list a few of things that I am thankful for this year:

My family {and that fact that we're all relatively healthy}

My amazing Frenchies, Lulu & Max who teach me everyday not to take life too seriously

My wonderful friends who are always there to listen

My amazing clients who allow me to be apart of one of the most important days of their lives

And lastly, I am thankful have lots of love in my life - from many different sources!


{via Martha Stewart}

2009 Wedding Lessons Learned: An Effective Day Of Coordinator

2009 Wedding Lessons Learned

I will start this post off with a bit of clarity - a Day Of Coordinator isn't just for the Day Of. It is the worst description ever. If I was truly just a Day Of Coordinator - I would literally know nothing and show up on the wedding day and try to figure out what was going on. So, since that isn't the case, I refer to "DOC" as Month Of Coordination, as we would together for the month before the wedding to educate the planner on what you've planned, create a timeline, do a site visit to ensure that your "Day Of" Coordinator is clued into everything that you envisioned happening.

I find that most brides that hire a Month Of Coordinator do so because they want a smooth, flawless day. They realize that they want an insurance policy that has their best interest at heart {trust me, the in-house coordinator at your venue does not have your best interest at heart - they are on the side of the venue} and who will go above and beyond to make sure that your wedding day goes off without a hitch {or at least hide the hitches}. Therefore, in order to make your Month Of Coordinator work effectively - please give them all the information they need for your wedding day. Every contract, every bit of expectations, every vendor {no matter how insignificant} should be handed over for your coordinator to run through and get educated. To be honest, I am not reading your contracts trying to figure out how much money you spent, I am reading them to make sure that I know what has been promised to you by the vendor.

The lesson learned here is that you, the bride, need to tell your coordinator everything! I had a near unfortunate incident this year when a bride failed to mention that she was having an ice luge delivered for the wedding. Well, not that an ice luge was a big deal, but she never told me, the venue, the catering firm and the irony of all ironies, she had chosen a beverage package that didn't include vodka {apparently the ice luge drink of choice} ... which meant that the waitstaff had to scramble to rustle up some vodka and we had to re-arrange the room layout to accommodate the ice luge. Obviously everything got sorted out, but it set the vendors back in their timeline. Had I known about this element, I would have prepared everyone for it. Clearly, the bride didn't appreciate what else went into having an ice luge. So please, inform and educate your Month Of Coordinator.

Green Family Photos!

The husband, dogs and I were so lucky that Spencer Lum of 5West Studios had some time to do a family photo shoot with us a few weeks ago in the West Village. Check out some of the family:






I know that I completely biased, but seriously, my dogs, Lulu & Maxwell are insanely cute.

2009 Wedding Lessons Learned: The Out of Control Guest

Series: 2009 Wedding Lessons Learned

Weddings are a joyous and celebratory occasion ~ its only natural that drinking and celebrating have become two peas in a pod. I've encountered many a overzealous guests in my time and nine out of ten times, they are completely fine and harmless, just enjoying themselves and the open bar. The times though when a guest has one too many and becomes a liability, it puts your vendors in a very awkward position of being bouncers.

The particular wedding in which I am referring to, one guest made it her mission to be incredibly inebriated {at one point I thought she had been hazed, that's how bad it was}. She was seen in the hotel bar drinking for two hours prior to the ceremony, which meant that she was trouble from the beginning. {Don't get me wrong, I am all for having a few drinks here and there, but being sloppy and slurring before 3PM is just well, sloppy) She proceeded to spend the entire wedding either drinking more or harassing all the vendors. The bride kept insisting that she was fine, but her behavior was actually very detrimental to the service providers, never mind that we were on a rooftop and I kept having the most horrible visions ... the final nail in the coffin came when she made an unsolicited speech during dinner that was well, a once in a lifetime experience to hear. The bride was so hurt she left the dinner and I was put in the position of having to remove this guest from the wedding. Its not a role that I want to put in, but I will when the guest is ruining the celebratory atmosphere.

If you know before the wedding that certain persons are going to take things too far with alcohol, give your vendors the heads up. We have seen it all, but if we know who to watch for in the beginning, we can cater things so that theirs and yours night doesn't end up badly.

2009 Wedding Lessons Learned: Post Wedding - Dealing with Issues

Series: 2009 Wedding Lessons Learned

Every bride assumes that her wedding will go smoothly and seamlessly. And almost all do. Some minor snafu here and there may arise, but its normally dealt with very quickly and has no lasting affect. I, myself, endured such a thing on my own wedding day when our cocktail tent which was attached to the side of the house, came crashing down 1 hour before cocktails and pulled off most of the side of the house. I was very lucky to only find out about this weeks after the wedding and even luckier that my day of coordinator dealt with it and got the issue fixed before guests arrived.

Enough about my wedding, getting back to a 2009 lesson learned - at one of our weddings this year, the bride had carefully chosen with the florist these beautiful silk lamps to complement the short centerpieces. When the room set up was complete, the room did look amazing and the lampshades were lit up with candles. Unfortunately, right before the first dance, several of these silk lampshades went up in flames. It wasn't out of control or dramatic, but it did ruin the look of the table since we had to pull the burnt ones off the table and extinguish the candles in the ones that hadn't burned yet. The bride was not fussed and glad that we were able to remedy the situation quickly. The issue only really got out of hand when the florist arrived at evenings end and claimed that we were lying. It was evident that the shades had burned, but she still refused to believe us. In fact, she charged the bride to replace them. It became a match of she said / she said and it left a sour taste in both my mouth and the brides mouth.

The bride and I were left with repeatedly calling and explaining what had happened. We checked with the videographer in the hopes that they had caught it on film {sadly, not}. It took lots and lots of persistence to finally get the florist to see that it was simply just an accident. My bride was left with a poor impression of the florist because of the way she had handled the situation. Not exactly how she wanted to end things.

The lesson learned here is that things will happen on your wedding day that are out of your control, but that dealing with them quickly post wedding will give you a better lasting impression of that vendor ~ positive referrals speak volumes versus ending the relationship with a spat.

2009 Wedding Lessons Learned: Contracts & Honesty

Series: 2009 Wedding Lessons Learned

Our 2009 wedding season started out with a huge lesson to be learned. I've discussed this topic frequently here on the blog, but it needs to be said over and over again. GET CONTRACTS FROM ALL YOUR VENDORS! No matter how involved your vendor may or may not be on the wedding, get their services and pricing in writing and have it signed by yourself and the vendor. A contract, above and beyond making things binding, is a guaranteed way to ensure that you get the service that you believe you are paying for on the wedding day, from the person you believe it is being provided by.

This lesson learned was learned by my client the hard way, when she learned 3 days before the wedding day that whom she believed was her hairdresser for the big day actually was scheduled elsewhere. I had insisted to the bride that she get a contract from the salon, but she assured me that the salon was professional and had everything together. Turns out, they just wanted her money and were prepared to leave my bride and bridal party out in the cold. We were fortunate enough to have time to fix the situation once we found out that the salon was backing out, but what if we hadn't had time?

Please please please, get contracts from everyone involved in your wedding day. If you've hired a coordinator, we want to see every last contract {including, yes, the ice sculpture being delivered} to ensure that you get what you paid for.

Series: 2009 Wedding Lessons Learned

As promised, over the next few weeks I'll be posting a new series called "2009 Wedding Lessons Learned". After each wedding that I am apart of, I sit down and write a debriefing. This debrief includes what I thought went well, what I thought went poorly, as well as reactions and feedback from my clients. While it would be naive to say that every wedding goes 100% smoothly and that there are no errors, being behind the scenes means that I get to see the good, the bad and the ugly. I decided to write this series to help you, the brides and grooms and vendors out there as a way so that we can get closer to 100% perfection. Vendors see ALOT in this industry and every idea that's out there that you may want to include may not always be the most successful or appropriate for your wedding. I will aim to deconstruct as much as possible from what I have seen at each of the weddings I was apart of this year to ensure that you get the big picture!

If you have any comments or questions, please do ask!