wedding
wish upon a wedding
Pleased to let our readers be aware of a new non-profit organization that will be helping people who are terminally ill. I’m so pleased to announce/promote:
Wish Upon A Wedding was founded in San Francisco, CA, in January of 2010, by a group of wedding and business entrepreneurs and is America’s FIRST nonprofit wedding wish granting organization, producing weddings and civil union ceremonies at destinations across the United States for individuals facing terminal illness, regardless of sexual orientation.
Chapters:
Wish Upon A Wedding is now boasting twenty chapters nationwide, headed by some of the industry’s most renowned leaders with plans to expand to over 40 chapters worldwide.
Presidents:
Sasha Souza, National President & SF Bay Area President
Kevin Covey, LA/Orange County
Stella Inserra, New York
Ivy Robinson, The Carolinas
Eliana Baucicault, Atlanta
Mary Alice Sublett, Tennessee
Mark Kingsdorf, Philadelphia
Heather Hamilton Sims, Houston
Elisa Delgardio, Orlando
Ali Phillips, Chicago
Daniela Isabella Ferdico Fagét, Seattle
Forming Additional Chapters:
Other chapters opening soon include Boston, Colorado, Arizona, Portland, Miami, St. Louis, Ohio and Nevada. We are also planning to open to chapters in other areas depending on need including international chapters. If you wish to start a chapter, please fill out the online form for consideration.
Who Is Behind Wish Upon A Wedding?
Many influential people in the industry are beginning to endorse Wish Upon A Wedding & you can find those endorsements on the website. There are also amazing people sitting on the Boards and Advisory Panel throughout the US such as Dana Larue Stiebel “Broke-Ass Bride” {LA Chapter PR Chair}, Leila Khalil {National PR Advisor}, Beth Helmstetter {National Outreach Director} just to name a few. They would love to have you join as well either as a board member or wish granter!
How We Grant Wishes:
To qualify for Wishes, applicants must be unmarried legal citizens of the United States, over the age of 18, who have been diagnosed with less than three years to live. Couples can be granted wishes either in the chapter where they live or in a chapter of their choosing as long as they are able to make the trip.
Couples can simply apply online to request one of three wedding types:
URGENT (Up to 10 guests, in hospital or at bedside);
BOUTIQUE (up to 25 guests, in home town of applicant);
ROMANTIC (Up to 50 guests, at any WUW destination)
How Can You Grant Wishes?
As the organization is building, Wish Granters are needed in all locations. Please apply online today to start helping Wedding Wishes come true. In two weeks, Wish Upon A Wedding will be granting the very first wish. To read more about that wish and the couple please visit the website.
Please use this info on your own blog and during the course of this week…if you have the time and the room on your blog this week.
It will help build a network of very important people in this industry whose main goal is to help these very deserving couples. After all, if you are in the business of creating lifetime memories, we are now asking you to help us create memories for those who are left behind because these couples do not have a lifetime together.
a happy mother of the bride
I usually don’t post these in my blog content (well in the kudos section), but I received this lovely email from a Mother of the Bride at 12:15am this morning. (And a similar email happened to my planner friend, Emilie Duncan).
Maddy + Gregg’s wedding was yesterday and it was fantastic. Small, intimate and lovely. What was personal for me was that Maddy’s father passed away few years ago, so we were extra sensitive to this issue, but we still felt that he was there in spirit.
This is the email:
Saundra,
Mere words cannot say how terrific I think you are. You made it all come together perfectly for one of the best weddings my family and I as well as our guests have ever attended. This day would not have been as happy and stress free without you. I know from a professional standpoint we were pretty small potatoes, but I could see how much you love what you do, and I am so grateful for you accepting us as your clients. You absolutely ROCK. I know I was a skeptic a year ago, but change makes believers, and I am absolutely your biggest fan.
Thank you again for putting all the special touches in to this happy happy day. You kept my baby and me smiling and worry free. You can add us to your list of references prospective clients can call and I will sing your praises from the rooftops. It was an A HA day all the way.
Warmest and heartfelt regards,
Stephanie Heine
Heart you both back!
wedding details :: napkins
Might sound silly, but a huge pet peeve of ours is how your napkin is folded on the table. It’s a detail that is often overlooked.
Your venue coordinator or caterers may suggest napkin folds like this:
photo credit: napkin folding guide
The pyramid, fan or bishop hat napkin fold should never see your wedding reception. And anything stuck in a glass goblet. These napkin folds are for business meetings, not your beautiful wedding.
However, if you get too creative on the fold, your caterer may not have the staff to implement a challenging fold for 300 guests. Remember too, that you have to use a stiffer 100% cotton napkin for some folds, which isn’t always what caterer’s carry. So be sure to check into that before you decide on a particular fold.
However it doesn’t have to be that difficult. Take a look what we’ve created at some of our weddings:
first 2 photos: studio b and 3rd photo: walker studio
The first photo, the bride Katie, decided to come in the day before the wedding with her bridesmaids and moms, and we hand tie bows/menus on each napkin. Definitely made a beautiful display on the table.
The second photo, the bride, Brittany, really wanted to have charger plates, however since we were having petits fours on the table it would have been too cluttered. I love this fold that drapes off the table. It gives a great presentatin and it’s easy to implement.
The final photo is our bride, Christy, really wanted silver chargers on the table. The table presentation was full, so in this instance it was better to go with a simple napkin fold and not take away from the decor.
What are you going to do with your napkins?
make a grand entrance to your wedding
Getting introduced into your wedding reception is a tradition that we LOVE to keep. It’s obvious you both are the guests of honor and it’s proper to make that recognition.
Here’s a couple of ideas:
- Let your wedding party go into the reception and start the party. Only you and your groom will be introduced into the wedding reception. It’s quick, clean and easy.
- Consider being introduced about half way into your cocktail party. Why miss all the fun?
- Make a real splash and do something fun and funky (but safe too). Like our clients Amanda and Brian. They had a super fun wedding party that were doing impromptu dancing and lots of fun antics. Amanda turned to my intern, Aubree, and asked, “What should we do?” Aubree suggested that Brian put Amanda on his shoulder….before the next beat, up she went!
photo credit: walker studio
What a fabulous entrance that made a great photo and the audience totally whooped it up!
So how will you enter your wedding reception?
caught on tape
Sometimes even we have a little fun at weddings. Caught late at night at last week’s wedding, my soon-to-be-fired assistant, Carol, sneaked up and caught me on video. {EDIT: I was joking about firing Carol}
Also caught on tape….
… please vote for my aha moment! You DO NOT HAVE to register, it only takes a moment. Thanks!
weird wedding mishaps:
As you know, many things can go wrong at weddings. MANY things. In the past years we have had many crazy mishaps that have happened, here’s just a few to mention:
- Recently we had a wedding party introduction that was done to a meticulously timed music intro. The groom was pretty proud of putting it together in advance. One of the bridesmaids introduced unfortunately FELL during the intro and dislocated her knee. When I say dislocated, her knee was facing the WRONG direction. She laid their screaming in pain (don’t blame her a bit) and there was a guest that is a chiropractor, he came and popped her knee back in place. The 2nd photographer shooter however, was totally grossed out and she fainted and hit her head. Update: the bridesmaid has to have surgery to fix her knee.
- A 2 year old flower girl walked down the aisle and then was taken outside by her father, because obviously she wasn’t going to be quiet during the ceremony. She was given a piece of candy, which she promptly started choking on. After about 45 seconds of her not breathing, which seems like an eternity, the candy popped out. Paramedics came to make sure she was okay. Bride never found out until the next morning.
- A bride, MOMENTS before she was to walk down the aisle, had her beaded trim along her veil break. The sound of beads hitting the floor was like a BB gun shooting off. A bridesmaid quickly grabbed it to stop the slew of beads falling and we sewed it up so she could make her wedding without her veil coming undone down the aisle.
- At the same wedding (bride with the veil), a groomsman was standing at the front of the altar and apparently locked his knees. While it didn’t seem overly warm in the church, his body temperature shot up. He fainted. Like a tree, straight over during the ring exchange.
- We planned a beautiful outdoor reception at a private residence. The bride, abhorred tents, it was not a money issue. After the guests sat down and was served salad, we check the Doppler radar system and realized that we would be seeing rain … like soon. At this point, there is no rain plan, it’s too late. I alerted the groom and we moved up the toasts and the first dances. The skies opened up and we had “sky to ground” lightening with quarter size hail. Needless to say, the guests took cover. The rain did stop and we ate, only to have the skies open up again with a good steady stream. The band’s cords were submerged under water, however, we gave the band’s “tip money” to the sound engineer and he stayed and played his personal iPod. The evening was so much fun with impromptu dancing and a sing-a-long by a guest playing the piano.
- On the eve of one of our weddings, our DJ’s establishment caught fire. The DJ was working late inside the building but made it out okay. He called the fire department, his boss and then us. We had another DJ lined up within one hour and only told the mother of the bride. The outcome was the DJ was able to make the wedding with all his equipment and the reception took place without anyone knowing the wiser. Including the bride, who was told at the very end of the evening.
Oh there is a lot more… perhaps a follow up post at a later date?
Moral of the story? No matter how much you plan, no matter how many times you call a vendor to confirm, no matter how much you want your day to go (ahem) “perfect”… life has a plan of its own. Roll with the punches and enjoy your wedding day.
What were your wedding mishaps?
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