Category Archives: sassy saundra

thoughts on the royal wedding…

It’s five days to the wedding of the century, Prince William and Kate Middleton … and we are looking forward to seeing these nuptials. Unfortunately our RFP to be the official wedding planner, was turned down. Or rather completely ignored.

Big Announcement:

If you are a local Evansville/Owensboro resident be sure to tune into WTVW Fox 7 AM Evansville to watch the Royal Wedding live (4am) and then at 7:15am where I will co-host, live, with Lauren Matter for a wedding wrap up! It will be good times, for sure!

This wedding will be so different from Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding. Let’s face it, we pretty much watched that wedding and consistently asked ourselves, “How did this old dude land this beautiful girl?” I am still convinced it was pretty much an arranged marriage.

That’s why this wedding is going to be so lovely.  William and Kate are “young”. They met at University, fell in love, both are adorable and it will be exciting to watch them together. After the untimely death of Princess Diana, Britain could use a pick-me-up.

And whether you care about the Royal Wedding or not, it will affect the wedding industry with trends and design. You can practically hear the knock-off designers sharpening their pencils right now in preparation to sketch Kate’s dress as she walks down the aisle. Let’s see, she is married on a Friday, I expect to be able to buy her dress on the black market by Monday.

So yes, I will watch this fairy tale unfold, because watching two people in love commit to each other is what we do, every weekend. This one just has a little more pomp and circumstance!

Catch you on Friday! I’ll be the one on TV with bags under my eyes from getting up at 4am!

happy birthday, dear blog…

Today is our planning…forever events blog 5th birthday. Which in blogging years that’s about 35 years.

Now with so many wedding bloggers, it can be over stimulating to say the least. But I embrace them all! Because every reader wants something different.

Here’s our blogging philosophy:

1. We love to show photos from our REAL weddings first, before scraping another photo.
2. Humor will always be used. Because planning weddings isn’t curing cancer.
3. Keep it real. What else?
4. REAL tips that you can use to help your wedding go smoother.
5. Always provide general info and wedding goodness for people that live in our Tri State area. We love looking at outdoor, rustic, weddings set for 40 people in the wine country. But that is hard to translate here in our hot, humid summers.
6. We love a little controversy and tongue in cheek. See #2.
7. Shorter the posts, the better.
8. We don’t do inspiration boards. It’s not our thing. There are enough bloggers that do it better than we would.
9. It’s not a necessity to blog every single day, or a three day week schedule. Instead, when there is something to say then … here comes a blog post.
10. We love comments and wish you would more often.

Thank you for reading, dear reader. We puffy heart you.

p.s. Tomorrow there will be some super cool news that we want to share with you!

p.p.s. Is it suppose to be p.p.s. or p.s.s. ? I think the former.

Plan on!

lie to your wedding vendor?

I’ve got a bee in my bonnet. (and apparently I’m a 150 years old by using that phrase).

Surfing the Internets I found this (ahem) gem of a post (by an author, I can only assume is NOT a wedding professional) suggesting to brides to LIE to their vendors to get better deals on their wedding…. (her quote)

“…when dealing with certain vendors I have a better word that gives you, the bride/groom, more wiggle room: LIE.”

Let’s let that sink in for a moment. Nobody likes to be deceived. Not brides. And NOT vendors.

People believe that if the word “wedding” is attached to products/services that it will cost you more money.

There is some truth to that, but you have delve further for clarification. WHY?

Weddings are as unique as the bride and groom. They are intensely more important than your average party. Therefore, expectations run high, as well as labor and materials to create your vision. Specific materials are requested. Therefore, so may the cost of your products/services be increased. You have to compare apples to apples.

Does this make sense?

What this author so ineptly missed was that ordering the exact same flowers that sit in a vase (for a corporate lunch centerpiece) IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the exact same flowers put together in a bridal bouquet that will not fall apart a few hours into photos.

Are we really comparing the two? I think I’m being punk’d.

It’s called LABOR, EXPERIENCE and additional MATERIAL. It’s much more than just, (author’s quote, wait for it)..

“The only difference is how the flowers are held together”.

No kidding. If you could see my face.

There is an art to creating a wedding bouquet of flowers. Stems need to be wired together, floral tape strategically used (so it doesn’t show) to keep the bouquet from falling apart. And the most important thing, it takes labor, experience and material. When running a business, these things are not free.

Would you want to come to work for your employer on an 8 hour shift and then only be paid for 6 hours? Um, no.

There are more flaws in her theories to saving money with regards to limo companies. If you ran a limo company, you would have to charge a minimum of hours (standard in this area is two hours). Put it this way, would you want your wedding limo making another run while you are getting married? What if there is traffic? What if you want to leave the church early? Poof! No limo. Not going to fly at a wedding. Not when you have other vendors (photographer, videographer, catering, DJ) on the clock waiting for the bride and groom.

Finally, (as if this cannot get anymore epic) when she targeted cake bakers, (I prefer cake designers). What type of scary wedding cake is she suggesting?

“Have a half sheet placed on top of a full sheet and decorate away. It will come out costing less than the full scale wedding cake and you’ll get just as many ooohs and aaahs.”

On what planet will that get “ooohs and aaahs”? A two layer sheet cake that is abnormal in size? Ever try to put together a four tier wedding cake? You want to talk about labor, experience and material … I’ve DEALT WITH the tilted DIY wedding cakes that we had to cut early or the guests would be scooping their dessert off the floor.

Please, please, please, PLEASE KNOW…

Wedding vendors work tirelessly for your wedding. While weddings may be a “billion dollar industry”, one or two vendors are not making that kind of money. While there are some unscrupulous wedding vendors out there (what industry doesn’t have those jerks). The majority of us aren’t out to gauge, lie or steal from you. We make a living and help you achieve a beautiful day to remember.

Oh, and we work our a$$es off doing it.

You can read her full article here.

ps If you liked this article then please Tweet about it or Comment below. Cannot wait to hear from you.

blocking hotel rooms for your wedding guests…

You are planning a wedding and anticipate a lot of out of town guests. As a host of your wedding, it’s nice to be able to “block rooms” with local hotels so that your guests will: 1. Know where to stay that is convenient to the location of your wedding reception and 2. Take advantage of a reduced rate.

Great.

The challenge arises that most people do not know how hotels operate. They are in it to make money. Blocking TOO MANY rooms thinking that all your out of town guests will come, does not help the hotel … make money. They frown upon that idea.

So here are few quick tips when blocking rooms:

• Do not over estimate the amount of rooms you may need. You can always go over the block, but it can get sticky when you go way under.
• Negotiate the cut off date for the room block. Some hotels it is 30 days in advance (period). This is because they can fill ALL their rooms every single weekend at a full rate.
• Tell your family to book their rooms early. Don’t want to miss the reduced rate you negotiated.
• Read the contract carefully. Does it say that YOU have to pay for rooms that aren’t booked by guests? It shouldn’t.
• Do not expect the hotel to be able to block all the rooms on the same floor. I understand that this is convenient for you, but with so many other public people booking rooms, this is often a request that a hotel cannot guarantee.
• Talk to someone LOCALLY at the specific hotel. Do not leave it up to a customer service representative from a 800 number. The information will not trickle down. Seriously. NOT trickle down to the local hotel.
• Check, Double Check and then Check again. Again, statistically with so many employees of the hotel, it is very likely there will be confusion and mistakes. So always, always … double check.

I learned of a horror story of a wedding that my favorite hair stylist was a part of in Louisville. While there were many problems along the way, the short story is: on the day of the wedding (while the family was AT THE RECEPTION), their rooms were booked to the public. The hotel staff took all their belongings, dumped them into trash bags and left their stuff at the front desk. Thinking, they simply did not “check out”. They strolled in at midnight with no rooms, wadded up clothing and feeling helpless.

*sigh*

Should I mention this wedding did not have a wedding planner? I suppose there is no need.

ps You can see more about this subject and about how increased gas prices may effect your wedding on today’s Fox 7 Wedding Planner. Do you watch? It’s on every Wednesday at 6:55 am!

official wedding planners for the bachelor ABC 25

Okay… We are not the official wedding planners for the show ABC The Bachelor, but we could be. Here are the requirements:

• Full payment for our services (which are non-refundable) and are required at the end of The Final Rose ceremony. No exceptions.
• Mandatory full psychiatric testing to ensure that you are indeed, of sound mind. Although you actually being on the show would prove the opposite.
• You will agree to not have the wedding outside, even for TV ratings like The Bachelor Jason and Molly’s wedding. Saying your vows in the rain is only cute if you’re wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
• Whomever cancels the wedding agrees to spend a year with the Unicef organization donating your time to the underprivileged women and children in Guinea, Africa. Those people actually have problems and challenges. Perhaps this will give your life, a much needed perspective.