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!
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!
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what kind of bride hires a wedding planner?
photo credit: studio b photography
Like with many of the different aspects of the wedding business, there are some serious misconceptions of what type of people hire wedding planners. The idea that these people may not have minds of their own or are incredibly disorganized cannot be further from the truth.
In the past six years of running an event planning business, I can only count on one hand where we had a few brides that were “challenged” in being organized and understanding the whole process. For some people, managing the sheer volume of details is very over-whelming. That does not make them inept; we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
99%t of our clients are Type-A personalities. They understand what they want, highly organized, accomplished, driven people who want to be intimately involved in planning their wedding but also really love to have an unbiased, third party input to bounce ideas around.
They are not weak. They are not mindless. They are not ladies/men who want to be led around. Instead they look at their wedding day as a financial investment in beginning their life together. And so, while spending their hard-earned money on professional caterers, cake designers, florists, photographers, videographers, or entertainment, they also understand the need for an event professional to pull all of this together so they don’t have to work or worry on their big day.
We have services that are Wedding Day Management (you plan your wedding, we are involved the last month and on the wedding day), Partial and Full Service Planning (we help along the way and we are there on your wedding day). With all of these services, we are simply implementing THEIR plans. NOT “our” plans.
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follow a real wedding on twitter
Today, Saturday, August 2, 2008 you can follow a wedding planner and intern for a real wedding of Katie Thomas and Andy Hermann.
Sign up for free on twitter.com (it’s fun) and follow us here! Or you can read the small box on the side of the blog, but that really is half the fun.
Gotta run to the country club! See you online!
Read More »love your wedding planner
This is me with my bride, Brittany (Burris) Lear and her mother Dana.
We had such a fun time planning this wedding!
Our special series of “loving your wedding vendors” is wrapped up today with last, but not least (what did you expect)….
Today we are going to talk about your wedding planner.
If you have hired a wedding planner to help you with your wedding, you get what we do. It’s so much more than picking out colors, loading gifts, or cutting the cake; we are there for you and all the other vendors to help create a memorable day.
Reasons why you should love your wedding planner?
- They have a “game face” that is almost invincible. You’ll never see them sweat.
- They mediate between the other vendors when problems arise (so you don’t have to). And they arise. Frequently.
- Planners are your buffer to problems that you don’t want to deal with (especially on your wedding day), they shield you.
- Your planner will look out for your best interest even when it comes to dealing with your family.
- It is physically demanding work, a 3 day wedding weekend can mean 22-33 hours on their feet. Still, service is done with a smile.
- They work under extreme pressure at times and take very seriously that there are no “do-overs” on your big day.
- If you only knew how much sheer running around and fast-paced it is behind the scenes. Planners do that for you….your friends may not.
- Your planner truly cares about your wedding day and making sure you have all your personal touches and special moments that mean something to you. You want your planner to take that kind of “ownership” because the passion is there. (This is NOT the same thing as taking over your day and making it her own).
Behind the scenes:
One time we had to wait for the mother of the bride to make the “rain call” while we watched it pouring down rain on the ceremony location. We had already implemented the backup plan; but never told her. Instead we waited patiently for her to give the okay out of respect (but the plan was already in motion).
At another wedding the bartenders did not bring champagne with them for the toast. We told the groom (who didn’t tell the bride) and we ran out to the local liquor store to buy more.
When our DJ’s building burned down the night before the wedding, we spoke with the parents of the bride but never told her about it. It would have stressed her out way too much. She found out at the end of her reception.
We don’t tell our brides/grooms when their family members are rude to us. Weddings bring out the best and worst in people. We realize that it is human nature that people will take out their anger on someone else (hired help) instead of the person it is really directed towards. We take it and move on.
We keep your information confidential; for instance when you don’t want to tell your mom that you’re pregnant before the wedding. Or how you really can’t stand your birth-father who has suddenly decided to show up at your wedding with his new girlfriend.
We are the bad guys at the wedding for you! We remove wedding crashers and asking guests to move when they have not RSVP’d and are sitting at a family table. But we also look out for your guests making sure the girls who had a little too much to drink make it down the stairs and into a car with a designated driver.
Bottom line: your wedding planner is as committed and passionate about your wedding as you are. So for that reason and many more, you should LOVE your wedding planner.
We hope that you have enjoyed this series of loving your wedding vendors. They (we) work hard for you, very hard. Sure there are mistakes, we are all human. We’ve all read, experienced or heard about wedding “disasters”. It’s more important to look at a person’s intent and what they did to fix the problem for a positive outcome.
Thanks everyone for the emails and comments…this series has been well received!
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