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Tracey

Your Dream Wedding: Fashion & Fantasy 2012

Your Dream Wedding:

Fashion & Fantasy 2012

Presented by

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Marriott Executive Park
Charlotte

6:30 PM-9:30 PM
Guest Speaker
Tiffany Nieves-Cook

CEO, Dream Design Weddings
and star of  WeTV’sPlatinum Weddings

Come see the latest trends and  fashions, as we present a glittering, shimmering evening showcasing  bridal gowns and thematic décor.

Learn how to make your dream wedding uniquely yours. Your dream wedding inspirations are expected to include these themes:
*Vintage *Modern *Traditional *Southern *Platinum
*Destination *Jewish *Indian *Fun & Funky

Tickets start at just $10.00
and include viewing of inspirational design spaces, hors d'ouevres, dessert tastings, drawing for great prizes, fashion show and advice from Tiffany!  A cash bar will also be available.

For registration information, go to our NAWP Event sitehttp://conta.cc/wFuCpV 

or find us on Facebook:  www.facebook.com/NAWPCharlotte

No Fail Strategies to Survive A Bridal Show

Feature Article

by Tracey Baxter

Throwing bunches of wedding professionals together in one place should make it easy for anyone getting married to find their preferred pros for everything from bridal fashions to wedding stationary. It seems like a no-brainer: as a bride to be, of course you want to go to a bridal show! Unfortunately, these events are often overwhelming for everyone involved and lots of energy is expended without the intended end results: wedding service professionals and brides, grooms or MOB's finding each other to create memorable weddings for the couples and their guests. You can avoid this by attending bridal shows with a little strategy to get you through the day!

Keep those dogs from barking! Be sure your shoes can go the distance. Most shows last 4 or 5 hours so choose your shoes accordingly. Depending on the location, you may not be permitted to kick off those heals let alone want to if it’s a concrete convention center floor.

Bring your road map. Have a list of your priority professionals prepared so you can bee line to their booths first. Remember, priority professionals are the services that you must have for your wedding and without those services, your personal wedding will not feel complete.

Take your time! Plan to spend time and start to build a relationship with the professionals you need. After you've visited your priority pros, go back and invest some extra time with the ones you think will be your best partner in creating your wedding vision. You can possibly prequalify who gets your valuable time if the show lists the participating vendors in advance of the show. Send an email question to that professional to see how you like their response time or enthusiasm to help you - or if they respond at all.

Any old bag will not do. Especially not the bag they give you at the show pre-filled with all kinds of professional promotional materials. This bag will probably have an uncomfortably awkward handle at best but at worst, the handle will not be sturdy enough for all that crap the show producers, bless their hearts, charge to shove in there and it will break spilling all the contents! BYOB! Bring your own Bag! A flexible bag, especially something with a shoulder strap will assure you can comfortably carry everything you want to collect.

Know your budget! There will be deals and you will be tempted. Deals like those won’t last for long. Knowing the parameters of what you can realistically afford will help you stay on track and not impulse book so many “great deals” on the spot that they may not be so great when the math gets done later.

Book’em Dano! Sometimes the on the spot deals really are THE REAL DEAL! Knowing your budget and your priority professionals in advance will help you secure the best professionals for your wedding at a phenomenal savings.

Knowing your rights, you can tell who is legit in their business practices. The CAN-SPAM law prohibits people/businesses from using harvested or paid for lists in email marketing. This means that the bride attendee list the promoters of the show will give to the participating wedding pros, as part of their booth fee, may be used for direct “snail mail” but not email. When you registered for the show, you gave the show producers permission to send you email, but not the 70+ professionals at the show. Technically, you should not receive post-show email from any professional that you didn't visit to personally. You may however get letters, post cards or other physical mailings from everyone who had a booth! And just so you know, every e-message that is 'commercial' in nature must have a one click 'unsubscribe' and you must be unsubscribed within 10 days of that request.

Decide from who you DO want to receive email contact:

• Be sure to get on your priority professionals’ list– in their booth! If they offer email newsletters, coupons or other promotions, they will have a sign-up sheet available!
• Create a separate wedding email address for keeping all your wedding related email organized and reduce personal/work and wedding message mix-ups.
• Make signing up a snap: print address labels with your name, address, phone number, email address and wedding date and put this on the sign-up sheets in the wedding pro’s booth rather than having to write this info 75 times. Including the contact info for the groom to be can also be helpful.

Nobody Wins! If you already have booked a photographer, don't go looking at photographers at the show because you lose valuable time. Likewise, the photographer would rather invest their marketing materials and time in someone visiting their booth that truly needs their services. It's not a winning strategy to waste your time or theirs.

Your Wedding Planning Homework:

Don't forget to get your tickets to The Wedding Connection Bridal Show!! Make a plan that you can stick to no matter which bridal show or event you visit!

copyright 2011 Aisle Do

Want to use this article in your e-Zine, blog or website? You may as long as you include this complete statement:

Wedding Solutions Specialist Tracey Baxter publishes the "Aisle Do" bi-weekly e-zine. Get your Free Report: "From Drab to Fab - The Five Secrets to a Show Stopping Favor Display” at www.aisledoweddings.com

Timely Advice!

Creating Your Wedding Day Timeline

A wedding timeline, schedule, or event plan is the chronology or order in which all actions will occur on the wedding day.  For a wedding, the actions are many:  Get hair styled,   flower girl arrives, photographer takes groomsmen’s photos… and the list could go on....and on...and on!

The timeline can be created at any time once you get engaged and start planning.  Getting started early will help make sure decisions being made throughout the process, such as whether the photographer leaving at 9pm will mean they miss your last dance and departure!  While it’s unwise to intentionally leave anything to the last minute, the timeline is something that it’s never too late to start and complete. 

Timelines can be elaborate or simple, but the important thing is to have one!  A wedding day without a plan is guaranteed to be stressful and potentially costly if the schedule gets delayed enough to run beyond contracted time limits.  So creating a timeline will be among the most important pieces of your wedding planning puzzle to reduce stress and last minute expenses.

Creating your timeline starts with good organization.  If you don’t have everything you need to get started, you will leave important parts off the schedule.  Organize your ideas and your materials for efficient use of time.  You can create the timeline with paper and pen or on computer, but starting with a rough draft or brainstorm will yield your best results. 

Creating an effective timeline means you will have to do a little math!  Allow a realistic amount of time for each event element, venue change, and travel and set up.  This is where the timeline will either create a seamless day or show its weaknesses.  Remember the sum of the time allowed for the parts cannot be greater than the time available for the entire event! 

10 Questions to Ask Your Wedding Planner

Check out this great article about choosing a wedding planner!  



Question 10 is going to help you to have a successful relationship with any professional you hire. You want the professionals you hire to relate to you and understand your vision and it starts with communication.

Especially note of question number 1.  This question is so important!  It’s suggested for brides as an “ask your-self” question, but don't be afraid to answer this question directly if you don't feel it was thoroughly covered during the interview or consultation. 

Enjoy!

"Feeling overwhelmed with all the work that goes into planning your wedding? Consider hiring a wedding planner to help with the preparations so you can relax and enjoy your big day. You can choose from planners who handle last-minute tasks leading up to the wedding, or those who take charge of every detail of your event, from the rehearsal dinner to the honeymoon and everything in between. The right planner not only keeps things organized and on schedule, but also advises you on where to find the perfect venue, dress, cake and bouquet. For many couples, wedding planners are so important to the event's success that the best planners are booked more than a year in advance.

These 10 questions won't just help you find the perfect wedding planner -- they'll also help you maintain your budget (and your sanity) leading up to the big day. Consider this your cheat sheet for interviewing prospective wedding planners..."

Read the full article right here…

Article citation:   Turner, Bambi. "10 Questions to Ask Your Wedding Planner" 20 April 2010. HowStuffWorks.com. 22 June 2011

Happy Anniversary to ME!

TODAY is anniversary number 16 for Pete and I!  There is no "traditional" 16th wedding anniversary gift which I find rather annoying - and someday I'll research the dissing of anniversaries with no traditional gift category!  Anyway, although I love the "modern" gift version: Silver Holloware - I'm just not feeling it right now.  There's just not a metal bowl that I'm dying to have.

So I've made up my own personalized albeit hodge podge gift collection featuring a few of our favorite and most memorable things that we've shared through the years. 

So here's what I've put together for Pete and I to enjoy:

Cake!  I am a cake person. Wedding cakes are a particular obsession. I bake a pretty great cake if I may say so myself! And Pete loves my cakes. But since it feels like 900 degrees outside  I ordered an anniversary cake from the bakery that made our wedding cake ...in the same flavors!  We have done this a few times before and it always brings back fond memories of June 24, 1995!   Capital Y - Yum!!  Thank you Edible Art of Charlotte!  See you this afternoon to pick it up!

Tea! In the summer we take it ICED with lemon thank you, but we are hot tea lovers from the north and if it's remotely cool outside, I can expect around 9:30pm to hear "hey, wanna cup of tea?" and I promptly hear the kettle whistling.  So I stopped in Teavana in South Park Mall the other day and picked up some Chai something or other teas to mix or use individually (they guy at Teavana will love that I don't remember what these are called I'm sure), some German rock sugar and since these teas were loose leaves and herbs and whatnot, I picked up a nifty tea steeping contraption that is sort of like a reverse French press but uses gravity instead of pressing. It's going to be a fun new kitchen toy!

Hawaii!  No, we're not actually going :(  ... but we had a supercalifragilistic trip to Maui a few years ago.  I have ordered pineapples from the plantation we toured and this will be just like bringing a little bit of Hawaii here! Maui Gold -the best pineapple ever! They arrived on Thursday afternoon and I can hardly wait to dig in!

Here's what RIPE -DELISHIOUS Pineapple looks like ~

PERFECT PINEAPPLES!

SO YUMMY!

Have a wonderful weekend! 

I'm off to enjoy my pineapples... and my anniversary!



 

Happy Anniversary Jackie & Ian!!

Congratulations to Jackie & Ian Dargavel on their First Anniversary!