Our amazing photographer

Please check out our photographers Elizabeth Wertz blog. She's great and I am so happy that we've found her. She's the best! Always remember the number one rule to the photographer is you MUST love he/she. They spend the most time with you. Her photojournalist approach is amazing and exactly what I was looking for. I love the excitement she has for the day. I know she's going to absolutely amaze me with the final product. My Fiance and I had the opportunity to spend a nice summer afternoon drinking lemonade and eating coffee cake with her at her home. Which I thought was completely amazing to offer us to meet there. We also had the opportunity to meet her two little ladies, which are so incredibility adorable. I knew instantly that Elizabeth and I would mesh perfectly. So in this case I got really lucky. I love my photographers work as well as her personality and passion. What more could I ask for?

http://elizabethwertzphotography.blogspot.com

Everyone wants to know...

Yes, I have a wedding planner. Of course I do, even though I'm a wedding planner and know everything that needs to be done. I still believe that its necessary to have a wedding planner for day of planning. I am watching my budget like a hawk, but I was still able to fit day of planning in and so can you.
I know that some people use their maid/matron of honor to be the contact person for their vendors on the day of, but why? They are there to be with you and celebrate your day with you. Not to be there to talk to your vendors if they have any last minute questions. The very last thing I would want to happen is to watch my matron of honor deal with some emergency or issue while she's supposed to be taking her photos with me and the rest of my bridesmaids. Also, I have a planner to ensure all of the decor and little details are perfect for what I'm looking to create. If I was not a wedding planner, I would not understand the absolute importance of having one, but since I am, I can only pass on to my readers the importance of getting one.

Fitting the planner into your budget

I thought that this entry would go perfect with my previous one. If you really want a wedding planner and you're on a tight budget here are some suggestions when searching.
1) when searching online don't call the planning firm with the amazing website that looks like the fee is your budget, the pricing can be shocking and steer you away
2) have your planner for "day of" planning only, it ensures everything will be handled and not kill your budget
3) shop around, call everyone you can find that looks to be in your budget
4) if the quote is too high tell them and ask for recommendations
5) some firms have a la carte items to create your own package and can cut cost
6) if a destination wedding, try to create a package where they help with vendor selections and then "day of" planning and skip the middle, this will help with costs
7) remember wedding planners are here to help with your budgets and can cut costs

If you call the right planner they will be willing to work with you and your budget. I hope these help.

Planners vs Coordinators

I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've written. I've been relocating my life and that has put a delay on some areas in my life. I'm sure all can understand. I have attended many weddings where I had people say to me "we really needed a planner", so I thought this topic would perfect to help educate brides and grooms. Here's an extremely educational blog about the planner vs the "on-site" coordinator. I understand that most brides and grooms believe that this person is all the same, however there's a huge difference in the work we do. Please be aware that I'm not in any way discrediting the coordinator at all, I'm just passing on my knowledge about the difference between the two(since I've worked on both sides). Also, I want to help all brides and grooms understand the importance of having a wedding planner. When booking your reception venue or caterer, included in their packages are an "on-site wedding coordinator." Most people think "this is great we don't need to hire a wedding planner." I understand that couples love this feature of the package believing that it will save them money, but it does not save them on stress.
The "on-site coordinator" manages the staff at the venue which includes the food and bar. They ensure that the food will be served on time and hot as well as the bar being stocked appropriately. So if all you have is the on-site coordinator who will handle the vendors? Who will ensure they arrive on time, make sure they know how to get to the venue, where they can load their items, tell them when to eat, manage the time line of events to be followed, make sure all payments are taken care of (trust me a lot of brides and grooms leave them to the last minute) and overall make sure the bride and groom are getting the services that they're paying for. If you only have the on-site coordinator you will be the person taking care of this. On average the coordinator will never talk to your vendors prior to the reception. A wedding planner will talk to your vendors at least 3 times prior to reception to ensure everything is being communicated and understood properly. Now to the most important factor, the bride and groom. If the coordinator is busy with the staff and food who handles you? The wedding planner does 100% and the entire day from hair in the am to putting you in the get away car, we're there. I've done weddings where the coordinator has said that they love having wedding planners there to help, simply because they're never able to attend to the bride and groom. This does not mean that every two seconds we're in your face asking if you need anything or how everything is going. We're in the background making sure that you're both smiling and enjoying your day. If anything out of the ordinary arises the vendors come to the planner first instead of the bride and groom. The absolute last thing you need to be dealing with on your wedding day is any issues! Wedding planners ensure that every little detail is handled which creates a flawless day for the couple and their guests. Endless issues can arise on your big day. Cd's can skip, Ipod's can be forgotten or malfunction, noise ordinances can create issues and finally a guest can lose a button on a jacket. Your wedding planner has back up cd's, a plan for technical difficulties, has spoken to the local police months before your wedding and carries a sewing kit in their pocket. And those are just some the basics of the job. Typically the on-site coordinator is too busy with everything on site that they can not be there to fix those issues. I could go on and on about the importance of having a planner but I will leave you with this "unfortunately, all weddings are unpredictable and planners are there to immediately fix any unpredictability."

Bride and Grooms Portraits Before Ceremony

This is definitely a new concept for some couples. I love the idea of having the bride and groom portraits taken before the ceremony. If you think of all the benefits, you'll see why it's a great idea and your photographers will love you. Trust me!
First, when your groom first sees you, you want him to be able to tell you how he feels about you, the love you have for one another and share the sheer excitement of the day. You will be able to share all of the emotions together with doing the portraits before, which can make great photographs. It gives you time to spend together alone before all the chaos starts.
Second (this is not the case in all ceremonies) the lighting can play a big factor. If you're having a 5pm ceremony in September or October (now are high demand months) you loose light earlier. By having your portraits taken before it helps your photographer with timing and lighting for the bridal party formals. Sometimes the bridal party formals can hold up the process as far as making sure all parities involved are there, making sure that they all listen and changing locations can take some time.
Third, your best photographs will be taken during this intimate time together. The first look when the groom sees his bride, the look in the brides eyes and just the perfect captures of the couple together. Your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life and expressing that love into great photographs can truly be priceless.
Fourth, it relieves some of the nerves. Half of the reason for the nerves between the bride and groom is seeing each other for the first time. Spending that time together before will help calm down any nerves you may have.
Finally, it gives you a chance to spend time together as well as a chance to start the party early!

My fiance and I will be having our portraits before the ceremony. I want him to tell me everything he feels when he first sees me and I don't want 150 people standing in the way of him doing that.

The Maids

Here are the dresses that my maids and I have chosen for them to wear on the big day. I love it!! I did give the three who were able to attend the choice of the dress. I wanted something for them to wear again. Yes, every bride says that. Originally the dresses were going to be black with an ivory sash then we saw this and fell in love. They will be able to wear this again, throw on a black cardigan and some black heels and you have a great date night dress! The dress will fall to mid knee, they'll wear red shoes (their choice) and have red nails. The best thing about the dress is that it will work for any of my preggo maids. The pleats help give some extra room or the sash can be removed for the bump. Perfect!

The bouquets will be a mix of 2 red roses. One being the traditional red and the other rose being a more vibrant red. The guys are wearing a traditional black tux with a red vest and black skinny tie with red roses as their boutineers.

Bringing the North in the South and vice versa

Since I have been a wedding planner in both the north and the south, I felt that introducing the traditions of each would be a wonderful blog topic. In the south people know nothing about a northern wedding and in the north people know nothing about a southern wedding. So....my fiancé and I thought we would do a little introduction at our wedding. :) Northern weddings are almost 95% of the time a plated meal with offering the options of a chicken or steak dish. All of the seating arrangements are predetermined by the bride and groom. The meals are typically a three, sometimes four, course meal, salad, meal and desert. A traditional northern wedding is nice, but not our style. At southern weddings (which when I discovered this my mouth dropped open being I grew up in the north) typically seating is not offered for all guests (insane I know), it’s 95% of the time a buffet (can be shrimp and grits), there are no seating arrangements at all. It’s more of an actual party where there’s a bride and a groom ….. this is completely different from the north. In the north, guests sometimes tend to miss the ceremony, where in the south the guests arrive for the ceremony and don’t stay for the reception. In the north gifts are always brought to the wedding and in the south the gifts are either sent early or not given (at showers they are). All of the wedding traditions like the dances and cake cutting are kept the same. So my fiancé and I are having a cocktail style reception where we are offering seating for all our guests, however not assigned by us (which may confuse and make our northern guest feel a little out of their element but, oh well). For the meal, we’re offering 2 stations (not buffet style) and passed hor d’ourves to each table. We also have taken out (our own preference) the bouquet/garter toss and the cake cutting, however we are bringing back a classic tradition of changing into our “going away” outfits. Saying bye to all of our guests and then leaving to our night alone before the honeymoon. We really want our wedding reception to be a party to celebrate the start to our life together and our love for each other with taking a little piece of the north (where we grew up) and the south (where we got engaged) and placing them together to make a fabulous time for all.

The look

Being a wedding planner the things that are most important to me are: the details, the creativity and the design. I know with most brides it's all about THE DRESS, but when I'm working a wedding and with my client what gives me the justification is that the wedding is a success, everything runs on time or close to and the decor of the wedding is flawless (everything from the chairs for ceremony and reception to the linens, overlays, centerpieces and flowers.) That's what I do; put all the pieces together to make an incredible and gorgeous wedding. There's nothing better then the look of a completed reception venue (before the celebrations starts) with all the pieces to the puzzle in their places. So with my own wedding, I completely feel the same way. I'm excited to have my photographer take a picture of the reception venue before everyone arrives to get that one shot where it's perfect and put together. That's how I'll know I had a flawless wedding, with all my planning and decor being put together. So yes, I'm different from most brides out there.

The details. I LOVE details, little things here and there that really can add the perfect little touch to the wedding. The colors to the wedding are black, ivory and red. Black and ivory are the prominent colors and red is going to be placed in little details throughout the wedding decor. For example, my maids are in black and white print dress. The way I am detailing them with red is: red toe nails, red bouquets and red shoes. The guys are in black tuxes with skinny red ties with red boutonnières. The centerpieces are going to be red, where the linens are going to be black and ivory. Also, we chose the perfect venue with the walls being a deep red! So the little details of the wedding are in red to show the accent color, but in a subtle way.

The creativity. Being a planner my mind is always going on what great idea I can come up with next. Since our ceremony location is within a few minutes walk to the reception location, we thought that offering a PediCab service for our guests to be able to get to the ceremony to reception was a perfect idea, along with being environmentally friendly. While our formals are being taken, our guests will have the opportunity to utilize this service. Once our formals are done, our bridal party and us are going to ride the PediCabs to the reception. Of course our PediCab will have a “Just Married” banner on the back as we ride through Newburyport. Since we're doing a sweetheart table, the backs of our chairs are going to have Mr. & Mrs. signs, thought it was fitting ;). The wine, my soon to be new last name is a brand of wine!! We are going to offer that as our signature drink and red wine only. ;) Since I am Irish and my Fiancé is Italian we are offering those two options for food and going to suggest a drink to pair with each meal.

The decor. Yes, as you know by now, is extremely important to me. The design for the wedding is Damask (see pic above). For the linens the underlay is going to be plain black, the overlay is the Damask fabric. With black chairs, red centerpieces and the deep red walls, it's going to look very classic and stylish. Personally, I'm not huge on flowers so the ceremony decor is being kept very simple and going to be all white. One decor item I LOVE is white paper lanterns, inside receptions they can be gorgeous, if it’s the right venue, but using in the ceremony decor is just breathtaking!!! I'm still in the process of finding out how to use the white paper lanterns; since I'm in public space my options are limited.

There's a run down of the important things to the planner (most of them). Oh, if you wonder why I'm not worried about everything being perfect and on time, there's no need; I'm a wedding planner!!

Location, location, location

Our wedding is September 18th in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Newburyport gives the ideal feel for a charming and classic New England wedding. Newburyport is filled with family owned boutiques and restaurants, cobble stone streets and brick buildings. Also, offers the perfect destination feel for a wedding. One important thing with my Fiance and I was that our guests would be close to the ceremony and reception and have some great pubs to venture to after the reception. Some of our guests are traveling from other places within the country and giving them a traditional New England experience was important and we found just that in Newburyport. When choosing your wedding location make sure that the location offers everything you want your guest to experience. Your destination location really creates the theme and atmosphere for your wedding. Example, we chose a charming and classic New England town. The feel for our wedding is very classic and elegant, making our location the perfect choice. If you're not interested in classic and more modern choose a location where your creative juices can fly or a place recently built venue to give more of the modern and contemporary feel. If tropical is your choice, a location where the costs are not going to financially kill your guests but where they'll really end up enjoying their vacation as well as your wedding. The guests who attend destinations weddings typically make this their big vacation for the year. I was in a wedding in Florida in August 2008, the destination location was beyond perfect! It gave the feel of being on a tropical island when we were in Florida! The resort gave EVERY option you could imagine. Before the wedding I envisioned what I thought everything would look like and it was just that and more. If you want a destination weekend feel to your wedding and not want everyone to have to fly a suggestion would be look within an hour drive from yours or the grooms hometown. You can create that feel even if it's within an hour drive. Example, I'm from southern New Hampshire and my Fiance is from 15 minutes North of Boston. Our location is less then an hour drive for both families and is right on the water, which was also an important factor for us. So if you're in Massachusetts you can still get that Cape Cod destination wedding feel in another ocean front town for much cheaper. After you get engaged choose the location that best suites the atmosphere you want your guests to experience and best describes you and your future spouse.

The start to a fabulous blog

Well, I've finally given in and decided to start my own blog. I thought with planning my own wedding it would be a nice way to communicate with people, who want to know, on what kind of plans and ideas I have going on. Also, being a wedding planner as my career and planning my own wedding and being extremely budget conscious it's great for me to share all my useful information/knowledge as well as ideas for weddings. So stay tuned for all things wedding.