Mar 19, 2012 | Day-of Coordinating, wedding planning, Weddings
You can greet your guests with cocktails before the ceremony as they did here. Photo by Paul Grigonis, pplusgphoto.com.
A couple of recent client weddings have skipped the usual cocktail hour between the ceremony and the reception. There have been various reasons for this choice, but I think one of the most important reasons is the five-hour time slot imposed by so many venues.
If you are venue shopping now, their time restrictions are an important thing to know before you sign a contract. Some venues will give you the whole day until their closing time. At least one I know of divides the day into two slots so they can do four weddings every weekend. Most, however, seem to like to give you any five hours you want, plus set-up and clean-up time.
You can definitely have a wonderful wedding and reception in five hours. If it seems a little short, one of the things you can jettison is the cocktail hour. If you were planning to take photos during the cocktail hour, that means finding another time for them. Doing them before the ceremony might not be an option if you and your fiance are not seeing each other before the ceremony, so if that is the case, your options are more limited. If not, consider doing photos before the ceremony and going straight from the ceremony to the reception.
Talk to your planner or coordinator about how to make the day’s schedule work best for you. She or he should be able to tell you what your best options are.
Mar 12, 2012 | wedding planning
Photo by Magical Moments Photography.
Every wedding planner has a calendar or timeline laying out the important steps necessary to plan a wedding and reception. The timeline is an important part of planning your wedding, but there are other equally important things to think about in order to have the wedding you really want. Here is one of them:
Consider the most important things about your wedding day. Right at the top of your list should be, “Ending up married to each other at the end of the day.” Keep that as your main focus and then, when something goes wrong, you will know that the day is still a success, as long as you are married (to the right person!) by the end of it. Also, if you are throwing a party, make sure you are inviting people you really want to spend the day with; and then throw a party they can all enjoy. It isn’t about impressing people or feeling rich for a day. It should be about having a good time with the people you like best, and sharing your happiness with them.
Mar 5, 2012 | Eco-Friendly Events, vendors, wedding planning, Weddings
Committed 2012 was last Sunday, and it was a successful and very fun afternoon. This was the first year the of the show’s existence, so the fact that a couple hundred guests showed up was very heartening.
What everyone said was that this was much nicer than most bridal shows. It felt more like a party than a trade show.
The Stephanie Rogers Band.
Music was provided by Cage+Aquarium (doing an all-vinyl set) and the Stephanie Rogers Band. There was food provided by several caterers, including FIG, City Provisions, and Pure Kitchen.
Setting up the truffles.
Katherine Anne Confections and Bleeding Heart Bakery provided delicious sweets.
Mignonette's booth.
Models from Mignonette showed off some gorgeous and highly unusual bridal dresses and vintage tuxes.
Collective Resource.
Collective Resource was very successful at composting the entire event. The ratio of compostables to garbage at the end of the event was about 75 to 1, maybe more.
And here was my set-up:
My area.
Feb 13, 2012 | Day-of Coordinating, Eco-Friendly Events, wedding planning, Weddings
I told you about Committed: An Avant-Garde Wedding Event a couple of weeks ago. Here are some more fun facts about the event.
Not only is this a wedding show presented by Chicago’s greenest wedding professionals, it is going to be a model green event. It’s at a location that is LEED certified. And the goal is to make it a zero waste event. Collective Resource will be composting everything that isn’t recyclable.
And did I mention the swag bags? Green Bride Guide is donating swag bags for the first 100 people to show up that day. That’s incentive to show up early!
If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, they are still available. Don’t wait until they sell out! Buy yours now.
Jan 30, 2012 | Eco-Friendly Events, vendors, wedding planning, Weddings
I have to tell you about a wedding show I am participating in next month: Committed, An Avant-Garde Wedding Event. It will be on Sunday, February 26, noon to 4:00 p.m. at the Greenhouse Loft, 2545 W. Diversey. You can buy tickets in advance.
Committed is sponsored by the Chicago Green Wedding Alliance, Chicago’s premier group of wedding vendors with a sustainable focus. Not only is this the greenest group of wedding professionals you’re likely to come across, they are also some of the hippest, most creative, most interesting businesses and people in the industry.
There will be caterers like FIG Catering and City Provisions; venues like Logan Square Kitchen; and even unusual vendors such as Collective Resource, a composting company. I’ll be there, naturally. Check out the full list of vendors at the link above.
And don’t expect your standard trade show with rows of look-alike booths. This should be a very fun and unique event. Buy your tickets now!
Jan 16, 2012 | wedding planning, Weddings
Why are there so many stories about wedding cakes? Is it just because they are so fragile? Anyhow, I had another fun one this past summer.
The cake should always look this perfect. Photo by Magical Moments Photography.
It was an outdoor wedding reception and the weather wasn’t supposed to be too hot, so I wasn’t worried about the cake. Normally, I would have asked the baker if she was freezing the cake, but it was a friend of the family and I wasn’t directly in touch with her. Well, the cake arrived unfrozen, and the day was warmer than predicted.
The other thing you need to know is that I had never met the bride. The bride and groom live out of town and had returned to the bride’s home town to get married. Somehow, we never met up. Whenever they were in town, I was unavailable. Or they forgot to tell me they were coming.
I was only at the reception, not the ceremony. So, I’m watching the cake wilt as the ceremony is going on and as the guests start to arrive. Finally, the bride and groom appeared. The cake cutting was scheduled for after dinner, several hours later. I walked up to the bride and said, “Hi, I’m Lisa. I’m very pleased to finally meet you. We need to do the cake cutting right after the bridal party introductions, not after dinner. Is that all right?”
Fortunately, these clients were flexible and agreeable. We made the change right there. The cake was cut before it melted or imploded. The guests never knew the difference. And a potential disaster was averted.
The moral of the story? Freeze your wedding cake on a hot day. Or be prepared to make other plans. Either way, your cake story will have a happy ending.
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