You Want Me To What?!?!

A note from a friend earlier this week prompted this post. She's helping with a wedding and the couple has asked her to do some decorating that involves a ladder being placed in an area that I can only imagine is viewed as far from safe as possible. She said "What would you do?"

My response was....Don't do it. If asked to do any decorating as extensive as that, I write it in my contracts that I don't do that. More times than not, the venue won't let me get on a ladder anyway. If something happens to me while I'm in their venue, chances are they're going to end up at fault. I know, our justice is system is screwy, but it is what it is.

Here's a fun list of things I've been asked to do. I may, or may not have done some or all of these. You be the judge!

1. Babysit the Kid's Room during dinner/reception
2. Help the Bride go to the bathroom
3. Given a picture of someone who is not allowed in and kick them out or call police if they show up
4. Return all rented items the following week when I was hired only for the Day
5. Run honeymoon errands at Wal-Mart, complete with list and the promise to "reimburse" me
6. Take potted plants from ceremony back to the couple's home and put them back in the soil of their flower beds
7. Help Grandma eat
8. Be the MC for the evening
9. The ladder and decorating thing
10. Putting over $2,000 in last-minute chair cover rentals on my credit card
11. Acting as the Banquet Manager and dismissing tables for the buffet at dinner
12. Cleaning cobwebs out of the windows of the reception site
13. Rolling out tables and setting them up by myself
14. Serving food because not enough wait staff showed up
15. Bartending several times
16. Picking people up from the airport the day before wedding. Again, I was hired for Day of.
17. Planning the entire wedding when I was hired for Day of.
18. Ensure that the Maid of Honor does not do anything "crazy"
19. Keeping parents away from each other
20. Chasing a mother around b/c she's not allowed to see or talk to the bride b/c they haven't spoken in over five years

Married Off

Another bride has come and gone. It's sappy, but I always have this bittersweet feeling when one of my brides goes down the aisle. It means my work was a success and they're on their way to being happily married, but it also means I say goodbye to yet another friend. Sure, there are a few brides who I have remained friends with over the years and keep in touch with, but the majority are promises made to catch up for drinks or go gah-gah over their wedding pictures that never happens. Life gets busy and to be honest, it all comes down to the fact that I was a vendor, hired to perform a job for their wedding day.

I wish I had pictures to show of this wedding, but my camera decided to die right before I started snapping pictures. Wonderful Beth Engel, their photographer, will forward me some pics I'm sure. This wedding was full of great vendors. Their flowers were amazing. I can't even put into words just how amazing. Keep in mind that I see A LOT of weddings, so it takes a lot to blow me away anymore (which is kind of sad actually!). I got all teary-eyed when the florist assistant handed the bride her bouquet. I've never seen anything like it before. And when I walked into the Wisconsin Club, my jaw dropped. The florist assistant actually ran over to me to ask me if everything was ok. "YES! It's perfect!" And then I proceeded to dumbly gush, and I mean GUSH, over the centerpieces. I had also taken their floral pew cones from the church and decided to hang them on the balcony outside and it turned the balcony into this romantic little nook immediately!

The only downside to this wedding was that I really didn't have much to do. She had such great vendors and when you're at the Wisconsin Club, they have their own coordinator, who is great. And to be frank, well, they don't want another coordinator around there. At all. They're super nice about it, but it's made pretty clear. So, after I decorated the balcony, straightened some things up, made sure that all tables had what they needed, and all vendors had shown up, it was my time to exit.

Oh, and did I mention how beautiful the bride looked? This bride had lost 50 lbs on Weight Watchers and holy cow! What a hottie! The best part though was that Julie Carrington from On Location Makeup took such good care of her and made her look herself, just enhanced. This woman does amazing work and is too sweet to boot!

Another wedding, another bride. Time to batter up for my August 4th bride now!

Love 'em OR Leave 'em?

Yes, that is the question surrounding so many of my brides right now. The dreaded guest list and every single family member's supposed need to chime in with who should be on it. I have a bride getting married this weekend who literally has no aunts and uncles from one side of the family attending the wedding because children were not invited. The only reason children were not invited to this particular wedding was because there would have been over 100 of them and they simply would not have fit into the Wisconsin Club where they had reserved and fallen in love with as their reception venue. Alas....the wedding will go on and she is at the point of planning where all she can do is throw her hands in the air and move forward with their special day. But this family is supposedly not attending out of spite. Babysitters were not the problem, nor was money or anything else that they can think of .

It did get me thinking though....why is this so often the culprit of family feuds, arguements between the couple, and just plain old stress for the bride? WHY!?! I was telling my sales team today at work that I am so fortunate that for my own wedding, even though my parents paid for quite a bit of it, they completely understood when we firmly told both sets of parents that no one was going to be invited unless the bride or groom (you know...the people this day is actually about!) knew them. That meant some random friends of parents were thrown off the list. The best part....they were OK with it! My parents realized this day was not about them, not about showing off to their friends and business associates and clients. This was about the uniting of two people. I seriously loved my mom through the planning process and this was a big reason why.

My sales manager is going through Guest List Hell right now. They are still a good 17 months away from the Big Day, but already the drama has ensued about who to invite, the pros/cons of a child-less wedding reception and on and on. I feel bad for her. It's hard for me to fully understand since I'm kind of a tough cookie and my response was "You and Kris are paying for the majority of this wedding. YOU invite who YOU want to invite." I don't think I'm a very nice person sometimes; perhaps wedding drama has hardened me. So be it.

So the question remains...do you love 'em.......or leave 'em of the guest list? To each their own of course. If it's a budget thing, just keep in mind that your guest list will directly correlate with the amount of money your wedding costs. If it's a space thing and you think you'll be ok if you invite 400 people to your 200 person maximum capacity venue, think again. And if it's a kid thing....well, I better not go there. :)
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Oh, and for those of you that are wondering about the WI Bridezilla I was trying to track down. Thanks to Sara and Molly and their handy detective work, I found her! But don't get too excited because after an email and a MySpace message that nicely invited her to be interviewed for this blog, I haven't heard back. Bummer to say the least.

WI Bridezilla

I'll admit it....I'm addicted to wedding "reality" shows on tv. If I really wanted to, I could even deduct part of my cable as a business expense since I truly do gather ideas from the shows. But let's face it...I'm too lazy to make more tax work for myself. And I'm pretty damn sure that I get more laughs out of it than I do ideas.

The other night I got sucked into Bridezillas on the WE network. A show that really should just be laid to rest. It's not even that good and it's either going to make normal brides even more nervous about becoming a Bridezilla or make already Bridezillas even more of one. In addition...I confess...I yell at my tv during this show. I just can't help it.

But....the other night's episode definitely took the cake. All because the bride was from Wisconsin! What?!!? You mean there's really girls like that on our turf? I'm proud to say I've had only one true Bridezilla. I always joke around saying I get one a year and that's been about par for the course. I'm just thanking my lucky stars it wasn't this one (Maria) from Franksville, WI. Where the heck is that anyway? So, if anyone knows this lovely bride, please tell her I'd love to talk to her, interview her, and find out just how much of that show is real and just how much of it is acting.

I can't help but watch that show and think that these brides are acting. It's all just a bit too out there to actually be real. Or is it? You be the judge. Watch an episode or two if you can stomach it and let me know if you think there's some dramafied bad acting going on. I wrote the show an email asking them that and they politely declined to comment in an email back. Huh. Interesting.

Seriously though....it's entertaining, especially coupled with a great bottle of wine. Now if I can just get my hands on Miss WI Bridezilla I will feel truly accomplished in my feat.

Oh, and turns out Franksville is in the extended neck of the woods of Milwaukee.

The OC

Being a Milwaukeean for a number of years now, I always thought the "OC" referred to Oak Creek. Apparently if you head further West, there's another "OC." OconomowoC, as the t-shirts all appear. I've been to downtown OC once. My outing there included a bar or two and that was about it.

This time would be different! I had come into a free stay at the Olympia Resort and my girlfriend and I decided we needed some girl-time away. It was only 25 minutes away, but at least it was away. We're both busy and trying to save money so a full vacation was just out of the question right now. We packed up our things, made sure we had enough Smirnoff Raw Tea to last our 2 night stay, and headed West on Thursday afternoon. I'm pretty certain we didn't stop talking the whole way there. We pull up and right away I see a wedding tent. A perfectly pitched white tent with french windows sitting on the side lawn area. Ahhhh!!!...a wedding while we're here! My immediate thought is to go in and take a peak, but I drive forward resisting the urge to see the wedding plan unfold.

If you've never been to the Olympia Resort, well, it's...um....it's old. And outdated. They must have recently updated the public area furniture because it's all leather and very inviting. But then it sits among the brass railings that are everywhere and the green and pink motif that surrounds it. Whatever, we think....there's a pool and drinks and girl-chat! Who cares! We proceed to check in with the Front Office Manager, who somehow we have been able to sweet-talk into a balcony room with free spa access. We've also somehow been able to make this nice young man quite nervous with us. It was one of the cutest things I've seen in a while. Once in our room we both dive into it checking it out. Being that I'm still a hotel girl that works in the industry and Michelle used to...this is just normal. Friends that travel with hotel people don't understand it, but we literally check everything. For dirt, for hair, for scratches, for missing items...you name it, we check it. It's funny to others, but not to us.

Our room left little to be desired. Again, it's old and comes complete with matching grandma's house draperies and bedspread. There is a full imprint of an iron on the carpet, and the balcony is crawling with bugs and webs that could have easily been wiped down on a regular cleaning basis. But we have a view of the pool and the lake that is beyond that. The pool! We decide to have a drink and head to the pool. We only laid out there for 2 hours and boy, did we get sun! After showering and changing and making more fun of this resort, we go downtown and find an Irish Pub to eat and have some beers. A friend that lives in the area meets us out and suddenly the night in the Downtown OC is getting out of hand. I'm pretty sure we made it into almost every bar that the area offers. We finally decide to head back to the Resort with a Taco Bell run included. I believe the last time I had Taco Bell was in college. That's why girl trips are so damn fun!

The next day we sleep in, eat a free breakfast at their restaurant, and head to the pool. Today we clocked 4 hours at the pool and you could tell. I'm lucky I brown up pretty well, but poor Michelle forgot sunblock on the back of her legs. Once inside, we watch Oprah like gal pals do, showered and got ready for dinner. We decided to go to Delafield and check out the Delafield Brewhaus. I had been there a few years ago and remembered it to be good. A 35 minute wait for a table meant drinkies at the bar. Vodka drinkies. Yikes. It was great though, we had drinks and ate an amazing fish fry and then decided to head back to the resort to check out the bar they had, Club Indigo. I think this will say it all:

We sipped more Vodka drinks in order to deal with the freaky blue images on the walls. There was a DJ, there were very young "kids", there was a darling bartender, and then there was John, the 40-year old man who apparently was only interested in going home with us. Weird, but so much better when he shoved his drink away and stomped out. Victory! The evening ended with a 1:30am bedtime and the getaway ended about 8 hours later when we packed up our things and headed back to Shorewood, back home. Hugs and promises to do this again and our girl time was over. It was so great though and reminded me that I need to take time to do this more often. So, I'm already trying to figure out what little off the beaten path town we're going to visit next! The only requirements are an outdoor pool and drinks of course!

Oh Canada!

I met with the nicest couple a few weeks ago. They are planning an August 2008 wedding and needed help. Well, I shouldn't say they needed help, they were demanding help. The bride is an event planner for a very prestigious venue in Milwaukee and when they got engaged, she was absolutely certain that she did not want to plan their entire wedding. I'm pretty sure that most of my full-plan weddings that I've done have been for brides that are in the event planning or fundraising industries. When they do this for a living, it no longer seems attractive or fun to do it for yourself. In fact, they view it as another job. And I totally get it!

So, we meet and we talk and we go through preliminary plans. We part ways, them loaded with Dreams & Designs information and myself happy to have met another FUN couple!

Fast forward a week or so. They have decided to look into getting married in Canada! Quebec City to be exact. The best part is that they still want me to be their planner. How cool is that? Their initial vision is a small, intimate family affair in Canada. Ceremony and reception in the same location with adventure outings for the guests! I'm in love with them all over again. I love seeing couples do different things and of course I love to be involved to shape their unique idea into their own.

So......the bride and I are currently researching Quebec City and all that it has to offer to make sure that this is doable. She has all the faith in the world in me, it appears I'm the skittish one and being extra cautious as I go into this. Committing to plan a wedding is a feat in itself; committing to plan a wedding in another country is above and beyond that. I'm in for a challenging and fun planning process and I can't wait!

Destination weddings are great. I think they're great for so many reasons. Everyone does them differently. Some go alone, some invite only immediate family, others invite their entire guest list! I've been to more than a few and have been fortunate enough to assist in planning a couple as well. There's almost always extreme beauty involved in destination weddings, whether it's open sky as far as you can see or mountains in the backdrop or a body of water that you swear is only made for postcards. Beautiful doesn't even justify it most times.

Looks like you'll all be along on my Canadian Experience if this ends up being a solid decision.

Another Engagement!

As a planner and a just-turned 30 female...I've seen my fair share of engagements over the past 10 years. But there is still just something that excites me when someone new announces they're getting married. I love it! I think I love seeing how happy they are. My Sales Manager just got engaged and I'm surprised I've allowed myself 3 whole blog posts before reporting on it. (Hi Andi!)

Their engagement story is cute, one that is going to be loads of fun to tell over and over and over again. I think they basked in the glow of newly engaged coupledom for all of 1.3 days. Then the plans started. When your boss is a wedding planner on the side and your other co-worker is literally obsessed with weddings (Hi Jaime!)...it was just the next natural course of direction. A crisp December 2008 wedding it is! That's the problem with getting engaged mid-summer....you either plan it quick or you take your time. They opted for the latter. Wedding talk is amiss in our office and it's quite fun. The places they can go, the times they can choose, they style of their day, the centerpiece options and on and on.

But suddenly, the "Yay! I'm engaged!" phase is literally phased out. Now it's work to go look at all these places. It's crazy how every bride/couple goes from Cloud 9 to a negative 5 on the Richter Scale of Happiness. All because of planning. Weddings are great, don't get me wrong. But every bride knows exactly what I'm talking about. Chin up everyone! The worst part is in the begining...it's when almost all of the choices need to be made, compromises are a plenty, and you grab hold of your wallet with dear life and pray for the best. Once the foundation is laid, the rest somehow magically falls into place.

I'm hoping this all rings true for Andi & Kris. It's a tough part of the engagement and the whole time you're answering questions from friends and family about when it will be, where it will be, I can help by ______, are you excited, etc. And then, you're unlucky enough to have a boss that plans weddings on a regular basis! It's tough for me to talk weddings with friends and family when I do this all the time. I KNOW what I like, KNOW what I don't. But they're my opinions and while I've seen plenty of things to back up most any advice I'd impart on anyone, it's still not my place. Well, unless I really have to. :) I do have to catch myself though from being overly involved and giving too many opinions and suggestions. The bottom line is that everyone's taste is different...that's what makes every single wedding so unique. So, I'll chirp in when I feel the need and offer advice on the good, the bad, the ugly when it comes to vendors and be honest with what takes time (Andi, you're still NOT putting centerpieces together yourself on the day of your wedding!) and where you can cut corners. But other than that....I'm just going to enjoy yet another engagement in my office!

The Top 14

My brides are always asking me what my best advice is and what tips could I give them. The truth is that every bride, every groom, every wedding, every marriage is so different that it's hard for my advice and my tips to canvass everyone in the same manner. But I'll take a shot at it here. No worries...there will be plenty more tips to come, but I'll start with these. :)

Danica's Wedding Tips

1. Plan for the marriage, not for the wedding


2. It's YOUR day! If parents are paying, yes, they get a say in how money is spent, but if you don't like it....don't take their money. It's YOUR day!


3. No, you do not need to invite someone to your wedding just because you were invited to their wedding five years ago.


4. Face it...most grooms don't care about wedding planning. Please don't force them to be involved in every single detail. Let them decide what they want to be involved with. You'll get much more out of them this way.


5. If your venue only holds 200 people max, please don't invite 300 people and then just hope that 100 RSVP 'no'.


6. Treat people kindly when planning. This may be your special day, but kindness doesn't simply go out the window just because you are a bride.


7. If you've hired reputable vendors, let them do their jobs. Micro-managing vendors is not a good start to a great wedding reception.


8. Negotiate with vendors. The worst they can say is 'no'.


9. If you can't handle the planning, don't want to plan, don't have time to plan...hire someone to do it for you or enlist a trusted and organized friend/family to assist.


10. Please try to be a happy bride on your Big Day!


11. Remember that all that matters is that the couple and the officiant show up that day. The rest of the details, while nice, simply won't matter in 50 years.


12. Stay organized with your planning and get as much done ahead of time as possible.


13. Trust your gut on every aspect of your planning, but don't over analyze the shade of purple a million times.


14. Not everyone is going to be interested in hearing about your wedding. Try to schedule a girl's night out every once in a while and don't talk wedding!

Disappointment

Yesterday was one of those days that you wish would just go away so the next day can get here and be a brand new start. I was supposed to do the Danskin Triathlon yesterday morning. Something I had been training for since April and something I had committed to doing with one of my best friends. It didn't happen. Friday night I sat in a little room with a Doctor that told me I had a Lumbar Sprain in my lower back and that I was to become intimately acquainted with rest over the next 3 days.

I'm pretty sure I thought he was kidding at first. And then it was all I could do to sit there, listen to his doctorly orders, and not have the welled tears in my eyes just start spilling out. I saved that for the second I got in my truck. I don't deal with disappointment well and unlike others, disappointing myself is probably the hardest thing for me to face. But I moved on through the weekend, survived, started a blog!, and will do the next Tri that comes around.

Disappointment is funny. I'm not sure why, but I've never been disappointed in losing a piece of wedding business. I've lost business due to price, location, just not jiving with the bride, not being able to accommodate their needs....almost everything. Yet I've never felt disappointed. I think it's because I know, deep down, that losing a piece of business is sometimes the best thing that can happen to you.

I can say for certain that there have been pieces of business that I wish I had lost! For instance, the times I've been hired (come to find out) to be the personal gopher of the day. I had a wedding where everything was established in previous meetings of what I was to decorate, set-up, oversee, etc. Then 2 days before the wedding, I was being told that I would be running errands, delivering rentals back to the store the day after, babysitting! The list goes on. I'm not good at saying "no". I'm a people pleaser by nature. But that crossed the line and I was very proud of myself for professionally saying "no." Which is not easy to do when dealing with a bride 2 days before the wedding. I felt horrible, but at the same time I'm running a business. No where in my information does it say that I provide babysitting services or that I will run your personal errands. I didn't have a very happy bride and it was definitely handed to me the day of the wedding. But I walked out of that experience laughing for the most part. And saddened by how unhappy this person must be in life in order to treat me the way I was treated that day....all out of sheer madness for not taking her list to Wal-Mart and not watching her nieces and nephews during the dance. For as long as I've been doing this....I still will never understand an angry bride on her wedding day!

While disappointment has it's time and place, it certainly has no place in my business world. Live it, love it, laugh at it....that should be my business mantra.

Finally

This is it. The long-awaited blog. The long-awaited wedding planning blog. Well, at least for me. I'm not exepecting anyone to read this actually and will be happy knowing that perhaps just my mother will get a kick out of it and feel just a little more connected to her wedding planning daughter. (If she had it her way, she'd come down every weekend to be my "assistant".)

I've been encouraged to start this by multiple people, even my brides! I make no promises of how updated it will be, but I'm going to try my best. I enjoy being busy, but that's the main reason why I have always feared starting a blog. Keeping up with it may prove to be a challenge.

The focus will be on all things wedding, but again, no promises! More than likely other aspects of life will probably get thrown in here too. Such as my crazy "real" career as the Director of Sales & Marketing for one of the busiest hotels downtown Milwaukee. Yes, I'm proud!

The history behind the wedding planning gig goes a little something like this though. I started working in a bridal salon many moons ago and fell in love with the industry right away. After realizing the lack of career direction and salary it would ultimately provide, I went back to the hotel roots and have been there ever since. I've never been obsessed with weddings, I just like the details and planning and execution of any event really. I've always been the planner....family or friends having a party? They would call me. Need help setting up a wedding? They would call me. After doing lots of "favors" for friends and friends of friends, my smartest friend of them all as well as my family suggested I do this planning thing for real. "Like charge for it and everything", I said? Yup. So I did. And it has been a crazy ride, a proud accomplishment, and a full on whirlwind ever since.

So....welcome to my blog. I'll update on the weddings I'm planning, the couples I meet and work with, the challenges of it all, the high points, and of course.....the weddings themselves!