The World According to Weddlady

Are You Coordinator Friendly?

I'm just throwing this out there (and it's early reasearch for a project coming up next year): if you are a wedding ceremony or reception facility (anywhere), do you consider yourself "coordinator friendly"?  What qualities do you have that make you coordinator friendly?

Please comment - I'm really interested in starting a dialogue about this.  A good percentage of our readership is made up of wedding coordinators nationwide.  I'd like to pose more questions that lead to a better understanding of what venues and coordinators can do to work more effectively together and ethically support each other's services.

For engaged couples, I'm hoping that ultimately exposure to properties where coordinators and venue staff work cooperatively to produce the highest quality wedding event experiences will help you make your choices more easily.  Certainly the best potential for a great wedding is found where the industry's top professionals are working together with a common goal: your wedding day bliss.

Comment, comment, comment.

Happy Planning!

Shayna

The Ultimate Fall Candy Buffet

I absolutely could NOT post again until these pictures came in.  A gigantic, humongous, serious thank you to Brad Howe of Brad Howe Photography, who I have tormented practically daily since Kerri and Chico's wedding on October 18.  The below photos - of one of my favorite designs and one of our proudest creations - are courtesy of Brad.

Kerri send me literally dozens of photos and ideas for inspiration (it would take an inspiration board the size of North Dakota to capture them all), and I spent weeks gathering glassware, selecting linens, borrowing back the acrylic tables that I insanely let go to The Flower Cupboard (thank you Cathy!), printing signage and filling candy jars. 

It took 9 hours to set up the reception on Friday before the event (and that was just linens and decor items - Colonial Heritage's fabulous set up team had the tables, chairs and hardware under control).  The guest reaction was incredible - and almost 150 pounds of candy were nearly gone by night's end.

 

The response was definitely worth almost a week of assembling more than 200 little brown boxes and affixing the custom monograms that Kerri had designed by I Do Originals.

Kerri and Chico were incredibly special to Williamsburg Wedding Design.  Their candy buffet was just one amazing feature of their beautiful - and in very many ways, unique - wedding (anyone depart on a brand-new trash truck lately?).  It was an honor to work with them.  Please visit again for more photos soon (that is, as soon as Brad is speaking to me again!).

   

Happy Planning

Shayna

Math For Wedding Planners

It's way late, and I'm up finishing touches for Kerri & Chico's big fall extravaganza tomorrow (pictures that will be worth checking in for...the room already looks amazing!).  I grant that I'm a little slap-happy after 7 hours on site today, but I think it's inspired me.

You see, I was pondering one of my biggest questions for tomorrow - how will I set up the place card table - when I realized that a life defined by creative avoidance of all things "Math" is bringing me right back to the heart of my nemesis.

- I am always miscalculating the amount of ribbon I need for any event.  For example, I have 10 rolls of useless copper orange ribbon sitting on my computer desk at the moment, while I'm meticulously rationing my chocolate grosgrain.  I will someday write a book about the joys and mishaps of full-service planning titled "Another Weekend Searching for Ribbon" or something equally pithy.

- Yesterday I actually looked up the formula for calculating the circumference of a circle (then I looked up "Pi" because I am that lame) in order to determine how many placecards to put in each "ring" around the table tomorrow and what margin I should leave between cards.

- Don't even get me started on budget projections, totals "plus plus", gratuities, taxes, wages, time allotments, ad space, alcohol quantities, table specs, tent specs, wattage and amperage, room dimensions, capacity, and more.  An advanced degree in physics, accounting and calculus would make this job a breeze!

And you thought wedding coordinators just played with flowers and ate cake!

I started high school wanting to be a marine biologist (after some inspirational trip to Sea World, no doubt).  I planned to attend the University of the South Pacific in Fiji (no, I've never been to Fiji...), and then do advanced studies at UC San Diego.  I even went to Sea Camp TWO summers in a row.

I also skipped fifth grade which is evidently when my generation learned fractions.  That's a setback I didn't feel I could overcome, and when I found out that MATH would be required to become a marine biologist, I reset my sights, ultimately chose a scenic college (don't worry, W&M ultimately put me in my place) and an "easy" major (my senior thesis professor in the History Department showed me the error of my "easy" choice) and the rest is a bad pun.

A degree in Marine Biology would probably have saved me loads in ribbon excess and some time determining how to cloth a serpentine table without using skirting.  I might also have pet a few more dolphins - but I wouldn't be where I am today.

Let it be a lesson to aspiring wedding coordinators of all ages - either pay attention in math class, or find a spouse/loyal friend/partner or genius pet who will back you up with math skills.  You'll quite certainly need them.

Happy Planning

Shayna Walker

Williamsburg Wedding Design

200 Brown Favor Boxes on the Wall...

Our "shop" is busily preparing for Kerri & Chico's wedding next weekend, and I'm reminded by the tasks I'm completing (and yes, they're getting checked off the list one-by-one!) how procrastination has made so many couples' lives incredibly difficult during the last weeks of planning.

They always mean well (and these would be our day-of and partial coordination clients for the most part.  The full-service clients chose early on to invest in a solution to this particular problem).  But the rest of life somehow refuses to pause while you plan a wedding, and before you know it you have two weeks, and 100 programs, 250 favors, 300 tealight tags - you name it - to prepare and you quickly lose the enchanting momentum you thought you'd have as you race to your perfect day.

Let this be a reminder to all couples - make sure to eat this big Wedding Planning Cake one bite at a time.  It pays to spend a few hours planning that program with your officiant 2-3 months before the wedding so you can have them printed, assembled and be-ribboned well before the day of the rehearsal.  You may not be able to complete your seating chart until the week before the wedding, but you can start it far sooner.  Think of how great you'd feel on the Wednesday before the wedding if the out of town welcome bags had been sitting ready in their boxes for days or weeks before they needed to be delivered? 

You owe yourself time to soak in your wedding week without rushing around taking care of details that you could have addressed before.  It's a great reason for a month-of or even a full-service coordinator, but failing that, it can be achieved by some good old-fashioned discipline and some personal pre-planning. 

Happy Planning!

Shayna Walker, Owner

Williamsburg Wedding Design