Archives for February, 2009
Posted on Feb 24, 2009 under Wedding Venues |
6. “We can’t keep our weddings straight.”
“A bride wants to think she’s the only bride in the world,” says Gerard Monaghan, president of the Association of Bridal Consultants. “What she doesn’t need to see is another bride in the bathroom at her wedding reception.” But wedding pileups happen, especially at hotels and catering halls that hold several receptions in one day. Multiple weddings can also cause a location to spread its staff too thin.
Chris Cady of All Star Entertainment in Reno, Nev., arrived to emcee a reception a few years ago and found that the hotel had set aside only one waitress to serve 150 people. “The one girl showed up and cried,” Cady says.
“When a location does two functions per day per weekend, it’s a wedding factory,” says Lynn Broadwell, co-author of the resource book “Here Comes the Guide.” “Mistakes will be made.” She says a wedding reception may be bounced in favor of a larger function, gifts can get mixed up, guests can end up at the wrong party, or the wine meant for one reception can end up at the one down the hall. “You need to ask, ‘Am I going to see the people from the other function? Are we going to be rubbing elbows? Are we using the same bathroom facilities?’ And you need to have it in writing.”
Posted on Feb 19, 2009 under Secrets Of The Trade |
5. “If it’s for a wedding, it’ll cost you 30% more.”
You might have suspected that a wedding costs more than any other kind of similarly scaled event. You would be right. Diane Warner, author of “How to Have a Big Wedding on a Small Budget,” tells of a bride-to-be who wanted to test this theory for herself.
“She called a service in San Francisco, asked for just what she wanted, and they gave her a bid,” Warner explains. “The next day, she had her fiance call and bid on the same items for a party. He got a lower price.”
In researching Bridal Bargains, Fields and his wife spoke to several florists who told them that if they get the sense a bride has big bucks, they’ll suggest exotic or out-of-season flowers.
”If you’re wearing a big diamond ring or your fiance is a doctor, it seems you suddenly have to fly in orchids from Hawaii,” he says.
Posted on Feb 16, 2009 under Wedding Etiquette |
4. “Believe it or not, I expect a tip.”
Gone are the days when a tip was an acknowledgment of superior service. More often than not, vendors involved in the wedding will be looking for some kind of handout.
According to The Knot, a wedding-planning Web site, anyone from the civil ceremony official to the chef to the wedding planner could be looking for a donation. “While tipping is for good service,” says Knot co-founder Carley Roney, “people also expect it unless service is extremely poor.” For a wedding of $25,000, Roney recommends setting aside $1,500 for gratuities to be put in envelopes on the wedding day.
www.ExclusiveWeddingGuide.com/guide
Posted on Feb 11, 2009 under Uncategorized |
3. “We’ll nickel and dime you to death.”
Allison Gould reserved her reception site in the Detroit suburbs well before her wedding — 17 months before, to be exact — in the hopes of avoiding surprises. After all, a friend had supplied her own cake and champagne at her wedding and was later charged $1.25 per person for each item as a serving fee. But when Gouin ordered chair covers at $2 each from a rental company, she found out only after the fact that if she wanted them ironed and tied onto the chairs, it would cost her $2 extra per chair. She also discovered that there were extra per-person charges for napkins and tablecloths. It’s common sense to go through your wedding contract with a fine-tooth comb, but it’s even wiser to look for anything not in the contract. Package contracts may not include every dish or piece of flatware, or the waiters to pour the champagne you bought. The items and services not included are rarely free.
Posted on Feb 09, 2009 under Uncategorized |
. “The groom may kiss the bride — and pay the kickback.”
Need help choosing a florist, caterer, photographer or entertainer? Wedding planners and others will be all too happy to provide a list of recommended vendors. But don’t think they’re doing you a favor. More often than not, insiders admit, the businesses that pay the highest price are the ones who get the referrals.
That’s right: kickbacks. How does it work? Daniel Davison, souz chef of catering in New York, says most locations have a “preferred” list of caterers. In many cities, he adds, if a person wants to bring in a caterer not on the list, the caterer has to buy a license to serve in that facility, at the expense of the client.
In order to get on such a list, a business must pay an annual fee “in the range of $300 to $500,” says Alan Fields, co-author of the bestselling wedding-guide “Bridal Bargains” — or pay a 5-10% commission. “People who don’t want to pay money aren’t on the list,” says Fields. Some caterers go even further, according to Danielson, and volunteer to organize the vendors for the client. “You’re paying a 17-20% service charge on something they would have to do anyway,” he says.
Posted on Feb 05, 2009 under Secrets Of The Trade |
1. “We’ll do it our way.”
You’ve been planning your wedding for months — if not years — and even the tiniest detail is taken into account. Too bad that all too often, the people you hire to help carry out the plans are oblivious to what you want. When Marie Jane Shroper of Ducanes, Ga., arrived at the church on her wedding day, she found that the L-shaped white bouquets she had requested had somehow become Christmas tree-shaped arrangements of large pink lilies and red flowers. The bride had also ordered a single rose for placement at the altar in remembrance of her recently deceased grandmother and a corsage for her husband’s stepmother, wanting her to feel included as one of the family. The florist brought the wrong flower to recognize the grandmother and omitted the corsage altogether.How to avoid mistakes like that one?
Jeane Pichard, a Ventura, Calif., wedding consultant suggests checking affiliations with groups such as the Association of Bridal Consultants (whose members include wedding planners, videographers and caterers), the Leading Caterers of America and the American Disc Jockey Association.
Posted on Feb 02, 2009 under Wedding Vendors |
“We’ve Done Over 20,000 Events, Yet Most of Those DJ’s are Gone” It’s always good to find a DJ with lots of experience. Many of the big named DJ companies claim to have many years of experience. That is, combined experience with over the hundreds of DJ’s they’ve hired in the past 30 years. DJ’s come and go with the bigger companies like they do with fast food chains. So how do you know the DJ that you get wasn’t just hired last week, or has any experience at all? Also the DJ you think you might have may leave to go somewhere else, then you get someone you may never meet until the day of your wedding. Setting up turntables at your friends house parties doesn’t count as experience either. “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten”
6. “We can’t keep our weddings straight.”
