The Politics of Tables

Your guests arrive at the reception, pick up their escort cards and discover to which table they've been assigned. To some guests, it's the magic moment. The lower the number, the higher the honor. "Am I at table two? Or dare I think it--the most exalted and revered TABLE ONE?" You might not think of it, but guests tend to automatically rank themselves in importance in your life based on what table number they've been assigned. So what do you do? NAME the tables instead of numbering them. Name them after cities you've been together, your favorite movies, constellations--anything but numbers. That removes the politics completely. Who's to say that the "Starfish" table is better or worse than the "Seahorse" table? Naming your tables is also a great way to carry your theme throughout your reception. Beach theme? Name your tables after beaches you've gone to together. No theme? Start with "Faith" "Hope" and "Love" and go from there. Come up with any set of names that mean something to the two of you. "But how will they find their tables," you ask me. Easy. There are two ways--alphabetize them around the room or provide a ballroom diagram outside. Then your guests can find their tables with ease and enjoy your reception.

Table name signs--starring--YOU!

I just did the coolest thing. I love challenges and pushing the envelope just a little bit past where I thought it could go. For this particular challenge, one of my brides wanted to have character line art for the images on her table name signs. That was the easy part. For her sweetheart table, she came up with the idea of putting a picture of the two of them on the sign. And although that sounds pretty easy--I've printed plenty of table signs with pictures on them after all, I wanted to give that envelope another shove. Especially because we weren't printing full color images on her signs. We were using character line art and foiling the artwork in gold to match her wedding. I did it! I turned Michele and Russell into line art from this gorgeous photo Michele sent. It looked great! I guess my next challenge will be to figure out how I just did that so I can do it again. :0 ) Best wishes to Michele and Russell!

How to avoid PWWS (Post Wedding Withdrawal Syndrome)

The wedding is over. The cake has been demolished, the guests have gone home, the flowers have started to shrivel (I'll blog about preserving your flowers soon--I totally believe in this. My favorite preservation company is http://www.keepsakefloral.com/ ), your dress is off to the cleaners, and everything you've been planning for so long gathered together into a huge crescendo and now--silence. For some brides, that would be the time to exhale. For me, it was just awful. I know I was supposed to be excited with the prospect of starting my new life, but instead, I also felt a huge gaping hole filled with "now what do I do with myself?" I did work full time during my wedding planning, but one part of my brain was always thinking on the wedding. "What if I mixed the coral and pink petals," "What other favor could I do?" "What reading should Uncle John do?" I was engaged for two and a half years of constantly thinking about the wedding. And I never thought past my wedding day. When it arrived, the morning of my wedding was surreal--I couldn't believe it was really here. Then it was if the whole word was on fast forward and all of a sudden, it was the next morning and I had a shiny new ring on my finger that came with an awful bout of PWWS (hey--I should copyright this new syndrome. Publish a medical paper or something! LOL!) I was so lost and didn't know what to do with all my creative energy. Now I don't know if I'm an isolated freak or if you maybe feel or will feel the same way. It's actually simple to fix--plan for it. Start planning another event--even as simple as a dinner party on your new wedding china to be held after the wedding when you get your video back. You'll be an expert now on how to dress your table and how everything should look. Maybe even duplicate your wedding table look as best as you can with all of your new gifts. Maybe order one more centerpiece, get duplicate place cards (or save the originals) and maybe have that night be dinner and watching your wedding video or looking at your proofs. It will help to have the focus and creative outlet, and it will get you over the hump. Then your new life will start to get into routine and you'll be too busy to be depressed. Best of luck and happiness!

My favorite photo ever taken in Disney's Grand Floridian Convention Center courtesy of Peter Jensen, www.floridaportraitartist.com

More photos from Loria and Jonathan's wedding are on my site www.fairytalewedding.com in the Happily Ever After Gallery.

A Crusade Against the"M"

I love blogs. I love the opportunity to have a forum to be able to rant about silly little things like the seemingly harmless "M." To which "M" am I referring? The one that traditionally appears on a typical response card as a lead-in to the line where the guests are meant to write their names. The "M" and long line that follows it have been printed on response cards since response cards have been printed. So why a crusade against them? Well, it's simple. The world today is different. Etiquette has been thrown about and tossed around and scattered to the wind. I would say that most people today do not have a grasp on the social niceties and their nuances that were vitally important for hundreds of years. Basically, your guests may not understand the "M." Heck--I'm a stationer and I get confused when I get a response card with that "M." Do I write "Mr. and Mrs. David LaMarre" or do I use the "M" and write "r. and Mrs. David LaMarre"? See? It's awkward. Not something you want your guests to feel. I had a wedding with five doctors and one rabbi. How do they fill that out? MRabbi and Mrs. . .? MDr. and Mrs.? Maybe. . .they put the "MD" instead of the Dr.? So what to do? I have two suggestions for you: either write "Name(s) _____________" which clearly indicates what's to go on that line, or get a little more traditional and have just "Please respond by ..." with your respond date and leave the rest of the space blank like this sample. The guests still might be a little bewildered with this second method and you may get a few back blank, but then again, you may get some lovely responses like, "Mr. and Mrs. David LaMarre will be honored to attend and can't wait to share your beautiful day." Isn't that nicer than "r. and Mrs. David LaMarre"? What's an "r." anyway?

Invitations shown as samples can be found at http://www.fairytalewedding.cceasy.com/

Personalization 101

This is a quick little blog to help one of my sweet brides who wants to get her place cards ordered now even though we've got time to figure out her guest list. We normally don't ask for the place card list until about 2 weeks before the wedding because guests always mess with the works. "I know we said that all 7 of us were coming, but we're not," and "Cousin Judy is in the airport! She can make it!" The day before the wedding. (Actually, my Cousin Judy did just that and it was AWESOME to have her! Love you, Judy!) But for most brides, place cards can be a last-minute nightmare. Any road, I digress. We're focusing on blank vs. personalized place cards. This is an image of a little carriage place card frame we have that makes a good combination place card/favor. It comes with a not-exactly-pretty insert with black flowers and the ever-present "M____________" and "Table ___ ." I personalized it the best I could in this picture to show you that if you use the insert that comes with it, this is the best you can do. Even so, professionally done, nothing lines up. Now here are two pictures of the same frame from a wedding we did where we created custom inserts and happily threw away the black and white copier paper inserts that came with them. (I'm trying not to sound stuck up, it's just coming out that way anyway.) But by custom personalizing a different paper, the result is clean and elegant. And if you're naming your tables (which I whole-heartedly suggest) you won't have room to write them on the "Table ___" spot that's expecting a number. If you need to cut down on your budget and you are going to be personalizing your own place cards by hand, get them TOTALLY blank--nothing printed on them so that all that appears is your handwriting. In the case of these or any other frames, I think that the included copier paper might be too thin to do it, but at least flip over the insert and write on the blank side. Of course, in an ideal world, you'd just call me and I'd take care of all this fuss for you. LOL! Well, hey, it's my blog and I should be able to plug myself, right? Bottom line--when personalizing your place cards, the guests will notice if you have an ugly guide printed on the page. Keep it clean, simple, and elegant.

Bottom two beautiful photos courtesy of Disney Photographic Services

May the love be with you. . .and Lauren and John!

Once upon a time. . .and in a galaxy far away. . .Lauren and John had an amazing wedding at Walt Disney World! We had an absolute blast helping this sweet couple design the details for this amazing event. We made save the dates in a Star Wars glitter font, custom oversized pocket invitations in shimmery paper and their favorite aqua color, and then for the wedding, the fun began! Their ceremony at Disney's Wedding Pavilion was traditional. The bride even wore her mother's vintage wedding gown. Their programs were ivory shimmery paper hot foil stamped in silver with the Walt Disney World Castle, Stitch and Tinker Bell.

Their staged exit was unique because we made three different items--rose petal cones with their custom monogram, bubbles and ribbon wands in their colors stamped with "May the Love be with you!" The guests were allowed to choose their favorite way of sending the bride and groom off to their reception.

The bride and groom both had costume changes for their Star Wars themed reception. The bride wore a gown befitting Princess Leia (if Leia had more of a classic style. . .LOL!) and the groom had commissioned a custom Jedi costume. They entered the ballroom at Disney's Grand Floridian under the creative salute of crossed lightsabers and the fun began!

The tables were named after the different planets on the Star Wars galaxy and we made a custom ballroom diagram to look like a planetary system detailing the precise location of each guest's "planet" or table. (For fun, I made the DJ's table the Death Star. He had a good chuckle!) The room was beautiful. The Walt Disney World Floral team, led by the amazing Rose Dizon, outdid themselves in making the room beautiful and elegant but still with a galactic touch. The centerpieces had flashing lights in the vase and the room sparkled.

We made place cards and menu cards both with a special twist--the color of the bow on both the menu card and place card indicated the individual guest's meal choice. Turquoise blue meant beef, silver meant fish and ivory signified chicken. (Lauren and John had special menus, so we added stars to their place cards). We also created signs to go on the table with the coordinating planets pictured.

For Lauren and John's cake, Disney's Grand Floridian Bakery created a turquoise and ivory edible confection with our large white chocolate castle on top decorated with turquoise accents and glittering pixie dust.

The effect of all the painstaking details was well worth the effort. Fantasy became reality just for one magical night and our bride and groom partied the night away. . .and then they lived. . .happily ever after. (Cue the ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum music at the end of Star Wars that starts the credits!)

Photography: Disney Photographic Services

Wedding Planner: Celeste DeCicco, Disney's Fairy Tale Weddings

Floral: Rose Dizon, Disney Floral Event and Gifts

All the details: Impressions, of course!

An amazing thank you!

These days where "no news is good news," the only feedback anyone seems to give is negative if at all. Then someone will take the time to sit down and truly send a thank you that is so heartfelt, it moves you to tears. One of the greatest gifts that life has to offer is to be appreciated. So since today I was blessed with this beautiful thank you that made me cry, and I'm bursting with pride all at the same time, I thought I'd share it with you.

"Shelley and her team at Impressions are simply incredible! At first I was a little hesitant to even request a quote, because I feared they would be way above our budget. But, I took a chance and Shelley did everything she could to stay within that budget and created items that were truly works of art.

From the first time I emailed Shelley until our wedding, everything Impressions did was first class. Shelley asked me right away what our theme was to help give her an idea of how I saw our special day. I told her I wasn’t sure exactly but I envisioned Cinderella’s Coach in Snowflakes, and our colors were red, yellow, chocolate and silver. Two days later she sent me an original design she had created just for us that immediately took my breath away. Then, she made suggestions of how we could make things look extremely elegant and stay where we needed to be in order to not break the bank! Because she was designing things specifically for us, there weren’t really any samples for me to see. I do not like to purchase things before I can see the exact product, but from what I saw on her website and everything our Disney wedding coordinator said about Shelley, we took a chance and put our trust in her. We were more than happy we did! My husband and I loved everything about our wedding, and our flowers were unbelievably gorgeous. But without a doubt, the number one compliment we got was for all of Impressions’ work. We are still hearing from people who see our pictures words like ‘unique’, ‘glamorous’, ‘exquisite’, ‘gorgeous’, and always ‘who did your program, place cards, napkins, etc’!

The thing that most impressed me was Shelley’s effort and kindness. Two qualities you cannot pay enough for these days. One of our place cards was missing upon arrival three days before we departed for our wedding. Shelley suggested since the mail is not always reliable that she should just bring it to our Disney hotel when arrived. We communicated throughout the week, and two days before our wedding her husband dropped it off at the front desk of our hotel. In a world where being reliable is becoming hard to find, it was wonderful to receive service with a smile and work with a team that keeps their word,

If you are looking for a company to design an exclusive item or items for your wedding, you have come to the right place. If you think Impressions might be too pricy for your budget, give them a chance and you will probably be surprised at what beautiful pieces of art Shelley can design within your financial constraints. Thank you Shelley, and everyone at Impressions, for putting the most beautiful final touches on our wedding we could have ever asked for! You will always be part of our Happily Ever After!

Sincerely,

Dedrick & Taryn Biggs Fields

My "Impressions" on Videography...

photo courtesy of Peter Jensen, www.floridaportraitartist.com

"I'm at the end of my budget, video is an easy cut, right?" Well, it seems so. I mean really, how often will you watch your video? For my wedding, I was planning to have some friends bring their cameras and set them up on tripods. Just so it was recorded. But I got very lucky--just before my wedding, I came to my senses. I asked one of my friends to see her video and I was blown away. I had been a GUEST at her wedding and I didn't know about half the stuff I saw on the video. In her ceremony, we couldn't hear the groom because he was so choked up he was just about whispering. But the videographer had put a microphone on him and everything he said was crystal clear. I was moved to tears watching her video. So I called her videographer, Pro One Video (http://www.proonevideo.com/), took out my last credit card with any room on it, and booked them. And I thank the heavens every day that I did.

To begin, some things happened in my ceremony that I didn't plan. My three very best friends were a part of my ceremony either speaking or singing for us. For the ones that spoke, I didn't choose readings or anything, they wrote their own words and spoke from their hearts. Before the ceremony, my sister told me that she had tissues in her bouquet if I needed them. When my friends were speaking, I started to cry. Big time. Here I was, worried that I'm going to mess up my makeup and have my false eyelashes run down my face like spiders and my sister is watching the reading. In the opposite direction. I couldn't get her attention. Finally, I snapped my fingers (which brought dead silence to the whole room), hung my head and pointed to her bouquet. I got tissues, lots of laughs and I got all that on video.

I also didn't really think about it beforehand, but my husband and I have such a story and for us to finally get married after all we'd been through was major and sweet and wonderful and a real life fairy tale. So when our officiant asked me if I take this man to be my husband, I said , "And how!!!" LOL! I've got it on video.

And I've also got video of my father doing a striptease and my mother dancing with him with a dollar bill in her teeth (they've been divorced for over 30 years!) I wasn't in the room when it happened. And that's just the point. On your wedding day, you can't be everywhere at once. Your day is rushing by like a blur. Let your video team be your eyes and record everything. Of course you'll have photos of everything (I don't even have to blog to tell anyone how important photos are--they know!), but the difference is that video is LIVING pictures.

As time passes, the flower girl and ring bearer will grow up, people will change and some people will be lost. (It happened to me personally right after my wedding--special thanks to Mark LeGrand with Pro One Video for doing the unthinkable in his industry and providing me with raw footage of my sister Lisa. We lost her unexpectedly only 7 months after my wedding and I was able to give the video to her children. She was only 25.) It's wonderful to have photos of all of your guests, but it's an even better memory to see them as they were: happy, dancing, all dressed up and full of love and good wishes for you in your new life.

It's worth it. Do yourself a favor and book a videographer. Capture this moment in your lives and all the wonderful faces in them.


(Oh--and make sure you don't try to save money by having only one camera at the ceremony. I had one bride years ago that cut her budget there. The videographer turned the camera on, red light was flashing, and somehow the camera didn't work at ALL for her whole ceremony. She ended up with a photo montage instead of hearing herself say her vows!)

All about your chairs. . .

It seems such a crazy thing for me to blog about. I'm about to talk all my brides into getting chair covers or renting chivari chairs even though it probably means that things will get cut off my proposal to make room in the budget. Honestly--that's fine. So here's me hopping up on my soap box. PLEASE get chair covers or rent chivari chairs. Why? I do understand. When you're over budget and the stress is mounting and you're going over everything line by line, chair covers seem to be an easy cut. After all, if you cut them it's not like your guests won't have a place to sit. So what's the big deal? Well, here's the big deal. If you don't cover those ugly ballroom chairs, everything you just spent on linens, centerpieces, votives, décor, ambiance--is pretty much wasted. You will turn your glittering elegant affair into a bad business meeting just like that.

It's what I call a "room killer." All these beautiful details and seriously ugly convention chairs.

Here below are two samples of chivari chair setups. When you look at these, there's a sense of "ahhhh, that's so pretty!" Compared to the pictures above. The bottom picture was taken (badly by me) before the flowers were placed on top of their centerpiece vases and the room STILL looks beautiful.

So pretty please with a chair cover on top--pay attention to your chairs and make sure that when you're cutting your budget, you don't accidentally cut an artery and kill your gorgeous reception room.