The World According to Weddlady

Things to Read from Weddlady

Blog Reminder

First, a reminder that The World According to Weddlady blog is now two new blogs, one for couples hoping to marry in or around Williamsburg, Virginia: www.thewilliamsburgweddingblog.com, and one that is still in development about Life in Planning (wedding planning that is...).

The Williamsburg Wedding Blog

Today on The Williamsburg Wedding Blog, read our newest "Faces of Williamsburg Weddings" profile about Niki Worrell of the Williamsburg Nanny Agency, an incredible local company that provides event nanny services as part of their repertoire.  You can also read about David Smith from Oleta Coach Lines, Inc., Brad Howe of Brad Howe Photography, Ken Jaworski of Dreams in Motion Limo, and yes, everything you could possibly want to know about me, Shayna Walker of Williamsburg Wedding Design.

We have some local celebrity wedding pros who have promised to grace the profiles with their responses very soon, so please keep reading!

Disclosure - Or Lack of Need for Disclosure to Be Exact

And a side note on our Faces of Williamsburg Weddings series - these are not paid profiles. We are sharing with you our personal picks for the best of Williamsburg weddings, and giving our readers insight into the people behind the businesses that make up some of Williamsburg's wedding dream teams. We believe it's good business to bring business to Williamsburg, and thus, we share. Good karma too.

Other Must-Reads:

A colleague of ours in California wrote a particularly timely post about the difference between Venue Coordinators and Independent Coordinators. Please, please read this post - I love good venue coordinators and have even featured them on my blog. But as an industry, we see a lot of good people suffer because of a corporate culture that forces venue coordinators to appear to do more than they can. YOU suffer when this happens. Please read Amber's post.

You can read a post I wrote previously about a Venue Coordinator who actually gets it here: Scott Crabbs & The William & Mary Alumni House.

And I'll be revamping an article I previously wrote on the matter (which I seem to have lost part of due to outdated links...good grief). So stay-tuned to The Williamsburg Wedding Blog for more. And check in here for occasional updates on the other blogs too!

In the meantime, Happy Planning!

Shayna Walker

Williamsburg Wedding Design

This Week on The Williamsburg Wedding Blog

If you have found The World According to Weddlady for the first time, please note that we have changed formats and have split "The World" into the brand new "The Williamsburg Wedding Blog" and an upcoming industry blog entitled "Life in Weddings"!

This week on The Williamsburg Wedding Blog we launched a new series, "Faces of Williamsburg Weddings" with profiles of the region's best wedding professionals. Read about:

Brad Howe of Brad Howe Photography

Ken Jaworski of Dreams in Motion, LLC

and, of course, me:

Shayna Weddle Walker, Williamsburg Wedding Design

Keep checking The Williamsburg Wedding Blog for new profiles and more information to make your Williamsburg wedding a smashing success!

Happy Planning!

Shayna Walker

Williamsburg Wedding Design

Rehearsal Dinner Fun

A nice thing about rehearsal dinners is that they can give a couple an opportunity to think outside of the box.  There are fewer guidelines dictating formality, style and etiquette for rehearsal dinners, and it's totally fine to just plan a fun party.  Some unusual real-life rehearsal ideas that our current or past clients have enjoyed include:

1. Going casual - we've had clients hold luaus, backyard parties, pig roasts.  You name it!

2. Exploring different cuisine - a popular choice among several of our clients is a local favorite Indian restaurant.  We've seen Mexican fiestas and all-Filipino menus too.  It's a great time to reflect a unique part of your cultural heritage, or simply a favorite style of food that you both love.

3. Choosing something that could be considered silly or impractical on a larger scale - ice cream cakes, ice cream sundaes, fondue restaurants, live chef demos...use your imagination and I'm sure you'll find something that your inner child wants to share.  The rehearsal dinner is a great place to be more daring - as long as you have fun and create a meaningful experience for your closest friends and family.

What other fun rehearsal dinner ideas do you have?  Post them here to share!

Happy planning.

Shayna

On-Site vs. Off-Site Catering

There is a popular "notion" that a sure-fire budget saver is to choose a reception location that allows a couple to bring in an off-site caterer.  While sometimes it is economical to select your own caterer, in other circumstances a couple would benefit from choosing a full-service facility.  There are pros and cons to both options:

Off-Site Catering:

1. often offers flexibility, allowing you to choose your own caterer, either from a list of permitted caterers or from any licensed catering professional; flexibility of choice can help if you are able to choose a budget-friendly company

2. can at times be more expensive, if the facility has a higher rental fee, does not include basics like tables and chairs or requires you to choose from a select list of caterers

3. can be significantly more complicated to set up, decorate and break down as most will not have an on-site staff to help with those tasks (though some do)

On-Site Catering:

1. You are restricted to choosing only the in-house caterer

2. Can actually be less expensive if the facility rental is lower or includes items that would otherwise need to be rented

3. Can offer a significant savings in labor for set-up, decoration and break down

Before you reject a site based on the on and off-site catering question, please consider all of the details and fairly weigh one against the other.  You might be surprised with what fits your vision of the perfect day.

Happy Planning,

Shayna

BYO Catering

A frequently asked question at Williamsburg Wedding Design is which Williamsburg-area venues permit you to bring your own caterer.  Here are five of our favorites (each has its own rules about which caterers can work on their property, so please pay attention to their policies):

The Alumni House of the College of William & Mary (see restrictions)

The Williamsburg Winery

The Williamsburg Community Building

Legacy Hall (New Town)

Yorktown Freight Shed

What's your favorite BYO-Caterer in the Williamsburg or greater-Williamsburg area?  Post it in the comments or post on our FB fan page.  And look for our upcoming post about On-Site Catering vs. BYO and why neither is automatically the cheaper nor more expensive option - we'll publish later this week!

Happy Planning!

Shayna

Lemon, Tangerine and Raspberry - a Delicious Palette

Tangy lemonheads, strawberry and lemon rock candy, pink pillow mints, cherry sours, grapefruit sours, and a surprise crowd-favorite - orange slices: some of the ingredients of our super-successful "Romance in the Sun" inspired candy buffet at today's Showbride Bridal Showcase hosted at Colonial Heritage Club.  Here are my horrible amateur pics - the candy is pretty enough to compensate for the total lack of photographic talent!

 

The color selection was inspired by a page out of Martha Stewart Magazine.  I liked that it was romantic without being too obvious - the yellow and orange gave it more depth and dynamic, I think, than a plain range of pink would have.  The fruity flavors (and easy ship-ability) made it summer-friendly.  I believe it's one of the best modern uses of the Jordan almond (which for all of the jokes was one of the most popular items).

 

Bridal shows are slightly different from weddings in that you can't fully anticipate the approximate number of "guests", so we kept the containers small and we did, in fact, make the utensils a little harder to use than something like a big spoon.  We also attended the buffet carefully, which I recommend even at weddings, to make sure that the first pass was controlled.  Of course, we also overestimated (another good plan for weddings) so by the end of the day we were encouraging people to take home thirds and fourths!  You won't miss our next candy buffet, will you?

 

The first 75 guests or so received little packets of business cards and candy buffet tips tied with sheer raspberry ribbon (you see them laying around the table in the above fuzzy photo.  We also pre-packed little pillow mints, or after dinner mints, in tiny packages with our logo for those who wanted a quick treat.  See some closeups of those below:

 

We custom printed the logos on label paper and punched them with a Martha Stewart craft punch - something you could easily do for your own wedding or event!

 

We ordered the majority of the candy from one of our favorite supplies, Ohnuts.com.  They ship fast and you can view candy on their site by color.   We've been really pleased with their prices and consistency in the past, so we suggest you look into their services. 

We had a minor disaster on the way to the bridal show with the big center jar, which was originally filled with Strawberry Whoppers.  After some breakage, we were forced to discard that candy and had to do a last-minute Starburst replacement, which you can see went really well.  It does cost a lot more to buy candy retail, though, so plan ahead and purchase your candy in bulk. 

The candy buffet was a huge hit at the bridal show, and is something that can easily be personalized to truly reflect your wedding style.  Choose a color theme or choose candies that are favorites of yours from childhood.  Your guests will certainly enjoy the "Sweet" Surprise!

Happy Planning.

Shayna Walker, Owner

Williamsburg Wedding Design

Bridal Sensitivity Training in a Budget Conscious World

Newsflash: You are Being Watched

Something I wish I could tell all brides and grooms during their vendor selection process: when you have done your homework, and are sitting in an interview with a prospective vendor, you are being watched.   You are, in fact, being interviewed as well...and you may not get the job.

Is following questionable advice worth risking your favorite venue or preferred vendor?  Would you do it differently if you knew that your chances of achieving your vendor and budget goals were infinitely increased if you changed your own approach?

Brides and Vendors Behaving Badly?

I understand intimately how badly certain members of this industry (I will not call them professionals - they don't warrant the title) essentially stink - they are guilty of gouging for the sake of greed and undercutting their competitors to secure business at any cost.  This behavior ranges from intolerable to outright unethical and I'm glad that the internet provides multiple sites that encourage thoughtful reviews so brides and grooms can distinguish between real pros and despicable "cons".

I expect that you are reading those review sites carefully, weighing real-life experience against promotional claims and narrowing your list of vendor interviews down to legitimate businesses worthy of your time.  In other words, I expect you are not CHOOSING to meet with crooks and that you've done the best you can to weed them out of the selection process.

Then I expect you to do YOUR part:

1. interview considerately

2. ask meaningful questions

3. contact references

4. act respectfully 

Your success rate at negotiation and ultimately securing the dream day that you hope for at rates you can live with ultimately rests with how well you execute this process - and not how much dumb advice you follow.

One of my most renowned rants on bad behavior and bad advice is archived here: "The Other Kind of Advice".  The article reviews, among other gems, real pieces of advice that if followed threaten to permanently label the "poor, unsuspecting" engaged couples as undesirable clients. 

Bad advice is easily masked today as budget-saving revelation.  The fact is that you absolutely can successfully negotiate great rates, prioritize even the smallest budget and work WITH your wedding professionals to achieve your dreams.  Set yourself up as an antagonist from appointment one, however, and risk alienating the very people you want to have "your back" on the big day.

I reiterate - really good wedding professionals who want to provide services to happy clients are interviewing you as critically as you are interviewing them.  Step over the line from respectful to condescending when haggling or "negotiating" and they may (and in my opinion should) walk away.

In the article "Questionable Advice Revisited", I concluded with a sentiment even more applicable today amidst increasing access to every level of advice: planning a wedding is not your carte blanche opportunity to check your brain...THINK for yourselves, remember and expect the vendors you interview to act like (and be) professionals.  Approach us with respect, and you should see that we return it 10-fold...

Happy Planning!

Shayna Walker, Owner

Williamsburg Wedding Design

Budget Saving Advice You CAN'T Always Bank On

I feel duty-bound to caution couples who are reading some of the recession-busting advice in national articles as it pertains to weddings.  There are many awesome methods of saving money on your wedding, and I'm a big fan of lots of them.  There are others that are regionally problematic, and one popularly-suggested one is (as the Martha Stewart Weddings Summer 2009 edition terms in a great article about budget-saving options): "Initiate an Officiant", or essentially have a friend "ordained" for the day. 

In many regions that is a sound, money-shaving suggestion.  However, it's also almost never going to fly in many localities in Virginia.  I say "almost" because there are exceptions, but depending on where you're holding your Dogwood State nuptials, they can be difficult to come by.  This great Commonwealth is reasonably conservative.  Most jurisdictions consider the act of marrying someone more sacred than an overnight ordination necessarily represents, and "for better or worse" have far stricter requirements that must be met before you can be commissioned to perform a legal ceremony. 

My best advice to Virginia-bound couples who want to have a friend marry them is to hire a civil officiant to legally marry them (they can attend the wedding or not depending on your willingness to be married before or after your wedding date) and have your friend perform the ceremonial duties during the actual event.  Some civil officiants, like those commissioned by the Williamsburg-area courts are extremely inexpensive as they view the commission as a civil service, and others who make a primary career out of performing ceremonies charge more for their time and expertise.  You have to make your choice based on your own priorities.

Bottom line, you need to consult with the clerk of your court before setting your heart on having a friend ordained with the intention of performing your union.  And take everything you read in an advice column with a grain of salt and a healthy skepticism until you can verify the legitimacy of the claim.

Happy and WISE planning!

Shayna Walker, Owner

Williamsburg Wedding Design

Candy Buffet Wisdom

I'm getting a lot of questions these days regarding candy buffets (my new favorite obsession...ask away).  Here is some information I shared with one of my clients recently in response to her e-mail for any tips I might have:

Oh - I meant to say that for the last candy buffet, I pre-filled the jars then wrapped them very tightly with plastic wrap so the candy stayed fresh and in-place.  The week before I actually washed all the jars, and made and affixed the candy labels on the ribbon (and double-sided taped the ribbon to the jars).  Those things take up SO much time that doing them in steps saved us a huge headache during setup.  Also, I recommend having extra candy to replenish the candy buffet and to make sure it's in easy to open/close Ziploc bags or reusable containers for discrete refills.  Finally, choosing the smallest possible scoops helps keep guests from taking all of the candy at once.

 

We actually had an attendant (from my staff) keep the candy buffet closed until after the introductions and first dance so all of the guests had time to admire it, and the photographer had plenty of time to shoot it.  Otherwise guests would have torn it to pieces before the bride ever had a chance to see it, and they would have been paying more attention to getting candy than they were to the dances and welcome remarks.  The suspense was healthy and people took the time to admire the setup.  The delay wasn't too long and except for some teasing remarks, most people didn't mind waiting.

 

Hope that helps!

Save Valuable Set-Up Time with a Few Quick Tips

Event setups can take a lot longer than anticipated.  For example, our October 18 wedding with the splendid candy buffet?  That took me 10 hours on Friday (alone) and as many on Saturday with Lauralee to setup and I still would have liked more time to polish.

If you're not prepared, setup can easily get out of hand and timing can become critical.

Your best shot is to be super-organized going into the setup and have lots of help. 

And remember...place cards go on tables and should be pre-sorted in the exact order in which they will be set out (so make a plastic baggie for each table, and stack them so you can start at one seat and go around in a circle without making adjustments).  Throw in a well-labeled diagram or twelve just to be sure everyone is clear.

Escort cards are the little ones that guests pick up to FIND their table - they need to be alphabetized except in the rarest of circumstances. 

Don't make your set up crew (hired or volunteer) alphabetize on your wedding day.  You will save them vast amounts of time and energy, which can be spent enjoying themselves and thinking all nice things about you!

Happy planning!

Shayna Walker

Williamsburg Wedding Design