An Update

Pardon my lack of posting lately. It's a zoo at my 8-5 job, then I had my former step-dad's wedding little more than a week ago, and I have a wedding I'm planning Friday, with a rehearsal to run tomorrow. Needless to say once you shove a small social life in there I've been booked solid...and with my lack of access to vital resources at work (thanks to IT for blocked websites) my ability to post has been limited. So I thought for today I'd give you an update...on things from a planner's perspective.

My Dad's Wedding

This was an intimate affair (and by intimate I mean 10 people total), a second marriage for both bride and groom, and a celebration only between family members. Literally it was him, her, his kids, her kids, and both their parents. I think my dad will admit that he's pretty frugal and so hiring his daughter to do the planning just wasn't in the cards. So I let them plan it all on their own and literally showed up that day as a guest. This allowed me to get an interesting planner's perspective on the whole thing.

For pro's: Tina (the bride) had her local hairstylist come to the venue and do her hair as well as anyone else who wanted it. I jumped on this boat along with Tina's mother and my sister (who was actually the Maid of Honor). We were all taking photos together, and providing this service for free to anyone in the bridal party who wanted it was really nice. I remember her mother just being so excited to have her hair done so nicely. If you can afford it, and likely only if you're having a small wedding, I would really encourage you to do something like this. It was great! Another positive was their photographer. Once we'd finished many of the normal photos, the bride and groom went upstairs to freshen up before the ceremony. In the meantime he took probably 20-30 minutes to take photos of us kids together in a variety of poses and styles. He made a good point...would our parents rather have photos of them freshening up and meeting with the minister or photos of their kids and their new combined family to stick on their desks at work and in their new home?! Having a smart and friendly photographer is always a plus! He pretty much risked his life taking a photo from the edge of a gigantic cliff too...props to him!

For con's: There was a very limited plan/structure/organizational timeline. We kind of knew around what time period to show up, we knew when the ceremony was, and we kind of knew when it would end, but that was about as far planned as the whole day got. With a ten-person wedding, this really wasn't horrible, but if you'd had 150 people sitting at your reception site chilling out for 45 minutes with nothing to do but mingle with each other, you might have some unhappy guests. Luckily our wait staff was pretty good about bringing in drinks while we waited and we knew each other well enough to spend time joking around...but your guests should always have an idea of what's going on and how the event will flow; don't make them wonder how long they're going to have to wait and why. At least keep them occupied. Also, always do a run through of your ceremony at some point! The site coordinator played the wrong songs at almost every part of the wedding, and while my family is pretty easy going, I could see a first time bride pretty upset that she had to walk down the aisle to Michael Jackson. Just keep this in mind...

But all-in-all this was a fabulous wedding and a really great time! Bryce of Bryce Jenkinson Photography took a lot of amazing photos and supplied them for our family in this great slideshow. I hope my dad won't mind that I'm sharing it with all of you. You can view a sample of the wedding photos by clicking HERE.

A Client's Wedding

Not a lot to post on quite yet, but right now I'm just in the frantic gather-everything-together stage. We're going over all of the last-minute details and hoping to get the wedding day itinerary just right. You'd be surprised how much of a necessity that 3-4 page document becomes for a planner! I'm doing some final connections with vendors in the next few days and then we should be good to go for a fabulous wedding on Friday (and a cool 67 degrees in August...not sure how that happened...but at least no rain). I still have to charge up the walkies for my assistant and I, but the emergency kit has been refilled, and tomorrow I'll be running the rehearsal for the wedding party. I can't wait for what is going to be an amazing wedding for a friend of mine from high school. Hard to believe we went from planning Homecoming together as freshmen to planning her wedding together now 11 years later.

I will fill all of you in on how it went this weekend after a very long Friday!

And I will try my hardest to get a more fun and image-filled post done in the next day or two. Hope your Tuesday has been pretty terrific!

~A