Wedding planning should be a relaxing, luxurious experience.

Next Sunday, March 14th will be a day that raises the bar for bridal events everywhere.

The Ultimate Engagement is the first ever complimentary bridal event that allows brides-to-be the opportunity to meet with the premiere experts in the luxury bridal industry. Not only will brides be able to access the extensive experience, knowledge, passion and talent of these individuals, but you get to do it all in a stress-free one-on-one setting.

Think of the crowded booths, lines, frustration and general mayhem of the typical bridal show, then imagine the exact opposite; a relaxing, sophisticated one-on-one sit down where you and the expert vendors of your choice chat about YOUR wedding and yours alone. Participating is as simple as visiting The Ultimate Engagement website, completing your free registration and scheduling appointments with the hottest high-end wedding professionals that you have watched, read and heard about. Have the opportunity to sit with the most sought after photographers, florists, caterers, venues, planners… the list goes on.

While you plan your stunning event, enjoy designer trunk shows, book signings, food & wine tastings, educational sessions, chic pop-up shops and more!

Our own Xochitl Gonzalez, Blogsmaid Extraordinaire will be on hand to help you turn your luxury wedding dreams into realities – and blogging LIVE throughout the day! Xochitl will be joined by other notable wedding experts such as Marcy Blum, Sylvia Weinstock, Lisa Johnson of Ceci NY, Ines de Santo and many more.  This amazing event was put together by the wonderful Maya Kalman of Swank Productions and Elizabeth Beskin from 5th Avenue Digital.

To ensure each bride receives the personal attention she deserves, space is limited. Please register today to take advantage of this one-time experience that will help you create a day of memories that will last a lifetime.

WHEN: Sunday, March 14, 2010

9:00AM – 7:00PM

WHERE: Gotham Hall, NYC

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

xx

-Sal

The Q: I’m a Maid of Honor for my best friend’s wedding. I’m not really sure what I should be doing….. Any advice?

The A: Great Question. Your day to day duties will probably vary depending on your bride, her mom’s involvement and if she has a planner or not, but you can count on having to do a few critical things:

*Be enthusiastic and supportive, even if you don’t really care about stationary or aren’t in love with her fiance’s family, etc.
*Organize the other ‘maids. Be a “team captain” and make sure everyone has ordered their dresses, gotten their shoes, etc.
*Take the lead on her shower/bachelorette. Here in NY, small apartments and high prices usually mean showers are a family affair, but elsewhere its really a bridesmaid only responsibility. However you plan on splitting the costs, take a leadership role and advocate for what you know your friend would like.
* Learn to “do the bustle” at her fitting and then do it on the day of.
*If there is no Day Of coordinator, help her out by confirming details and arrival times with her vendors and keeping their cell numbers on the day of. Be her point person on that day so that no one is stressing her out.
*Don’t forget to hold her bouquet and fix her train during the ceremony. If you need to hold his wedding band, don’t forget it!
*Try and give the couple a little private time post ceremony by being a little bit of a bridal body guard.

Those are the biggies. Your duties might also include toast making, envelope stuffing, program folding, cake tasting and more. But, if you hit these “biggies” you’ll have done a pretty great job.

The Q:  If I can’t afford a planner, should I count on my bridesmaids to help the day run smoothly?

The A:  My knee jerk response is no, but that is like stereotyping,  and ends up being an unfair blanket statement.  In many cases, you can’t really count on your bridesmaids, because unlike a day-of planner or a venue coordinator, your bridesmaids have social and personal obligations to you.  A day-of planner is not a bride monitor (though she does do that) she is an event manager, and needs to be paying attention to the needs and actions of your guests, your family members, your vendors, your food service AND even you.  It’s hard for a BM to help with your personal needs, say hi to your mutual friends from college AND keep her eye on the time to make sure you cut your cake before the photographers time runs out.   While all the critical parts of your wedding set up are happening, they’ll be taking group photos. So, my statement should be clarified to say even with the best intentions, it’s not really the same as having a coordinator at your wedding.

So, what can you do if you just don’t have it in the budget?  Well, first, if you have an on site coordinator, you should create a timeline of the PREP portion of the day with CONTACT info.  The florist is arriving at X time, the cake at X time, the photo starts and ends at X times. This should have their cell phone numbers on it as well, so that if they aren’t there when they said they would be she or he can easily reach them to see what is going wrong. 

You should also create an event timeline with your music provider and food provider and hand that to the venue coordinator as well, just so they can keep track of the event flow/ make sure that all your toasts happen.

If you don’t have a venue coordinator, see if you have a very enthusiastic girlfriend who might want to do it, or an aunt that everyone listens to, but either way, take event mangagement duties outside of your bridesmaid’s hands.

The Q: When I’m looking over contacts for my location, florist, caterer etc. is there anything I should be looking out for?

The A:  Totally!  Aside from the typical and obvious stuff like your names, the locations, items, insurance provided and start and end times for services, there are still other, less obvious details that you should be sure your contracts include, such as:

1) Illness or Cancellation policy.  Most of the time we select vendors based on their individual work and who they are.  Be sure that your contract has provisions for what you will do should your vendor fall ill and what your back up plan is.  The same for your vendor needing to cancel.

2) Payment and Production schedule.  When dealing with vendors who will still OWE you things after the wedding, like video and photography, be sure that a payment is still due upon receiving your product/ you have a deadline worked in to receive those items. For instance, you will receive proofs within 4 weeks of the wedding at which time the final payment of $600 is due.

3) Rescheduling policy.  It sounds weird, but things happen and sometimes you need to reschedule.  You should ask about the policy and whether or not you’ll be penalized for causing them to lose the first date or if you can shift your date over without a penalty.

The Q:  I know it’s old fashioned, but is it OK to have a friend or relative cut the cake, rather than paying someone to do it? The cake price from our caterer is much too expensive for us, and we’ve found a baker who will make the cake for less than half the cost. However, the caterer would charge a $2/slice cutting fee. They have given us the OK from them to have a relative cut the cake, but I’m wondering about “the rules.” Is this a tacky way to save a buck?

The A: Hmmmm.  The thing is, it’s not that I THINK it’s tacky per se, it’s more that it’s HARD to cut cake.  I wish I had photos of the one wedding I did ages ago where the caterer wouldn’t cut the cake and Mayra and I had to do it.  It was red velvet cake and it looked like a crime scene by the time we were done.

It’s also time consuming, so it will probably take the lucky relative a good half hour.  However, if the $2 pp eats into the savings that you found by going to another baker, than I think you shouldn’t be worried about propriety.  You SHOULD be mildly worried about appearances, but likely, no one will notice. :-)