In honor of the fact that this evening is the SURE TO BE FABULOUS book launch for Preston Bailey’s Celebrations book, I thought I’d take the chance to spread the news to my professional, non-bride readers out there about a fantastic opportunity to really expand your horizons and broaden your career outlook: The Bailey & Blum mentoring weekend.

Preston Bailey and Marcy Blum are arguably the top of the top when it comes to event designers and event planners in the business.  In fact, they actually changed the game.  Before Jung Lee was barking orders or David Tutera was pigmaleon, Preston and Marcy were re-inventing, re-imagining and elevating the concept of what a wedding or social event could even be.

Well, these two industry icons, friends and frequent collaborators are opening the doors of Preston’s studio for an intimate (40 person) mentoring weekend for wedding professionals.  Attendees will get to talk shop, see the ins and outs of what it’s like to really plan weddings on “the next level” and get advice about guiding your career and business in a personal intimate setting.  PLUS, you get to stay somewhere kind of swanky in New York, eat  some amazing food and…. well, there are a ton of surprises that they have in store that I’m certainly not privvy too.

Obviously, this kind of access and mentorship isn’t cheap- I mean, it’s Preston and Marcy- but it is AN INVESTMENT.

For a moment, I hope I can get on my soap box.  Lately, there seem to be a BOUNTY of previously unheard of, or totally green “wedding experts” charging an awful lot of money to attend academies or become “superstar wedding planners”… and I personally have been skeptical of what exactly, for all the money that they charge other planners/ designers/ professionals can they tell you about that a few great business books and a well spent weekend at Engage! couldn’t…

There actually ARE things that Preston & Marcy can tell you that NO ONE ELSE CAN.  I’ll be honest, I do personally know and love Marcy…. We’ve gotten to know her over the past year (once Mayra and I could stop being so nervous that we were in her presence and actually say something) and just in the time we’ve known her, I’ve become a better planner who values my talents and time more AND who thinks a little more out of the box than before.  We spent an amazing 2 hours at her office a few months ago where, upon leaving, I turned to Mayra and said “We plan weddings, she plans experiences”.  I only write about this weekend because I feel really confident that it will be transformational for those who attend!   Registration is live now….

While I love writing this blog, our actual “job” is wedding planning, and we’ve been busy this winter cleaning up shop and getting a face lift for all the newly engaged brides out there.  Last spring upgraded the blog to the lovely design that you see here now and well, it was a matter of time before we started looking at our actual website, saying…. “hmm… perhaps it’s time for a little renovation..”

Websites are  like people, actually. As we grow and change and mature, it would be silly to never grow and change your website since, for a business as personal as wedding planning, it’s really like a window into who we are.  So,  with this healthy self-awareness , we were  really excited to replace our site and even MORE excited about Mimo y Mima, who had done our blog, to work on the re-launch.

Mimo Y Mima is a Brooklyn based web-design firm owned by the fabulous couple Brent and Teresa. We fell in love with their website when we were looking to re-do the blog and knew they would knock the Always a Bridesmaid site out of the park.  I have sort of a Charlie’s Angels situation with them… I have never ACTUALLY met them in person, and so in my mind they live as lovely voices over the phone and the cute illustrations on their website.  (see below) They worked TIRELESSLY on this design to get it exactly right, living through all of our hyper-ventilation and panic button attacks.  I hope that you’ll check  out the NEW Always a Bridesmaid site AND we hope that you like it!

I am so excited to share with you the amazing Eco-Beautiful Weddings Magazine that launched yesterday. It is the very first online bridal magazine dedicated to chic, ecologically friendly weddings and, really, lifestyles.  Because it’s so eco-friendly, it’s of course, an online publication, but don’t confuse that for a blog or even just a wedding site. This has the glamorous layouts, the amazing photography and wonderful editorial that you expect from a traditional magazine.  And you can even flip the pages just like in real life!  Probably the best part- no more running between the sheets of the magazine to your laptop to check out the amazing sites, vendors or ideas in the magazine- in just a click, Eco-Beautiful Weddings will link you to wherever you want to go.  

Brought to you by Katie Martin the owner of Elegance and Simplicity Events is the creator and editor and she has done an outstanding job!  This is a very exciting magazine!  Oh, and…. you might recognize one of their featured planners…. Rebekah and Manuel’s wedding that we designed this summer (with photos by Roey Yohai and flowers and Fleurs) is prominently featured.

I definitely encourage you to check out this amazing magazine!

Soo, forgive me as I’m JUST buzzing!!!  I am just back from Atlanta where I spoke at the 1st annual Blogalicious conference and I am riding high!  I met some other great wedding bloggers and twitter friends including By Your Side of Atlanta , iMatrimony and Brown and Bridal (which is just a fabulous community!). I was blown away by the conference, which was put together by the women of the MamaLaw bloggers (amazing ladies) and while EVERYTHING about it was fantastic, the highlight was our keynote, Karen Waldron author of the STUNNING and imaginative Chookooloonks blog. Karen talked to us about being ourselves while blogging and of course, only writing about what really makes you passionate.

As much as I joke that I’m a wedding savant who lives and breathes weddings, the funny part about this blog is that the origins were actually A LOT more personal.  I started this blog, in it’s former version (The Wedding Wonder) in ‘04, our itty bitty business was only about a year or so old, and I think we had maybe 2 or 3 weddings under our belt. I had just gotten engaged and thought “Ha! How funny, a wedding planner is getting married! This would make for funny content.”  Instead, I managed to REALLY annoy my inlaws by complaining out loud about some of the DRAMA surrounding our wedding.  (I probably would have annoyed my family too, but as I’ve mentioned, i was raised by old people and they weren’t online   Eventually Mayra and I thought “Well, maybe the “life” of wedding planners would still make for interesting stuff” and so we’ve been filling you in with wedding world stuff, hopefully inspiring pictures AND also a bit about our slightly ridiculous lives and even some sadder, personal stuff.

Ironically, the biggest change in my life is probably the only thing that I’ve NOT written about- which was when I got divorced over a year ago.  I think the idea of a wedding planner NOT being married anymore seemed SOOO strange, I didn’t know how to say it. And being happy about not being married seemed even STRANGER, so I simply never wrote about it.  It seemed like a bit of reality that I, as a GRAND lover of weddings – and secretly romance- just didn’t want to interject, despite the tough love advice I freely dish out here. BUT, that said, because I’m on here so much, it’s felt weird not to share it. PLUS, to be honest, being a single wedding planner is probably a lot more of where my head is at (it’s honestly NOT the industry for meeting new dudes, ladies). Now, if only I could bring myself to break the news to my dry cleaner…That’s another story for another day.

Somehow, with that out of the way, I feel like I can freely be myself and maybe make our little ‘ol wedding blog a bit better.  SO, onto more weddings stuff….

Despite being able to adopt the mantle of “blogger” for the weekend, I was still wearing my wedding planning hat…. During one of the presentations I got a call from my bride. I had to hit ignore, so I sent her a text. “Hey, is everything Ok? Can’t talk right now.” And then the dreaded words “No, everything is NOT ALL RIGHT AT ALL.” The Situation: a potentially missing wedding dress from the dry cleaner, about a week or so before the wedding.  Conference or no, I HAD to get to the bottom of this quickly even if it meant (as it did) tracking the owner down while he was at his sons’ soccer game.  The dress is being delivered today.

While I was flapping my gums and visiting friends and family in Atlanta, Mayra held down the fort and helped run a simply GORGEOUS wedding last night over at the Mandarin Oriental. Here’s a quick shot she sent from her camera phone.  Pobrecita, she’s exhausted, but how much do I LOVE the long stem green goddess callas with the DRAMATIC pin-spotting!? Stunning (and sexy).  DeJuan Stroud did the floral.

And speaking of Mayra, I wanted to share with you this amazing new blog that I found via Fashion Bride’s twitter feed.  It’s the Mayra wedding blog (which I think is out of Romania).  I have GOOSE EGG idea of what they are saying about these gorgeous images, but WHAT GORGEOUS images. Here are two of her featured colored palletes- Green and blue and peach. 

She also features AMAZING high bridal fashion on this site… Such as this Christian LaCroix/ Dita Von Teese spread from Harper’s Bazaar Russia.  I love Dita, and the images are gorgeous, but she kind of reminds me of my Grandmother’s Infant of Prague statue. (One of my household “jobs” was to change the little outfits.)

And in closing, to this HORRIBLY long post, today is Brooklyn Bride’s birthday, if you have a second to send her well wishes; Perfect Bound celebrated her 1st Wedding Anniversary this weekend AND check out the NEW DESIGN and RELAUNCH of Vintage Glam blog…. Ruffled.

I have to admit I got a major thrill this weekend when I opened my Sunday times (who am I kidding, I booted up my computer and went to the website), took out the Sunday Style section and saw my name in The Gray Lady in the Shaken & Stirred column!  If I had to pick a place for my Times debut, I’d say that Shaken & Stirred is a perfect location.  Here is the link to the article… Yay!  Coming up soon, Sarah & Garrett’s June wedding at Smack Mellon.